business information: key web resources
DESCRIPTION
Slides that were the starting point for a workshop on business information resources organised by TFPL and held on November 15th, 2012 in London.TRANSCRIPT
Business Information: key web resources
twitter.com/karenblakeman
http://www.rba.co.uk/
Business Sources www.rba.co.uk/sources/
Presentation available at: http://www.rba.co.uk/bi/
TFPL, London, 15th November 2012
Recommended reading
Business Information Sources: A Beginner's Guide (Paperback) by Christine O'Hare
Publisher: Facet Publishing (18 Mar 2007)
ISBN-10:1856046036
ISBN-13: 978-1856046039
Much of the content is still relevant
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What is business information?
Companiescompetitors, suppliers, customers, potential partner, potential employer, joint venture, takeover target, investment
Industry sectors
Markets
Legal and regulatory environment
News, social media, rumour, gossip
Anything that is needed to conduct business
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Why not just Google?
Content of many business resources not searched by Google, Bing etc.
- information held in databases
- may be password protected even if free
- priced services not accessible to most search engines
Best source of information may be way down your results list
Google personalises and “tailors” content depending on your location, computer, browser, past searches, your social network.... and anything else it can think of
Can be more effective to go direct to relevant starting points and known sites
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Use more than Google
The Disruptive Searcher (Sanity checking Google http://disruptivesearcher.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/sanity-checking-google/)
“if I hadn’t searched across more than Google for data on a small, new company that I was asked to research recently, I would have missed out on some very significant information that Google just wasn’t showing me.”
Others to consider: Bing (http://www.bing.com/), DuckDuckGo (http://duckduckgo.com/), Blekko (http://blekko.com, Million short (http://www.millionshort.com/)
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Free vs. Fee
Free
Basic company information, contact details, search for companies by name/number one at a time, simple print out
Anonymous statistics, total market/industry figures
Current news - free text searching, many key industry publications not free, difficult to focus search
May be limited in coverage, time span
Fee
Full company accounts, historical data, search by multiple criteria, analysis and report features
Detailed market share by company name, product/brand
Indexed content, easier to search for historical information by event type, more flexible search and print options
More likely to be comprehensive and have more extensive archives
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Social media and professional networks
Where people and organisations share, discuss, comment and ask questions
It is where the conversations are happening
It is where a lot of marketing takes place
Use for research, competitor intelligence, reputation monitoring
Google and Bing automatically incorporate social and professional networks, blogs, Twitter etc in results
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General starting points
Business Sources on the Net http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/
BL - Business Essentials on the Web – http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com/ – “a one-stop shop for website listings for entrepreneurs and SMEs,
covering topics such as ‘business planning’, ‘grants and finance’, ‘marketing and PR’ as well as industry specific pages.”
British Library Business & IP Centre in London Industry guides- http://www.bl.uk/bipc/dbandpubs/Industry%20guides/industry.html
SCOTBIS (Scottish Business Information Service)– http://scotbis.nls.uk/
Biznar – federated search – http://biznar.com/
Buslib-L – discussion list for business librarians and researchers– http://list1.ucc.nau.edu/archives/buslib-l.html (login required)– FAQs at https://sites.google.com/site/busliblistserv/
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Company information
Ownership, structure, accounts, activities, news
Availability depends on– type of company
• sole trader
• partnership
• “privately” owned
• limited liability e.g. Ltd, LLP
• companies with publicly traded shares e.g. PLC
– business size (large, medium, small)
– country
• state or region within the country
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UK Companies Act 2006
Some of the main changes:– memorandum of association now only needs to state that the
founders of the company wish to form a limited company
– directors no longer need to apply to withhold their private address, for example if they believe they may be targeted by activists. Can now choose to supply a “service address”
– requirement to have a company secretary removed
UK Companies House– http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
– details of registration and filing requirements
– examples of documents
– search for companies for free, some information free, accounts and other documents priced
– free Disqualified Directors search
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Exemptions
For UK small and medium sized enterprises
May prepare and file abbreviated accounts
Must fulfil at least two of the following conditions to qualify
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Exemptions not available to public companies, banking, insurance or shipping companies
Small Medium
Turnover not exceeding £6.5m £25.9m
Assets/balance sheet not exceeding
£3.26m £12.9m
Average number of employees 50 250
UK filing requirements
Small companies
Medium companies
Large companies
Balance sheet Abbreviated balance sheet with notes
Full balance sheet
Full balance sheet signed by a Director
Profit and loss Not required Abbreviated profit and loss account
Full profit and loss account
Turnover Not required Not required Required
Auditor report Special auditor report if required
Special auditor report
Required and signed by an auditor
Director report Not required Required Required and signed by an officer of the company
Notes to the accounts
Not required Required Required
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UK Companies House– http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/
– free, subscription, and document pay per view options
– documents £1 each
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Company documents
Companies House charges £1 per document and there can be lots of them, need to decide which ones you really need
The list of company documents may be all you need to see
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Company Check
http://companycheck.co.uk/
UK companies
Uses Companies House data
Provides 6 years of figures and graphs for Cash at Bank, Net Worth, Total Liabilities and Total Current Liabilities free of charge
Some info free, some free with login, some pay as you go
Monitor company for financial changes and when new accounts are filed – email alerts (free)
Lists directors of a company– links through to Company Director Check
– http://company-director-check.co.uk/
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http://company-director-check.co.uk/
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Official company information – other countries
Lists of official company registers
– Official Company Registers
• http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/registers.htm
– Company registration around the world
• http://www.commercial-register.sg.ch/home/worldwide.html
– Companies House Links
• http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/links/introduction.shtml#reg
US – listed companies
– SEC Edgar IDEA – Interactive Date Electronic Applications
http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml
Canada - listed companies
– SEDAR http://www.sedar.com/
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European Business Register
Gateway to official company information in 26 European countries
– http://www.ebr.org
UK distributer is GBRDirect
– http://www.gbrdirect.co.uk/
Priced service
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7side
http://www.7side.co.uk/
Priced service
UK companies and documents, directors information, insolvency reports
Credit reports
International registry and documents service– 1 hour registry and documents service
www.7side.co.uk/moreinfo/International_Registry_and_Documents_Service.pdf
– translation service available
– have agents "on the ground", can quickly tell you what is available in that country and what may not be available
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Skyminderwww.skyminder.com
Pulls together company information from a variety of sources from across the world
Registration required, free to search but many documents are priced
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Company information – selected priced services
7 side – http://www.7side.co.uk/
Bureau van Dijk (BvD) http://www.bvdinfo.com/
Corpfin http://www.companyquery.com/
Dun and Bradstreet http://www.dnb.co.uk/
Experian UK http://www.experian.co.uk/
Factiva http://www.factiva.com/
Hoovers http://www.hoovers.com/
ISI Emerging Markets Research, News, M&A, Statistics, Economic Indicators, Islamic Finance http://www.securities.com/
LexisNexis http://www.lexisnexis.com/
Perfect Information - http://www.perfectinfo.com/
Skyminder - http://www.skyminder.com/
Thomson Reuters - http://thomsonreuters.com/
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Other resources
InvestEgate– http://www.investegate.co.uk/
– comprehensive source of announcements from UK quoted companies, customised email alerts available
Wikinvest - Investing Wiki with Research about Companies, Investment Concepts– http://www.wikinvest.com/
– as with all wikis treat with caution but has some good information
– can be useful for background on industries as well as companies
Opencorporates– http://opencorporates.com/
– Open database of the corporate world
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Historical annual reports – SCoRe
http://www.score.ac.uk/
SCoRe (Search Company Reports)
Catalogue of printed company reports, both current and historic, held in UK libraries
Libraries that hold copies of the reports are listed together with the earliest and latest years of a collection’s holdings
A good place to pick up clues on past corporate relationships
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Types of companies & company formations
CorporateInformation.com - Company Extensions and Security Identifiers
– http://www.corporateinformation.com/Company-Extensions-Security-Identifiers.aspx
Types of business entity – Wikipedia– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_business_entity
Company Formation Survey– http://www.offshoreinvestment.com/
Doing Business - Measuring Business Regulations - World Bank Group
– http://www.doingbusiness.org/
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Who owns a website?
• http://www.domaintools.com/ good starting point for identifying who owns a domain name but....– may be hiding behind an agent
– may be using a service such as Privacy Protect (http://www.privacyprotect.org)
– if in the UK and an individual with a personal page then contact details other than name are not publicly available (Data Protection)
• Run a Google or Bing search on the ‘registrant’ or agent and see if you can find out anything more about them
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Domaintools check on rba.co.uk – good news
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Domaintools check on easterned.org - bad news
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LinkedIn.com
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Google site: search of LinkedIn
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More on searching LinkedIn
Boolean Black Belt-Sourcing/Recruiting http://www.booleanblackbelt.com/
Mary Ellen Bates Ten Top Tips for Searching LinkedIn http://www.batesinfo.com/meb123/index.html PDF http://www.batesinfo.com/extras/assets/linkedin.pdf
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Publicly traded companies – share prices
Free– current share prices delayed by 15-30 minutes
– real-time prices if you have a share dealing account with a broker e.g. TD Direct Investing (http://www.tddirectinvesting.co.uk/)
– only cover companies currently listed on the exchange
– some historical data as charts or figures (e.g. Yahoo Finance and Google Finance)
– Yahoo and Google cover major stock markets
– go direct to the stock exchange web site
Priced– for more detailed analysis
– full historical data
– stocks no longer traded or merged with another company
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Share prices
Yahoo Finance (major stock markets only)– http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/
Google finance (US, UK, Canada, some European stock markets, Australia, Hong Kong, China)– http://www.google.co.uk/finance
– http://www.google.com/finance
FT.com – Markets, Equities section
Go direct to the stock market site– RBA Stock Markets and Share Price Information
– http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stocks.htm
Priced services – Reuters, Thomson Reuters DataStream, Bloomberg
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Yahoo Finance
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Google Finance
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Databases for information on smaller companies
Confirm contact details using telephone directories
– http://www.teldir.com/
BvD Mint Free Directory search
– http://www.bvdinfo.com/
– only basic contact details free of charge, additional information priced
Directories such as
– Applegate http://www.applegate.co.uk/
– Europages http://www.europages.com/
– solusource http://www.solusource.com/
– Kompass http://www.kompass.com/
– see also the list of directories at “Company and Telephone Directories” http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm
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Databases for information on smaller companies
FITA – http://www.fita.org/ and select Really Useful Links from the left
hand menu and then Business Directories and Trade Information
Import/export directories– Sometimes have more information about small companies than
official company registers
• size, number of employees and turnover
• contact names e.g. marketing director, sales director, export director
• export markets, sectors/products exported
– Search using export directory combined with country and/or industry sector
• e.g. export directory switzerland
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Mailing lists
RBA Direct Marketing– http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/marketing.htm
MarketingFile.com– http://www.marketingfile.com
– wide range of mailing lists
– free searching of lists
– can test out a list by selecting first 50, 100 etc. results
– pay as you go
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Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)
Search free news on the web (e.g. http://news.google.co.uk/) using keywordsDetailed information on rumours, deals in progress and completed deals usually pricedMergers and Acquisitions
– http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/manda.htm
BvD’s Mergers and Acquisitions Portal – http://www.mandaportal.com/– news, features, summaries and basic deal information are free
of charge– free reports reviewing recent activity in M&A– free reports discussing industry sectors where there is increased
activity– links into the Zephyr database – full reports on deals are priced.
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Statistics and industry data
Free– government statistics
– industry overviews
– executive summaries
– press releases
– trade press - possibly
Priced for– industry specific market shares
– named companies
– brand names
– detailed rankings
When carrying out research often have to use data from different sources
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Bits and pieces from everywhere?
Is there a problem?
Not necessarily but– must be aware of the context
• why and how was the original research conducted
• what sources were used
• when was the data gathered
– free resources may take information out of context• press releases and news articles focus on single issues
• background and methodology often missing
• may be several times removed from original research or data collection
Multiple free sources are often used to build a picture of a market piece by piece
Not comparing like with like
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Statistics and industry data
Use advanced search options to limit your search to file types or format:
– pdf or doc/docx for government or industry/market reports
– xls/xlsx for data and statistics
– ppt /pptx or pdf for presentations
– for example UK CO2 emissions filetype:xls
Search in both Google and Bing for a comprehensive search
Looking for experts on a topic, presentations, general background on a subject, information on an organisation?
– advanced search ppt or pdf format
– Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/
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Slideshare.net
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Search: biofuels UK public transport
Industry data and market research
Google Numeric range search– can be weights, distances, years, prices
– use Advanced Search screen
– or the search box on the Google home page
– search term(s) first value..second value unit of measurement
Examples:– beer per capita consumption uk 2008..2012
– TV advertising spend forecasts 2012..2020
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Starting points for statistics
Statistics Sources– http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm
Official Statistics on the Web– http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz
UK Official Statistics– http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ – often get better results by running a Google advanced site search
Welsh Assembly Government StatsWales – http://statswales.wales.gov.uk/
Welsh Government | Statistics - http://wales.gov.uk/topics/statistics/?lang=en
SCOTBIS (Scottish Business Information Service)– http://scotbis.nls.uk/
British Library Business & IP Centre– http://www.bl.uk/bipc/
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UK Official Statistics
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
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Guardian Data Store
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/dataData and analysis on topics that are in the newsLinks to the original datasets are provided
Guardian world government data
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world-government-data
Zanran
http://www.zanran.com/
Zanran – searches charts, tables, formatted data– http://awareci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/zanran-a-new-data-searc
h-engine/
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Google Public Data Explorerhttp://www.google.com/publicdata/
One of Google's best kept secrets!
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Business Essentials on the Web - Industries http://bl-business-essentials.wikispaces.com/IndustriesSee also http://www.bl.uk/bipc/dbandpubs/Industry%20guides/industry.html
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Finding market research - aggregators
Pull together reports from many publishers and make them searchable through a single interface
Can purchase reports through the one service
Aggregators may not be comprehensive– many publishers embargo reports for weeks or months
– many publishers withhold reports from aggregators
– check the publisher’s own web site or email them to see if there is additional or more recent research available
– may get a better deal by going to the publisher direct
– use aggregators as an index to see who is publishing on your topic
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Examples of aggregators
Alacrastore– http://www.alacrastore.com/
ISI Emerging Markets– http://www.securities.com/
Marketresearch.com– http://www.marketresearch.com/
Mindbranch– http://www.mindbranch.com/
Report Buyer– http://www.reportbuyer.com/
Research and Markets– http://www.researchandmarkets.com/
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News
Most newspapers and magazines are on the web
Free services– may not be complete publication
– may not have archives
– search facilities may be limited
– print stories one by one
Many news and trade press titles are free but some are priced
Official company press releases
‘Listed’ companies– major news, developments and changes affecting their operations
have to reported to shareholders via the stock exchange announcements for example UK Regulatory News Service
– Various sources e.g. FE InvestEgate | Company Announcements http://www.investegate.co.uk/
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News
For tracking down individual newspapers– http://www.abyznewslinks.com/
– http://www.kidon.com/media-link/index.php
Google News – latest free news usually 30 days
– advanced search options limited and not always reliable
– no source list and sources frequently change
– key industry publications may not be included and definitely not included if subscription
– older and Archive News may be priced
Use Google news and web search to identify specialist news portals or aggregators for your subject and monitor those direct
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Google News Archive
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Google can seriously damage your news
Experiment by Mary Ellen Bates
Is Google really filtering my news? - Librarian of Fortune
– http://www.librarianoffortune.com/librarian_of_fortune/2011/09/is-
google-really-filtering-my-news.html
Google can seriously damage your news
– http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2011/09/03/google-can-seriously-
damage-your-news/
Highlights
– More than a quarter of the stories showed up in only one
searcher’s results
– Almost one in five searchers saw a story that no one else saw
– Only 12% of searchers saw the same three stories in the same
order
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Silobreaker http://www.silobreaker.com/
Covers free resources: news, blogs, video, images
Geographical location of stories, people, networks
Use as a starting point for in depth research
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Priced services
The Times and Sunday Times– http://www.thetimes.co.uk/ http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/
Financial Times (priced for full access)– http://www.ft.com/
LexisNexis– http://www.lexisnexis.com/ – subscription service, prices on application
Factiva– http://www.factiva.com/ – subscription service, prices on application– also a pay as you go option
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Google Video
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Not the same as Youtube
Video
Bing Videos
YouTube
Vimeo.com
DailyMotion.com
Blinkx - http://www.blinkx.com/
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FacebookBusiness and commercial pages now allowed on FacebookOvert promotion and market researchCompetitive intelligenceHow are companies using it?"Anti" groups and pages
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Blogs and Twitter
Many experts, academics, researchers, industry gurus have active blogs
Great way to tap into expert knowledge especially with new and innovative technologies and industries
Essential for competitive intelligence and reputation monitoring
But Twitter limited to current data & selected networks
Twitter up to the minute but skewed view of what is happening
Blogs – http://www.google.com/blogsearch/ or use the Blogs option in the menu on the left hand side of your results page
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Topsy.com – web realtime search
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SocialMention.com (rather erratic and slow but worth investigating)
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whostalkin.com
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Icerocket.com
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Paper.li - create your own newspaper
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Paper.li – keyword http://paper.li/karenblakeman/1321447614
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Paper.li – company
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http://paper.li/karenblakeman/1321288089
Keeping up to date
BUSLIB-L – business information email discussion list
– http://list1.ucc.nau.edu/archives/buslib-l.html
Scottish Business Information Service http://scotbis.nls.uk/
– Twitter alerts @ScottishBIS
Karen Blakeman’s Blog
– http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/
Arthur Weiss
– Find It Out: Research secrets and more!
– http://www.finditout.co.uk/
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