The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which th ...

, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk and financial analysis, operations and supply, and sales and marketing professionals, as well as research and insights on global business issues. It serves customers in government and industries such as communications, technology, strategic financial services, and retail, telecommunications, and manufacturing markets. Often referred to as D&B, the company's database contains over 500 million business records worldwide.

History

1800s

Dun & Bradstreet traces its history to July 20, 1841, with formation of The Mercantile Agency in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

by Lewis Tappan. Recognizing the need for a centralized credit reporting system, Tappan formed the company to create a network of correspondents who would provide reliable, objective credit information to subscribers. As an advocate for civil rights, Tappan used his

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

connections to expand and update the company's credit information. Despite accusations of personal privacy invasion, by 1844 the Mercantile Agency had over 280 clients. The agency continued to expand, opening offices in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. By 1849, Tappan retired, allowing Benjamin Douglass to take over the booming business. In 1859, Douglass transferred the company to Robert Graham Dun, who immediately changed the firm's name to R. G. Dun & Company. Over the next 40 years, Graham Dun continued to expand the business across international boundaries.

1900s

In March 1933, Dun merged with competitor John M. Bradstreet to form today's Dun & Bradstreet. The merger was engineered by Dun's CEO, Arthur Whiteside. Whiteside's successor, J. Wilson Newman, worked to extend the company's range of products and services, expanding the company dramatically during the 1960s by engineering ways to apply new technologies to evolving operations.

Moody's Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides internationa ...

, a credit reporting agency, was acquired by Dun & Bradstreet in 1962. The Dun & Bradstreet

Data Universal Numbering System The Data Universal Numbering System, abbreviated as DUNS or D-U-N-S, is a proprietary system developed and managed by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) that assigns a unique numeric identifier, referred to as a "DUNS number" to a single business entity. It ...

( D&B D-U-N-S Number) was invented in 1963. Other companies acquired during this time included

R.H. Donnelley Dex One Corporation was an American marketing company providing online, mobile and print search marketing via their DexKnows.com website, print yellow pages directories and pay-per-click ad networks in the U.S. In April 2013 Dex One merged wit ...

, Official Airline Guides, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.,

Funk & Wagnalls Funk & Wagnalls was an American publisher known for its reference works, including ''A Standard Dictionary of the English Language'' (1st ed. 1893–5), and the ''Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia'' (25 volumes, 1st ed. 1912).Funk & Wagnalls ...

, Technical Publishing, and McCormack & Dodge, all since divested. In 1986, Dun & Bradstreet acquired the education data company Market Data Retrieval (MDR). In 1996, the company restructured, creating three entities: Dun & Bradstreet, Nielsen, and the Cognizant Corporation. Cognizant Corporation included

Nielsen TV Ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rati ...

Gartner Group Gartner, Inc is a technological research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut that conducts research on technology and shares this research both through private consulting as well as executive programs and conferences. Its clients ...

, Clarke-O'Neill, Erisco, and several other lesser known entities. In 1999, Cognizant Corporation spun off Nielsen TV Ratings and shortly thereafter divested all its holdings, emerging as IMS Health. IMS Health continued to hold its prize incubator company that is today known as Cognizant Corporation. On July 1, 1998, Dun & Bradstreet split into two companies, one assuming the Dun & Bradstreet name, while the other adopting the

name.

2000s

In 2000, Dun & Bradstreet spun off

Moody's Corporation Moody's Corporation, often referred to as Moody's, is an American business and financial services company. It is the holding company for Moody's Investors Service (MIS), an American credit rating agency, and Moody's Analytics (MA), an American ...

. In 2001, Dun & Bradstreet acquired Harris InfoSource International, Inc., a data company. In February 2003, the company acquired

Hoover's D&B Hoovers was founded by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain in 1990Solomon, Steve.The Dynamic Duo" '' Inc.''. October 15, 1997. Retrieved on April 7, 2014. as an American business research company that provided information on companies and indu ...

, a business reporting service. On February 5, 2003, Dun & Bradstreet restated prior period results to correct timing errors in recognizing some of the revenue associated with 14 of the company's 200+ products, after reviewing its revenue recognition from 1997 through 2002. In August 2010, Dun & Bradstreet spun off and sold its credit monitoring and management business to a newly formed company,

Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp was a privately held company headquartered in Malibu, California, USA until it was purchased by Dun & Bradstreet in a $320 million deal that closed in May 2015. The company provided credit and credibility soluti ...

. In 2007, Dun & Bradstreet acquired AllBusiness.com and sold the company in 2012. In October 2013,

Bob Carrigan Robert "Bob" Carrigan (born January 28, 1966) is the CEO of Audible, Inc., having assumed the role on January 2, 2020. Previously, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dun & Bradstreet between 2013 and 2018, and a senior executive at ...

became the CEO of Dun & Bradstreet. On January 5, 2015, Dun & Bradstreet acquired the data management firm NetProspex. In April 2015, Dun & Bradstreet acquired Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. and announced the formation of a new division, Dun & Bradstreet Emerging Business. In January 2017, Dun & Bradstreet acquired Avention, the maker of OneSource solutions. On August 8, 2018, Dun & Bradstreet announced the appointment of Thomas J. Manning, who had served as the company's interim CEO, as its new Chief Executive Officer, and that the company had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an investor group led by CC Capital, Cannae Holdings, and Thomas H. Lee Partners. On February 8, 2019, the investor group completed the acquisition of Dun & Bradstreet and it became a privately held company. Its former ticker symbol, DNB, was retired. On July 1, 2020, Dun & Bradstreet re-listed shares on the New York Stock Exchange, once again trading under the ticker symbol DNB. In January 2021 Dun & Bradstreet acquired Bisnode Business Information Group AB (“Bisnode”), a European data and analytics firm and long-standing member of the Dun & Bradstreet Worldwide Network, for an enterprise value of (US$818 million). On May 20, 2021, Dun & Bradstreet announced its intention to moving its global headquarters to Jacksonville, Florida.

Operations

The company generates revenue through subscription-based products, business information reports, data licensing agreements, strategic partnerships, and concierge services. The company derives revenues through two segments: Americas and non-Americas. Americas consists of: * United States and Canada * (The company divested its Latin America operations in September 2016) Non-Americas consists of: * Europe * The United Kingdom * Ireland * Greater China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) * India * (Netherlands and Belgium operations were divested in November 2016) * (Australian and New Zealand operations were divested in June 2015 to

Archer Capital Archer Capital is an Australian private equity investment firm based in Sydney. It was founded as GS Private Equity in 1996. Archer Capital hosts multiple investment funds which invest in businesses across a wide array of industries and sectors, ...

for $169.8 million and were rebranded as

illion , is a Japanese singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and actor. Noda is the lead vocalist, songwriter and guitarist of the Japanese rock band Radwimps and also began a solo project, Illion, in 2012. Life and career Early life, Rad ...

in 2018, with debt collection operations being formally rebranded as Milton Graham on 14 June 2018)

Products and services

Dun & Bradstreet offers various products and services solving for credit, risk, marketing, sales, analytics, and more, including

D&B Hoovers D&B Hoovers was founded by Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain in 1990Solomon, Steve.The Dynamic Duo" '' Inc.''. October 15, 1997. Retrieved on April 7, 2014. as an American business research company that provided information on companies and indus ...

Master Data Master data represents " data about the business entities that provide context for business transactions". The most commonly found categories of master data are parties (individuals and organisations, and their roles, such as customers, suppliers, ...

, and D&B Data Exchange.

References

External links

*
Dun & Bradstreet Corporation Records at Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dun and Bradstreet Business services companies of the United States Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies based in Essex County, New Jersey Credit rating agencies Millburn, New Jersey Data brokers American companies established in 1841 1841 establishments in New York (state) 2019 mergers and acquisitions Private equity portfolio companies Lewis Tappan 2020 initial public offerings Companies based in Jacksonville, Florida Technology companies based in the Jacksonville area Technology companies based in Florida Multinational companies headquartered in the United States Publicly traded companies based in Jacksonville, Florida Multinational companies based in Jacksonville