Capital IQ Completes Estimates Collection Milestone

NEW YORK, June 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Capital IQ, a Standard & Poor's business and a leading provider of fundamental and qualitative research and analysis, announced enhancements to Capital IQ Estimates, completing a transition agreement with Thomson Reuters. This marks the conclusion of an initiative that began when Capital IQ acquired a copy of the Reuters Estimates and Research-on-Demand databases from Thomson Reuters in October of 2008

Capital IQ clients now have access to over 850+ live estimate and research contributors through the Capital IQ Platform, which includes a full selection of global estimates and research covering 100 countries and over 16,000 active companies worldwide with history back to 1996 internationally and 1999 in the US. The addition of Capital IQ Estimates underlines Capital IQ's deep commitment to providing the most robust estimates and research offering in the marketplace alongside best-of-breed financial data and analytics. Capital IQ Estimates have become the "go-to" preferred source of estimates for thousands of the world's leading financial professionals in addition to major news outlets worldwide.

Key differentiating enhancements and functionality highlights for Capital IQ Estimates include:

• Transparency / Click-Throughs – Clients have the ability to link from a forecast data item into the contributor's sourced document.  The end result is an enhanced user experience and complete transparency into consensus numbers.  All "As Reported" data from the contributors can be viewed as well as units/currency conversions that Capital IQ applies.  Clients have the ability to compare the differences between the Consensus Estimate, Actual, and Guidance all in the same section / click-through.
• Company vs. Trading Item Distinction – Capital IQ combines all detailed values for a single consensus value (i.e. Revenue). This provides clients and end-users with a more accurate consensus representation.
• Consensus & Detail Footnotes – Capital IQ provides footnotes at both the consensus and detail level.  Consensus footnotes are specific to the data item and particular time period. Detailed footnotes provide insight into why a broker is excluded from a consensus calculation (stale estimate, difference basis, etc).
• Parent vs. Consolidated – Allows clients the ability to choose between these two options instead of only choosing the primary and footnoting it.
• Accounting Standard – Clients can choose between accounting standards when more than one is applicable for a company.

Capital IQ's investment research providers include many of the world's top investment banks and brokerage houses. Investment management institutions, hedge funds, and corporations have access to over three million real-time investment research reports that are seamlessly integrated into the Capital IQ Platform.

"We have dedicated the last year to building out a world-class research and estimates offering," said Randall Winn, executive managing director of Capital IQ. "With Capital IQ Estimates, our clients now have access to the most powerful estimates offering along with our industry-leading financial data and analytics platform – all in one location. We are pleased by the number of brokers that want to contribute to our offering, and we remain committed to providing our end-users with the highest quality and most accurate estimates offering in the marketplace."

About Capital IQ and Standard & Poor's

Capital IQ, a Standard & Poor's business, delivers comprehensive fundamental and quantitative research and analysis solutions to over 4,200 investment management firms, investment banks, private equity funds, advisory firms, corporations, and universities worldwide. Its solutions are based on the Capital IQ Platform, Compustat, ClariFI, and SystematIQ products, and offer an array of powerful applications for desktop research, screening, real-time market data, backtesting, portfolio management, financial modeling, and quantitative analysis. For more information, please visit Capital IQ's web site at www.capitaliq.com.

Standard & Poor's, a subsidiary of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP), is the world's foremost provider of independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With offices in 23 countries and markets, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for 150 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions. For more information, visit www.standardandpoors.com

SOURCE Capital IQ