Hoover's
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| Subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet | |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas, USA |
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Key people
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Gary Hoover, Co-Founder Patrick Spain, Co-Founder |
| Website | http://www.hoovers.com |
Hoover's, Inc., a subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet, is an American business research company that has provided information on companies and industries since 1990. Since 1993, the company has made its information available on its website.Gary Hoover and Patrick Spain founded the company.
Hoover's maintains a database of more than 85 million companies and 100 million people using an in-house editorial staff of industry experts. The company derives most of its revenues from subscriptions, which are sold primarily to sales, marketing, and business development professionals. It provides less-detailed company, industry, and executive information to non-subscribers. Hoover's also publishes analytical features through its Hoover's Index pages, and its Bizmology and BIZ blogs.
Besides publishing information on its website and in its books, the company distributes information via data feeds and third-party licensing agreements. Hoover's is headquartered in Austin, Texas and also has employees in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Hoover's was started in 1990 by Gary Hoover, Patrick J. Spain, Alan Chai and Alta Campbell. Hoover earlier had founded the Bookstop book store chain and then sold it to Barnes & Noble. Hoover's initially was called The Reference Press; it published reference books about companies. (It still produces books for libraries and related markets, but book publishing is now a small part of the company's sales.)
The company grew rapidly under a business team led by Spain that included Carl Shepherd, Lynn Atchison, Elisabeth DeMarse, Jani Spede, Kris Rao and Gordon Anderson, among others. Spain was CEO from 1993 to 2001 and chairman from 1994 to 2002.
Hoover's made an initial public offering on the NASDAQ exchange in 1999. The company is now a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, which bought Hoover's for $119 million in 2003 even though a higher offer was submitted at $138 million and the sale opposed by Disciplined Growth Investors, an asset management firm that held 5.3% of Hoover's shares. Dun & Bradstreet reported Hoover's annual revenue as $50.0 million for 2004, $70.0 million for 2005, and $88.7 million for 2006.
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