Dear users,

The BACH website is no longer hosted by the European Commission.
Both databases BACH and ESD (European Sectoral references Database, hosted by Central Balance-Sheet Data Office of Italy) are now available on the new BACH-ESD website hosted by Banque de France, whose address is http://www.bachesd.banque-france.fr.

This new website contains :

- The complete decomposition of the balance sheet and income statement, available in terms of weighted average (BACH dataset). Currently, the database contains information on the financial statements of companies in nine countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain), aggregated by sector and by size class. Potential users are the same as those for whom financial statements are generally prepared : economic and research departments and universities, company managers and investors, government agencies …

- The 28 ratios of the former ESD dataset, calculated in quartiles and in a weighted average, by sector and by size class (BACHESD dataset). The data-base currently includes ratios from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The different samples represent a relatively large coverage. This tool is primarily designed for users within financial institutions as an additional tool for their risk analysis. The ratios offered focus on financial structures, cash-flow and profitability. The user can work with this data-base in different ways. For instance, he can:

• compare the ratios of a company with the ratios of its sector,
• compare the ratios of a company with the ratios of the same size class and sector,
• compare different industries with each other, or
• carry out all these analysis at different aggregation levels.