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Finding financial ratios for the construction industry

This is a supplementary library guide for the course CIVI 6999 Fundamentals of Financial Management and Accounting for Construction, providing guidance on finding business information and financial ratios for the construction industry.  

Company information includes history, ownerships, key executives, annual reports, key financials, sustainability efforts, etc. The website of a public company often provides such information, especially on its "investor relations" or "for investors" page. The following pages allow you to search across companies in a particular industry. 

Allow you to create lists of all public companies in a particular industry, and it provides detailed information on U.S. and international companies.

Start with the "Company search", or start with the Classification search (To search using the NAISC code, select "Primary NAICS", then "use code lookup..."). 

[1.08 min] A search example for construction industry in Mergent Online

Allow you to create lists of both public and private U.S. companies, Canadian companies, and interntional companies. The search platform is more user-friendly than Mergent Online, but the company information may not be as in-depth. 

Start with "Advanced Search" to refine your search by various criteria (e.g. industry, financial information). 

A useful resource for company profiles of private companies, which is often hard to find. 

To limit the search to just Hoover's Company Profiles, select "Company Profile" under "Document type" in Advanced Search. 

For information on a company's sustainability efforts, the following resources may help: 

This database evaluates and analyzes companies on their ESG (environmental, social, governance) performance. Please note that ESG Risk Ratings Industry Reports are only available for broad categories such as "Construction & Engineering" and "Construction Materials", and only a handful of companies are covered in each category. 

On-campus access only in Webster Library or Vanier Library. Ask for help with this database at the Ask Us Desk.

Access business and industry news in this database, as sometimes they shed light on a company's sustainability efforts or other outward-facing social efforts. 

Industry information includes market characteristics, operating conditions, current and forecast performance, competitive forces, financial benchmarks, industry surveys, etc. 

Provides access to a comprehensive collection of global industry market research reports. There are 15 reports in Construction in Canada. Each of them provides data on financial benchmarks. 

Provide access to company data and industry key statistics and ratios.

Start with searching for a specific company, or start with searching for a keyword of the industry (e.g. construction). 

[35 seconds] Searching for a construction company (e.g. Bird Construction) in the Standard and Poors NetAdvantage database.
[39 seconds] Searching for subsectors in the construction industry.

Provides benchmarking data to examine industry benchmarks in the areas of solvency, efficiency, and profitability, against industry norms. 

Browse by NAISC code in Key Business Ratios

Industry financial benchmarks based on Risk Management Association (RMA), providing composite financial data from over 190,000 anonymous financial statements in 600 industries. 

The following statistics and data are compiled by Statistics Canada: 

Provides access to more than 1000 industries across Canada, including more than 30 performance benchmarks to help small businesses determine how they measure up to their competitors.

Compiled by Statistics Canada, it is part of their Financial and Taxation Statistics for Enterprises.

Statistics and anaylsis related to the construction industry.

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