The Swedish Equity Market

Annex A. Methodology for data collection and classification

Company financial information

Balance sheet information for unlisted non-financial firms

The information on unlisted firms presented in Chapter 2 is based on the OECD-ORBIS Corporate Finance database and includes financial information for non-financial companies between 2005 and 2022.

The raw financial dataset contains multiple firm-year observations due to companies reporting for various purposes. To construct a panel with a single observation per firm-year, the following hierarchical selection criteria are applied:

• Preference is given to financial statements that cover a 12-month period over those with other length.

• For firms with multiple filings in the same year, statements with fiscal year-end dates closest to the calendar year-end (December 31) are prioritised.

• Published annual reports are preferred over local registry filings, which are in turn preferred over filings of unknown type.

• Financials prepared under IFRS are prioritised over those using local GAAP. GAAP-based reports are preferred over those with unspecified accounting standards.

• Where both consolidated and unconsolidated statements are available, consolidated accounts are retained.

Balance sheet information for listed non-financial firms

The information on listed firms presented in Chapter 2 is sourced from LSEG Datastream. The unbalanced panel dataset contains financial statement information for listed non-financial companies globally between 2005 and 2022.

To construct a panel with a unique firm-year observation, the following steps are applied:

• Financial companies are excluded.

• Firms listed on over-the-counter (OTC) and alternative markets are excluded.

• Security types classified as “units” and “trust” are excluded.

• Firms identified as delisted are excluded.

• For firms with multiple observations but different countries of domicile, their true country of domicile is manually checked to remove duplicates.

• Financial statements covering a 12-month period are used.

• Companies with at least one observation showing negative assets or negative fixed assets are excluded.

Public equity data

The information on initial public offerings (IPOs) and secondary public offerings (SPOs) presented in Chapter 2 is based on transaction and/or firm-level data gathered from several commercial databases (LSEG, FactSet and Bloomberg). Considerable resources have been committed to ensuring the consistency and quality of the dataset. Different data sources are checked against each other and, whenever necessary, the information is also controlled against original sources, including regulatory, stock exchange and company websites as well as financial statements.

Country coverage and classification

The dataset includes information about all IPOs and SPOs by financial and non-financial companies in the period from January 1990 to December 2024.

All public equity listings following an IPO, including first-time listings on an exchange other than the primary exchange, are classified as SPOs. If a company is listed on more than one exchange within 180 days, those transactions are consolidated under one IPO. Unless otherwise indicated, the country breakdown is carried out based on the issuer’s country of domicile.

Currency conversion and inflation adjustment

The IPO and SPO data, as well as related financial statement data such as total assets before the offering, are collected on a deal-level basis via commercial databases in current USD values. The information is aggregated annually and, in some tables, presented at the year-industry level. Issuance amounts initially collected in USD were adjusted by the US Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Table A A.1. Public offerings industry classification

Initial public offering and secondary offerings statistics are presented in this report using the Reference data Business Classification (TRBC). The following economic sectors are used in the analysis:

TRBC Economic Sector
Basic Materials	Industrials
Cyclical Consumer Goods & Services	Non-Cyclical Consumer Goods & Services
Energy	Real Estate
Financials	Technology
Healthcare	Utilities

Exclusion criteria

The analysis does not consider IPOs and SPOs by trusts, funds and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). The following industry categories are therefore excluded:

• Financial companies that conduct trust, fiduciary and custody activities

• Asset management companies such as health and welfare funds, pension funds and their third-party administrators, as well as other financial vehicles

• Open-end investment funds

• Other financial vehicles

• Grant-making foundations

• Asset management companies that deal with trusts, estates and agency accounts

• Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)

• Closed-end funds

• Listings on an over-the-counter (OTC) market

• Security types classified as “units” and “trust”

• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)

• Transactions with missing or zero proceeds

Ownership data

The main source of information is the FactSet Ownership database. Data are collected as of end of 2024 in current USD, thus no currency or inflation adjustment is needed. The data are complemented and verified using LSEG and Bloomberg. Market information (market capitalisation, listing venue, etc.) for each company is collected from LSEG. The dataset includes the records of owners for 46 086 companies listed on 161 markets covering 99% of global market capitalisation. For each of the countries/regions presented, the information corresponds to all listed companies in those countries/regions with available information.

Ownership information is collected at the company level. Some companies have up to 5 000 records in their list of owners. Each record contains the name of the institution, the percentage of outstanding shares owned, the investor type classification, the origin country of the investor, the ultimate parent name, among other things.

The table below presents the five categories of owners defined and used in this report following De La Cruz, Medina and Tang (2019[1]). In many cases, when the ultimate owner is identified as a government, a province or a city and the direct owner was not identified as such, ownership records are reclassified as public sector. For example, public pension funds that are regulated under public sector law, as well as sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are classified as government owners.

Table A A.2. Categories of owners defined and used in the report

Investor category	Categories of owners
	Investor type
Private corporations and holding companies	Business Association	Operating Division
	Employee Stock Ownership Plan	Private Company
	Holding Company	Public Company
	Joint Venture	Subsidiary
	Non-profit Organisation
Public sector	Government	Regional Governments
	Sovereign Wealth Manager	Public Pension Funds
Strategic individuals and family members	Individual (Strategic Owners)	Family Office
Institutional investors	Bank Investment Division	Mutual Fund Manager
	Broker	Other
	College/University	Pension Fund
	Foundation/Endowment Manager	Pension Fund Manager
	Fund of Funds Manager	Private Banking/Wealth Management
	Fund of Hedge Funds Manager	Private Equity Fund/Alternative Investment
	Hedge Fund	Real Estate Manager
	Hedge Fund Manager	Research Firm
	Insurance Company	Stock Borrowing/Lending
	Investment Adviser	Trust/Trustee
	Market Maker	Umbrella Fund
	Mutual Fund-Closed End	Venture Capital/Private Equity
Other free float including retail investors	Shares in the hands of investors that are not required to disclose their holdings. It includes the direct holdings of retail investors who are not required to disclose their ownership and institutional investors that did not exceed the required thresholds for public disclosure of their holdings.

Private equity data

The main source of information for the private equity data presented in section 2.2 is Invest Europe / EDC. The information provided by Invest Europe comprises firms managing investment vehicles or pools of capital (funds) and primarily investing equity capital in enterprises not quoted on a stock market. Firms are included in the analysis as long as at least one of the funds they manage qualifies; however, only the activity of the qualifying funds is taken into consideration.

The countries included when referring to Europe statistics are: Austria, Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Other CEE (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic), Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom.

Fundraising activities are classified according to the country that corresponds to the location of the advisory team of the fund. For the CEE region, fundraising activity is the sum of funds managed from the CEE region plus funds that have declared CEE as their target region. The amount reported under investments includes equity, quasi equity, mezzanine, unsecured debt and secured debt. Secured debt amounts within all investment packages are removed, unless the debt originates from private equity funds. Investment activities are recorded according to the location of the portfolio company. Divestment amounts are recorded at cost (i.e. the total amount divested is equal to the total amount invested previously). Private equity statistics are collected in current Euros. Amounts are then adjusted by using Euro CPI to express them in constant 2023 EUR.

The categories of private equity entities that are excluded from the Invest Europe Universe are: Funds of Funds, Hedge Funds, Real Estate, Project Financing/Infrastructure, Secondary Funds, Distressed Debt, Venture Credit, Participative Loans, Incubators, Accelerators, Business Angels and Holding Companies.

References

[1] De La Cruz, Medina and Tang (2019), Owners of the World’s Listed Companies, https://www.oecd.org/corporate/Owners-of-the-Worlds-Listed-Companies.htm.