Sourcing European Company Data for Credit and Default Models
Summary
The document addresses obtaining downloadable, multi-year data for European companies to build a credit or default-risk model. Desired fields include company identifiers, country, industry classification, and year, alongside financial ratios, ESG measures, or bankruptcy and default outcomes. The researcher emphasizes consistent time-series coverage and machine-readable access so that datasets can be joined across firms and periods.
The response recommends considering LSEG Workspace, formerly Refinitiv Eikon, and notes that ratios may need to be calculated from underlying financial statement items. It describes exporting income-statement data or retrieving fields through the platform’s API, with credit and ESG data also potentially accessible and customizable. The reply is a practical pointer rather than a comparison of providers or a validated data workflow; it gives no coverage, cost, or availability details and advises consulting the vendor’s help desk.
Key ideas
- Credit-risk research needs identifiers and consistent company-period records to merge financial, ESG, and default data.
- LSEG Workspace is suggested as a source for European company information.
- Researchers may need to calculate financial ratios from underlying statement data.
- The response mentions spreadsheet export and API retrieval as access methods.
- Coverage, pricing, and field availability are not established and require provider verification.
Tags
Full text
# Where can I find financial ratios, ESG fundamentals, and bankruptcy/default data for European companies? # Where can I find financial ratios, ESG fundamentals, and bankruptcy/default data for European companies? I’m developing a credit/default risk model as part of a research project and need time-series data for European companies, covering the following variables for each company-year (or company-quarter). I’ve already explored several databases, including Nasdaq Data Link, Sustainalytics, and Eikon, as well as the suggested question "What data sources are available online?", but they don’t seem to offer consistent time-series data or allow data downloads in a usable format. I’m looking for databases that either provide all required variables directly or at least include company identifiers so that different datasets can be merged. The data should span multiple years and be downloadable via API, CSV, or another format compatible with R. Manual data collection is not feasible, as the project requires extensive coverage across firms and time periods. Required metadata: - Company identifiers (e.g., ISIN, ticker) - Country - Industry classification (NACE / SIC / NAICS) - Year At least one of the following data types: What are some reputable data sources (free or commercial) and practical ways to obtain this data? ## Answer by João (score 1) https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/84134 When you say "Eikon" I'll assume the older version. So, you should try the new refinitiv one -> Workspace Lseg (WS) For the basic financial ratios, with WS you may need to pull other values to calculate yourself the ratios (WS as we all know is not that good as Bloomberg). E.g., You can export the IS sheet into excel and it will copy with the formula, or by using the RDP.DATA(...) excel function which is equivalent to the BDH BBG function Credit metric I believe once again that the WS is worse than BBG for this chapter, but with the API you should be able to retrieve most of it and customize your own formulas, which shouldn't be that hard, same goes for ESG stuff. Just ask the help desk guidance
Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)
This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.