Sageworks makes private company data available to biz reporters

Sageworks, a financial information company, announced Tuesday that its industry data on privately held companies is now available to journalists free of charge.

Members of the media can now access the most up-to-date data on the sales, profit and debt trends of private companies in 17 primary industry categories — including manufacturing, retail, construction, health care, agriculture, food services and more — on the Sageworks website 24 hours a day.

With more than1000 private company financial statements aggregated and added to the industry averages per day, Sageworks’ data gives journalists with quick and easy access to the latest industry trend data to support articles.

Sageworks’ data fills the gap between industry data from the Census Bureau and data on publicly-traded companies.

The data allow journalists to select either a specific industry or “macro trends for private companies,” which allows them to see trends across private companies. Once an industry is selected, data on that industry’s average sales growth, net profit margins, net profit growth and debt to EBITDA for the previous five years (as of the current day) are displayed. Journalists can also “request a custom dataset” to request data on an industry that isn’t provided directly on the site or “contact an executive or analyst” to talk to someone about the data provided.

Read more here.