The Refinitiv Business Classification (TRBC) is an

industry classification Industry classification or industry taxonomy is a type of economic taxonomy that classifies companies, organizations and traders into industrial groupings based on similar production processes, similar products, or similar behavior in financial ...

of global companies. It was developed by the

Reuters Group Reuters Group plc was a British multinational media and financial information company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was acquired by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, forming Thomson Reuters, and moving its head office to Toronto. ...

under the name Reuters Business Sector Scheme (RBSS), was rebranded to Thomson Reuters Business Classification (TRBC) when the

Thomson Corporation The Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organisation Ltd (ITOL) and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to fo ...

acquired the Reuters Group in 2008, forming

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corp ...

, and was rebranded again, to The Refinitiv Business Classification (TRBC), in 2020. Since the creation of

Refinitiv Refinitiv is an American-British global provider of financial market data and infrastructure. The company was founded in 2018. It is a subsidiary of London Stock Exchange Group after a US$27 billion sale from previous owners Blackstone Group LP ...

in October 2018, TRBC has been owned and operated by Refinitiv and is the basis for Refinitiv Indices.

Market-based classification

TRBC is a market-based classification scheme, similar to the GICS and ICB systems. These classify companies on the basis of degree of impact on markets, rather than establishment-based classification systems such as the

North American Industry Classification System The North American Industry Classification System or NAICS () is a classification of business establishments by type of economic activity (process of production). It is used by government and business in Canada, Mexico, and the United States of A ...

(NAICS).

Use

TRBC is used primarily in the Financial Investment and Advisory space, where investors identify and select groups of comparable companies and look at trends. More specifically, this could be Investment Managers allocating funds and benchmarking their portfolios; Investment Bankers highlighting acquisition targets and opportunities for financial restructuring, or more generally corporates performing competitive analysis of their peers in the marketplace.

Coverage

TRBC covers over 72,000 public companies in 130 countries and provides a classification history going back to 1999.

Versions

Four versions of the classification scheme have been published: RBSS 2004, TRBC 2008, TRBC 2012 and TRBC 2020. The first two versions had four levels: Economic sectors, Business sectors, Industry groups, and Industries. The third version added a fifth level, Activities.

Structure

The TRBC classification scheme has a five-level hierarchical structure: * 13 Economic sectors * 33 Business sectors * 62 Industry groups * 154 Industries * 898 Activities

Classification scheme

The TRBC classification scheme is shown below. Note that the acronym NEC stands for "not elsewhere classified". The use of this acronym, with the same meaning, is common in classification schemes, for example the

Standard Industrial Classification The Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) was a system for classifying industries by a four-digit code as a method of standardizing industry classification for statistical purposes across agencies. Established in the United States in 1937, i ...

(SIC) uses it.

External links

Thomson Reuters Business Classification

Thomson Reuters Business Classification in Excel

References

{{Reflist Industry classifications Financial markets Indexes Thomson Reuters