IFLR1000 is set to expand its offering with the launch of a new “deal database” that will extend its reach beyond its core directory into the territory occupied by league table providers such as Mergermarket, Dealogic, and Bloomberg.
Launching in November 2016, the new product is a searchable database of significant deal records from over 120 countries.
IFLR says that the database will be a “curated selection” of what it considers to be the most significant corporate and financial transactions in each jurisdiction.
Reflecting IFLR’s corporate finance focus, the database will feature deals in areas like banking, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and project finance.
Each deal record will include details of the law firms and lawyers involved, links to related deals in the same area of practice or industry sector, and analysis and market context.
Most helpfully for law firms, the site will let you filter by client, practice area, industry sector, and which firms and lawyers worked on the deal.
IFLR1000 editor Sam Duke, who announced the launch of the deal database last week at the party to celebrate the release of the 2017 edition of the IFLR1000 directory (pictured), told me that the database will be released in stages over the next six months.
“EMEA will come first in November 2016, followed by Asia Pacific in January 2017, and the US in March 2017.”
Sam said the IFLR team has been busy entering deal information into the system, and they currently have around 1,500 deals.
IFLR is hoping to hit 2,000 by launch time in November 2016, but expects that figure to rise considerably over the first year of operation.
So where does IFLR get this deal information from?
Some of it will come from the submissions that law firms provide to IFLR1000 as part of the annul directory research process (2,000 law firms currently submit to IFLR1000 every year).
Although any deals marked “confidential” will not make their way into the database.
And IFLR will also use press releases and deal announcements sent to them by law firms, and in time hopes that firms will start to do that on a more frequent basis (as they do monthly or quarterly with other league table providers) rather than waiting to do the annual submission once a year.
The IFLR team is also crawling publicly available deal records to supplement the material derived from law firms directly.
The pricing structure for IFLR1000 deal data hasn’t been worked out precisely yet, but Sam said there would be a free option with basic deal information, but a paid-for subscription option down the line would open up more of the analysis and context.
Leave a Reply