Business Research Resources About Brazil?

September 13, 2009 8:25 AM

Is there a good on-line research tool for South American (most notably, Brazilian) companies?

The consultants in my company have been asking me to do a lot of preliminary research on South American companies, most of which are located in Brazil.

While I have a good number of research tools (Nexis, Hoover's, Datamonitor) for North American companies, I find that it's more difficult for me to find English-language materials on companies in Brazil. Bonus points if there's a good resource for privately-held companies in this region.

posted by xingcat to work & money (4 comments total)

D&B's data is pretty weak in Brazil, and they have the monopoly (at least in N America) for worldwide business data. Whenever I had to verify a Brazilian company at my old job I had to do a lot of digging at the company's website - I never did find a good resource for the country in general, nor an official company registry for Brazil.

Good luck!
posted by evening at 11:04 AM on September 13

Is there a particular industry you are looking at? Publishing? Manufacturing? Consumer goods? IT? Shipping? Petroleum? I could keep listing, but the point I am trying to make is that information on companies, especially those privately held, is going to vary a great deal from sector to sector. I am a commercial translator, and I specialize in Brazilian corporate law, so I may be able to help you navigate through some of the information. Memail me if you are interested.
There is a National Company Registry in Brazil (which varies by state), btw, it is called the NIRE, which basically stands for the State Business Registration Number. This is the general Board of Trade registration number, used to keep track of changes to bylaws or articles of association.
Furthermore, all companies will have a CNPJ/MF number, which is simply their taxpayer ID code. It used to be called the CGC/MF, so if you run across that, it is the same thing.
All in all, unless there is a require to file corporate documents in English (which is largely the case for public transnationals), it is difficult to find publicly available hard data on most firms. Like I said, though, I may be able to help.
posted by msali at 12:23 PM on September 13

My husband just reminded me of another resource that you may be able to contact for information: The US Chambers of Commerce abroad.
posted by msali at 2:27 PM on September 13

Is there a particular industry you are looking at? Publishing? Manufacturing? Consumer goods? IT? Shipping? Petroleum? I could keep listing, but the point I am trying to make is that information on companies, especially those privately held, is going to vary a great deal from sector to sector.

Unfortunately (for me, fortunately for our company), our services aren't industry-focused, they focus very much on the more human issues, so the industry and business materials aren't something that even our advisors focus on, but need as background information in order to be at least somewhat knowledgeable about our client's businesses.

The registration numbers and ID codes are very helpful, thatnks!
posted by xingcat at 4:20 PM on September 13