Matching SDC data with CRSP and COMPUSTAT

[cgalbu...@gmail.com]

Hey guys!

I am currently working on a research project that involves spin-offs and I have a few difficulties in matching the data for completing the sample. 

So at first I went on SDC M&A to extract a sample of spin-offs. Each record also contains a CUSIP for the spun-off unit ("target") and the divesting parent ("parent"). 

What I want to do now is I want to use these CUSIPs (SDC gives only 6-digit CUSIPs, so I added "10" to each) to get the PERMNOs by using the WRDS tool "Translate to PERMNO" because I need the PERMNO in order to retrieve stock data from CRSP and then later the PERMNO will serve to get the GVKey for COMPUSTAT via the CRSP/COMPUSTAT merged database. 

Unfortunately, something seems to be wrong. 

For example, I generated a txt file with all the 8-digit CUSIPs from the SDC file I retrieved and uploaded it on the "Translate to PERMNO" tool. However, the tool would only give me 145 records of a total of 480, is that kind of loss normal? 

Moreover, I noticed that some CUSIPs in the SDC file appear to be wrong.

For example, PAYPAL is recorded in SDC with the CUSIP 8C667310 but I know from google that the actual CUSIP is 70450Y10. How can that be? Did the CUSIP change and if yes why did SDC not update it? 

Can somebody help me with these questions? 

Do you think my approach is wrong in some way or could be improved?

Thank you so much for your help in advance!

Kind regards

Claudio 

[NgaQ]

Hi there,

The CUSIP in SDC is the historic CUSIP not the current one. In CRSP you will find NCUSIP (Which is historic CUSIP) and CUSIP (which is the current CUSIP).

SDC has 6 digit (historic) cusip and CRSP has 8 digit NCUSIP, in SAS you can substring CRSP 8 digit NCUSIP to 6 digit and match with SDC's 6 digit (historic) CUSIP.

Best,