The two-edged sword of prospectus: Using third party data with caution

The issue of data authenticity in third party research institutions has recently aroused strong concern in the regulatory layer.　　One investment banker points out that the use of poorly documented third party data will risk being highly contested by regulators. Securities Times reporter learned that in the recent 6th session of the Insurance Generation Training conference, the first time, the supervision of the sponsor organizations to use Third-party data to request, "do not insist on third-party data, to truthfully disclose, do not mislead investors."　　Third-party data services are understood to have two main sources of third-party data: One is data from industry associations and the other is data provided by Third-party data providers for profit purposes. Some investment bankers pointed out that in the production of prospectuses, will be the first choice of trade association data, but currently proposed gem or SME enterprises from the market segments, trade associations usually only provide more macro-data, and relatively lag.　　For example, for a production of traffic-oriented intelligent system of enterprises, industry associations can only provide similar traffic growth rate of data, the market share of intelligent systems, patent value and other data information is not available, so in most cases, the Third-party data providers to provide data. This is the third party data service provider's main business, that is, market segmentation research. For example, a well-known third party research agency, according to the agency's list of services provided to investment banks, "has more than 3,000 database of market segments."　　"However, according to investment bankers, the existing database data for Third-party services are usually not provided directly to investment banks, but are then investigated after the investment bank project, and then" processed "for research results and database data, which are finally made available to investment banks. This process of "processing" may imply great moral hazard. In the case of a data service provider, it is clear from its service tenet that "all management, project managers, and consultancy phones are turned on for 24 hours, responding to feedback from investment banks and IPOs and potential customer needs." "The demand for investment banking as a principle of service, this is not a case in the third party research industry."　　According to investment bankers, due to the market on the number of Third-party research institutions, research capacity is uneven, so the sponsor agency generally with the third party only signed an annual agreement, a year of service costs as high as hundreds of thousands of yuan, investment banking project personnel's opinion will decide whether to renew with the third party organization next year. The head of a large investment bank in Shenzhen admits that the data "processing" by Third-party data providers for different customer needs is a "time bomb" implied in the prospectus.　　It is understood that the early due to inaccurate data has been pushed to focus on the public opinion of a data consultancy recently has been some investment banks resisted. The "double-edged sword" of the prospectus, with investment bankers describing the prospectus, "the creation of a prospectus is a huge narrative project, and the real test for Paude is how to tell what might happen." In this case, the company's market share, patent value, gross profit margin industry rankings, sales channel coverage and other third-party data by some of the sponsor agencies a large number of references. An investment bankerSaid, "No data how to do pricing?" "In fact, third party data is tantamount to a" double-edged sword "for the production of prospectuses. In March this year will be the case of the Square software, the company's pre-disclosure prospectus shows that Sadie consultant on its product market share described as, "the Enterprise teaching management software University market share of 25%." "In this respect, an investment banker bluntly," a share of software listed companies, such data are somewhat problematic.　　"It is noteworthy that since the fraud incident involving third-party data providers, a considerable number of sponsors have been quoting data from third party data providers in the prospectus." In the case of a company recently proposed, the IPO prospectus shows that the sponsor uses more than 11 data from the same third party data provider, including key core data such as product occupancy and industrial scale forecasts;　　The sponsor's reference to the sum of other sources of data is less than the data provided by the third data provider. The head of a small investment bank said, "for market share, patent value and other core data, if you need to use the data of third-party research institutions, we will ask the insurance generation of their own serious verification, and detailed inspection of the work papers of the third party agencies." "However, the person in charge also admits that" the project team has a wide range of general business, although the company has such a request, do not rule out the possibility of lazy project personnel. "But there are also sponsorship agencies for Third-party service provider data is more exclusive." "We only use data from industry associations, and project personnel have never asked for data from third party research agencies," said one investment banking complex.　　"The audit essentials regulators have not asked the sponsoring agencies to prohibit the use of third party data, but have implemented prudent and rigorous procedures at the time of the audit."　　According to investment bankers, if a prospectus for a reporting company quotes too many third-party data from the same institution, pre-trial members have reason to suspect the fairness of the data, in the audit will find some other statistical data and the same, if the deviation is too large will require the sponsor agencies to strictly check and express their views. In addition, regulators are currently sensitive to reports from corporate rivals about the authenticity of third-party data. According to a small investment bank in charge of the report, "a large number of competitors, most of the market share and the value of patent rights, such as the authenticity of data, the relevant departments of such data untrue enterprises are more disgusted." "There is no data and no fraud," the regulator pointed out at the 6th session of the Insurance generation training and training conference. "According to the current review of the policy, there is not much data to support the prospectus is approved," said the head of a large investment bank in Shenzhen. And the data that has to be done, the investment banks can do their own research to derive, which is also recognized. "(Securities Times reporter Yang Dong)