The large proprietary databases containing guideline public company data have found favor in the business valuation profession, according to preliminary results of BVR’s 2013 BV Firm Economics and Best Practices Guide. While the majority of business appraisers get this information from other, less expensive sources, an increasing number are using sources such as PitchBook or Morningstar 10K Wizard.

Pecking order: By a wide margin, the top two sources are Yahoo! Finance (used by 55% of survey respondents) and EDGAR (38%). The BVR/PitchBook Public Company Comps Tool jumped to third place, with 16% citing the use of this source versus 6% in 2010, the last time the survey was conducted. Tied for fourth (at 13% of respondents each) are Hoover’s and Morningstar 10K Wizard. FetchXL rounds out the list, used by 5% of respondents.

Our thanks to everyone who participated in the survey, which collected data from about 250 complete responses, representing firms with 2,000 business appraisers, on a variety of issues. We will provide further results and analyses here in future issues of BVWire and also the BV Update.