The ERICA WG has published a new “ERICA series” document, under the title: “Analysis of Cash-Flow in European listed groups (ERICA database): a snapshot of the 2005-2014 period”. This short note offers an example of the usefulness of consolidated accounts data (under IFRS standards) for economic and financial analysis. Using the information reported by the main listed non financial European groups in their Cash-Flow statements, it can be highlighted the drop in investing activities, intensification of the deleverage process, keeping altogether a good operating performance as a result of its worldwide geographical diversification, afforded by European multinationals over the period 2005 to 2014.

Outlook #3 “Developments in the leveraging process of European companies: Some effects on the asset side”

The Outlook #3 available free of charge at the BACH website , entitled “Developments in the leveraging process of European companies:  Some effects on the asset side” uses BACH data to compare recent trends in non-financial corporation performance in the following nine European economies: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain. In particular, indicators on the financial structure of non-financial corporations, their debt and financial services as well as the structure of the asset side are presented. The analysis includes an assessment of the recent situation in the countries under study and analyses the effects of the economic and financial crisis as well as the evolution of non-financial corporation financing between 2008 and 2013. The main attention is dedicated to the analysis of deleveraging effect during the financial crisis. Particular attention is given to the role of firm size and industry affiliation and to measures of dispersion.

ECB Statistics Paper Series (SPS): The bank for the accounts of companies harmonized (BACH) database

Available free of charge at https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpsps/ecbsp11.en.pdf

The Bank for the Accounts of Companies Harmonized (BACH) is a free-of-charge database containing the aggregated accounting data of non-financial incorporated enterprises for, so far, 11 European countries. While the individual accounts feeding the database were originally prepared in line with national accounting standards consistent with European Accounting Directives, they have been harmonised with a view to preserving, to the greatest extent possible, the cross-country comparability of the resulting data. This article presents the methodology underpinning BACH, including the content of the database. It describes the characteristics of national samples and outlines the harmonisation process. BACH is a unique tool for analysing and comparing the financial structure and performance of firms across European countries. A simple case study is also presented in support.

The ERICA WG has published the first document of the "ERICA series": ERICA series 2013 - 1. Restated data

The "ERICA series", complement the annual report prepared on the ERICA database, with additional pieces of information and/or analysis on specific issues, using the full database ERICA, or its subset ERICA +. Due to its interest and/or the speciality of the themes treated, these short notes are diffused apart from the annual report.

ERICA WG has published its document: "European non-financial listed groups: analysis of 2013 data" together with its annex "European non-financial listed groups: analysis of 2013 data - Annexes"

The study presents some highlights of European non financial listed groups, on profitability, financial structure and impact of fair value accounting on the consolidated accounts of the European groups included in ERICA database. ERICA (European Records of IFRS Consolidated Accounts), is a database, for internal use within the members of ECCBSO, composed of two datasets of around 1,000 European non-financial groups, fully representative of the stock markets of the countries participating in the project (Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain). The data are obtained from publicly available financial statements, having been treated manually, by CBSO statistics and accounting specialists, to be fitted on a standard European format (ERICA format); this manual treatment means, in some cases, the interpretation of the original data, a constraint that readers of this document should bear in mind.