Pulling from a source
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Only owners and admins can fetch. The directory is shared, so a fetch affects what everyone sees.
Running a fetch
In Data sources, select Fetch data on a source that supports it.
It starts a background job. The button reads Fetching… and the page refreshes every few seconds until it finishes. Each row shows its last run: how many firms were pulled, how many were new against updated, the time, or the error.
Re-fetching is safe. Records matching on the source's identity key are updated rather than duplicated.
The sources
| Source | Access | Working | What a fetch does |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC — Active Broker-Dealers | Official | yes | Seeds firms from the full registered list. Matched on CIK |
| Axial — Top 25 LMM League Tables | Public | yes | Pulls busy LMM banks. Name-matches existing firms and sets them to LMM confirmed |
| IBBA — Find a Business Broker | Public | yes | Seeds contacts with name, company, email, phone and credentials |
| FINRA | Official | no | Code exists but needs credentials |
| M&A Source | Public | no | Catalogued only |
| AM&AA | Membership | no | Catalogued only |
| ACG | Membership | no | Catalogued only |
Sources that are not wired up show Not wired up yet and have no button. The catalogue is fixed in code — there is no way to add a source from the screen.
The order to run them
Starting from empty, this is the sequence that makes sense:
- SEC first, which gives you the firms. Everything is Unconfirmed at this point, because the SEC list is every registered broker-dealer in the country.
- Axial second, which confirms which of those actually do lower middle market sell-side work. This is the step that makes the directory useful rather than merely large.
- IBBA for named people.
Run out of order and it still works — Axial just has fewer firms to match against.
What a fetch changes
| Adds | Changes | Removes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEC | New firms | Updates firms with the same CIK | nothing |
| Axial | Rarely new firms | Sets matching firms to LMM confirmed | nothing |
| IBBA | New contacts | Updates contacts with the same IBBA id, may attach a firm | nothing |
Nothing is ever deleted by a fetch.
When a fetch does not add much
Usually matching, working as intended:
- SEC matches on CIK, so the same firm updates rather than appearing twice
- Axial matches on the firm name with punctuation and suffixes like Inc or LLC stripped. A match confirms an existing firm; it does not invent a new one
- IBBA matches on its own broker id, and attaches a firm when the company name matches. IBBA never changes LMM status
So a fetch reporting many updates and few new records is normal on a second run.