Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers a due diligence and business intelligence research service with a new approach to presenting data from public filings (see article below). In addition, you'll find links to the previous 11 TL NewsWire features, including our coverage of a cloud software platform that automates entity formation and compliance tasks, and enables you to offer these services under your own brand, do-it-yourself ediscovery collection software at a price point far below the industry average, and much more. Don't miss the next issue.
Due diligence for M&A and other securities deals is a necessary evil. Lawyers like you are best equipped to assess materiality so you cannot completely delegate it. However, if you could significantly reduce the time it takes to find material data, it would no longer seem so evil, just critically important. You might even use this data for business development opportunities too.
Clarion … in One Sentence
Launched recently, Wolters Kluwer's Clarion is an online due diligence and business intelligence research tool with a new approach to organizing and presenting data.
The Killer Feature
Clarion encompasses more than 22,000 public companies world wide as well as 60,000 private companies. But it's not a mere collection of public filings, requiring you to comb through 10-Ks and the like. Instead, the relevant data from public filings has been categorized and organized in a series of dashboards that match the attorney's workflow. The goal is to present targeted information in public data so that you can get answers in minutes, not hours or days.
For example, one important aspect of due diligence involves identifying a company's revenue by region within specific industries. With just a few clicks, Clarion displays this data for any public company. Bar charts for each region compare the company's total revenue with its revenue for a specific industry and the average for that industry. A trends graph indicates the sales trajectory over the last three years in each region. A map to the right offers a visual of the company's operational regions.
"Clarion was developed exclusively for legal practitioners," says Dean Sonderegger, Vice President & General Manager, Legal Markets & Innovation. "With unique, actionable data points and an intuitive point and click dashboard, Clarion efficiently gives attorneys greater control over research to enhance their ability to provide strategic counsel."
Other Notable Features
You begin using Clarion by either searching for a company or an industry. The latter is useful for finding new clients and new business among existing clients. When you find the company you want to analyze, a dashboard gives you a snapshot of revenue by industry and region as well as its customers, suppliers, competitors, and partners. You can then drill down into any of these categories to display an ever more focused series of dashboards.
Because SIC codes don't provide sufficient granularity, Clarion offers more precision. For example, instead of stopping at "Jewelry Apparel," Clarion goes further with smaller categories such as "Sunglasses and Prescription Frames." This granular taxonomy of industries exists throughout Clarion, enabling you to more thoroughly analyze a company's revenue, customers, competitors, suppliers, and partners.
When viewing a list of related companies, you can filter the list by industry as noted above. Other contextual filters also exist. For customers and suppliers, you can filter by relationship duration. For partners, you can filter by relationship type such as In-Licensing, Investors, and Joint Ventures. You can also search for a specific company to see if a relationship exists with the company you're analyzing. For each relationship, Clarion tells you whether it was mutually or unilaterally disclosed and by whom.
What Else Should You Know?
Every page in Clarion contains a Download button at the top right. Clicking this button generates an Excel file containing the corresponding data for use in a report. Learn more about Clarion.
How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.
