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Show Statistics Reveal Increase in County Business Statistics released this week by D. E. Smith, district manager of the Salt Lake City office of Dun & Bradstreet, reflect trend of the business firms in Salt Lake County during the past year. Figures obtained from a physical count of the Dun & Bradstreet Reference Book for January, 1959, totaled 5750 retainer, re-tainer, manufacturers and whole salers in this area as compared to 5,732 in January, 1958. The Reference Book lists only manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. It does not include some of the service and professional profes-sional businesses such as beauty and barber shops and real estate brokers. Thus, the figures for businesses in Salt Lake County would actually be higher than the 5750 quoted above. The Reference Book contains approximately three miliion of the business listings for over 50,000 communities in the U.S. It is published every sixty days to keep listings current. During the past sixty days nearly 70,000 new names were added and 65,-000 65,-000 names were removed. Credit ratings were changed during this period on more than 110,000 concerns. con-cerns. As one phase in revising credit ratings and keeping them up to date, every year the credit reporting re-porting agency writes to all the businesses who are listed in the reference book to request their balance sheets. Smith says that this letter speeds up the flow and processing process-ing of some of the facts on which credit ratings are based. "More than 95 per cent of all commercial commer-cial transactions in the U. S. are made on credit terms. The purpose pur-pose of the Reference Book is to help businessmen in any part of the country make and accurate credit decisions to ship or sell to businessmen in any other part of the country. i The credit rating is one of the key factors in approving orders to ship or sell. The rating consists con-sists of two symbols. The first, a letter of the alphabet, indicates financial strength or tangible het worth of the business. The second symbol is a number. It reflects a composite appraisal of the background, operations, financial fi-nancial stability and payment record. Each listing, which includes the rating, is a condensed summary sum-mary of the information contained con-tained in the Dun & Bradstreet Credit report. The report includes in-cludes a mistory of the business; a description of what the business busi-ness does and how it does it; a financial section which usually includes the latest f inanical statement; and a record of how the concern pays its bills. While credit reports are primarily pri-marily used by businessmen who want to evaluate the credit risk before shipping or selling, insurance insur-ance underwriters also use credit cred-it reports to review risks, rates and Coverage for fire and other types of insurance. |
