Description

Connecting SDC's M&A database to Compustat requires gvkey's for both the acquirer and target (if they are traded/public). Gordon Phillips and Alexei Zhdanov (RFS, 2013) created the first major mapping between firms in SDC and Compustat using a combination of name and date matching. Gaps were filled in using a fuzzy string search aided by manual checks that replicates the gvkey search in WRDS. The data was used in Ewens, Peters and Wang (2018). Either myself or a research assistant searched all M&As deals from 1996-2016 that did not have a gvkey in the Phillips and Zhdanov data, comparing names and dates by hand.

Data

The data connecting SDC deal number to gvkeys is in csv form with the following structure:

(DealNumber, tgvkey, agvkey)

where

• DealNumber: SDC identifier for deals.
• agvkey: the acquirer gvkey (can be missing)
• tgvkey: the target gvkey (can be missing)

Note that this includes all deals where we could find a gvkey for either the acquirer or target. Basic statistics as of Nov. 20th, 2018:

• 100,454 deals with agvkey
• 50,248 deals with tgveky
• 22,259 with both agvkey and tgveky

Company-level match using CUSIP

The second file was built by taking all the SDC name-CUSIP pairs without a match in the main repo's mapping (above) and comparing them to all Compustat-GVKEY pairs. The match is then done on SDC names-Compustat names. Note that this is a time-invariant mapping based entirely on company names (so there can be multiple SDC CUSIPs to one Compustat GVKEY as a company changes its CUSIP over time). From Daniel Yang (Ohio State).

Updates

Stay tuned (i.e., watch or star this repo.) for updates. Any errors or fill-ins, please email [email protected].

Citations

@article{phillips2013r,
  title={R\&D and the Incentives from Merger and Acquisition Activity},
  author={Phillips, Gordon M and Zhdanov, Alexei},
  journal={The Review of Financial Studies},
  volume={26},
  number={1},
  pages={34--78},
  year={2013},
  publisher={Society for Financial Studies}
  }

and

@article{ewensPetersWang2018,
 title={Acquisition prices and the measurement of intangible capital},
 author={Ewens, Michael and Peters, Ryan and Wang, Sean},
 journal={Working Paper}
 year={2018}
 }