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Sayari Graph User Guide

Sayari Graph is the first purpose-built tool for navigating the complexity of global corporate ownership, control, and commercial relationships.

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Quality data starts at the source. Sayari Graph is built out of hundreds of millions of public records from around the world, gathered using streaming collection infrastructure and parsed into a unified data model.

In this model (Fig. 1), Sayari analysts and data scientists first identify a valuable public data source and

collect its contents as raw documents. Examples include a Lebanese voter database or a Bermudan

company registry.

Fig. 1: The Sayari Graph data model

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Once collected, we turn each document into a record: a structured representation of the original

document. From a registry webpage with a company ID number and director names, we produce a

record in which the company is the principal entity, its ID number is an attribute, and the directors are

separate entities connected to the company via ‘Director of’ relationships.

To identify these pieces of information, documents must be machine-legible and somewhat structured.

Company meeting minutes, for instance, do not meet this criteria. Nevertheless, these types of

unstructured documents are compelling sources of information. Sayari Graph allows you to view them

and search across their text, and if they were filed to a public database by a person or company in Sayari

Graph, the application will report that connection.

After converting a document into a record, we compare the entities in each record to the rest of our database.

When we’re confident that we see the same entity mentioned in more than one record, we merge them

together. If we think two entities are probably the same but are not confident enough to merge them, we

link them through a ‘Possibly Same As’ relationship (Fig. 2) and provide the user with our basis for that

judgment. Entity resolution processes always have room for improvement, and users should expect to

see duplicate entities derived from some sources. Improving entity resolution is a constant goal.

The final step in the Sayari Graph data model is our recurring data refresh and rebuild. Each week we

refresh and ingest millions of new public records. During this process, we rebuild the entirety of Sayari

Graph, allowing entity matching processes to recalculate and improve. Existing entity profiles are

enriched with new relationships and attributes, and new entities are added to a living, breathing model of

the corporate and financial world.

Fig. 2: Possibly Same As matches in Sayari Graph

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Application View Types

Sayari Graph allows users to interact with its data via four main views: Search, Dossier, Record, and

Graph.

Fig. 3: Search View

Search View allows you to search for an entity or record.

The application runs your search terms against key attribute fields of the entities in our database –

currently name, address, identifier, contact information, and position – and simultaneously against the

text of those fields in source records, as well as the text of unstructured records (e.g. company meeting

minutes or trade register gazettes). The Advanced Search offers additional controls.

When you’ve completed a search, the results will appear below. The Entities and Records tabs allow

you to toggle between the two sets of results, and the additional dropdown menus at the top allow you

to filter your results. Click on Search Tips to read about how to tailor your search terms to return better

results on your next query.

Click on a result to go either to Dossier View (entity results) or Record View (record results).

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Dossier View provides detailed information about each entity.

The header provides key entity details like name, ID number, and address, and the tabs allow you to view

more specific information about connections to other entities, attributes, and records in which the entity

is mentioned.

Fig. 4: Dossier View

Record View provides detailed information about each record.

This view includes the original text of the document where relevant, plus the entities we extracted from it.

You can also translate and, where available, download the original document.

Fig. 5: Record View

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Graph View builds an interactive network chart of any entity or set of entities.

This view is accessible through the Graph button in the upper right-hand corner. Your graph will be blank

by default. You can add entities using the + Add to Graph button in the Search View or Dossier View.

Across all four views, you can return to your search results using the Back to Search button at the top of

the page, or return to Graph View using the Graph button.

Fig. 6: Graph View

API Access

We offer RESTful API access to Sayari Graph via a standardized user contract with credit-based price

tiers. Responses include the same content available to you through the user interface, and allow queries

of both entities and documents. Searches are free of charge; users are only charged for viewing full entity

profiles or documents.

For more information about our API, please visit docs.sayari.com

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Workflow Examples

Sayari Graph supports a variety of workflows catering to different use cases. This section provides two

examples of common workflows focused on entity disambiguation – figuring out which entities represent

the same real-life person or company – and beneficial ownership.

Fig. 7: Search results for ‘victoria beckham’

Example I: Entity Disambiguation

In this workflow example, we’re looking for the English singer and fashion designer Victoria Beckham.

This example highlights the fact that your person or company of interest may be represented by more

than one entity in Sayari Graph.

A query for ‘victoria beckham’ returns eight results (Fig. 7). Three are people with a matching name. The

first result has 11 connections, so we click on it first to go to its Dossier View page. (We’ll want to return to

the other two person results later.)

In Dossier View (Fig. 8), we can see details about this Victoria and entities to which she is connected. She

has the middle name ‘Caroline,’ four different UK person numbers, and was born in April 1974. We know

we have the right person because she is connected to companies with “Spice Girls” in the name.

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Once we’re done viewing this Victoria’s details, we’ll want to examine the Possibly Same As tab. Here, we

see two additional individuals named Victoria Caroline Beckham, both born in April 1974 (Fig. 9).

Fig. 8: Victoria Beckham search result in Dossier View

After clicking on these entities to navigate to their Dossier View pages, we can see that the first is

connected to additional entities with “Spice Girls” in the name, and the second has “Fashion Designer,”

which matches the first Victoria we identified. This suggests these two profiles also represent the same

Victoria Beckham we have been looking for. In fact, these two entities are the same as the two other

person results returned by our initial ‘victoria beckham’ search. By viewing them now, we no longer need

to return to our search results to examine other possible matches.

Fig. 9: Possibly Same As tab within Dossier View

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In sum, we’ve examined all three cases of a ‘victoria beckham’ in the entire Sayari Graph database and

determined that they are the same person. We can consider their attributes and relationships in the

aggregate rather than as separate individuals.

We could continue this investigation in a number of ways:

• Return to Search View and examine records that may mention Victoria

• Add Victoria to the graph and examine her connections in Graph View

• Explore Victoria’s downstream holdings using the Explore tab in Dossier View

Fig. 10: Setting up an advanced search for ‘barcelona industrial’ in the Name field

Example II: Beneficial Ownership

In this workflow example, we’ll explore the functions in Sayari Graph that allow us to find beneficial

ownership connections. This example highlights the fact that the Explore tab in Dossier View can quickly

provide information on the things entities own and are owned by.

We’re trying to find the beneficial ownership of a Brazilian company called ‘Barcelona Industrial.’ A query

for those terms returns 291 results. To narrow down the results, we use the Advanced Search dropdown

(Fig. 10) to require that ‘barcelona industrial’ appear in the Name field of the resulting entities, and we put

“quotation marks around the phrase” to require that it be an exact phrase match. (See the Search Tips

button in Search View for more information on operators.) The results show only one company, which

must therefore be our match.

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In Dossier View, we see that Barcelona Industrial is linked to two other companies, both of which are its

shareholders. This means that beneficial ownership runs through these two entities.

Fig. 11: The Relationships tab of the Dossier View page for Barcelona Industrial

From here, we have two options for identifying Barcelona’s beneficial owners. The first is manual: click

on its shareholders to view their dossiers, following the chain up until we’ve identified all points that

terminate at natural persons.

The second option is to use the Explore tab to do this for us. Click the Explore tab, then select Beneficial

Ownership. This preset will show us terminal beneficial ownership nodes: individual people who own a

direct or indirect shareholding stake in Barcelona, as well as any companies that own Barcelona for which

Sayari Graph doesn’t have structured ownership data. Click the Submit button to run the search.

The application returns three terminal beneficial ownership nodes: Renato de Castro Ferreira, Marcia

Regina Ferreira, and Marisa Cristina Ramos Sanches (Fig. 12). By viewing the diagram at the right or

clicking to open the relationship chains on the left, we can see the paths through which each of these

individuals beneficially owns Barcelona Industrial. (For clarity, only one ownership path is shown per

beneficial owner; all paths are visible in Graph View and the Relationships tab.)

Fig. 12: The results of a beneficial ownership search on Barcelona Industrial

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For a more complete picture, we can add Barcelona Industrial to the graph with the + Add to Graph

button in the upper right-hand corner from Dossier View. Click the Graph button on the top navigation

bar to switch to Graph View.

After clicking on Barcelona Industrial in Graph View, we can expand its links via the Expand button on its

card to view its two shareholders (Fig. 13). We can expand those, in turn, to view their connections, and so

on.

We could continue this investigation in a number of ways:

• Filter the relationships displayed in Graph View to focus only on shareholder links

• Go to the beneficial owners’ Dossier View pages and find their downstream holdings via the Explore tab

• Search for the beneficial owners’ names in Search View to locate unstructured records where they may

be mentioned

Fig. 13: Barcelona Industrial in Graph View

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Frequently Asked Questions about Sayari Graph

Note: Questions about data structure, ontology, and entity resolution may be answered by our public documentation. Please see

the Documentation link in the upper right-hand corner user account menu or at docs.sayari.com.

Data Content & Coverage

What type of information do you collect for each entity in your database?

Anything that fits into a meaningful legal-corporate map of the world: corporate ownership, identifying

information, real property, litigation, international cargo shipments, trademarks, etc. Please see docs.

sayari.com for more information about the Sayari Graph ontology.

How do I read/interpret this document I found in Sayari Graph?

Take a look at the articles in our Knowledge Center at knowledge.sayari.com, each of which has been

written by a Sayari analyst fluent in a geographical region’s public records and languages.

Do you include sanctions lists, watchlists, or blacklists?

Yes. Sayari Graph includes within-country watchlists (e.g. Mexico SAT 69 taxpayer list) and international

watchlists levied by foreign countries (e.g. U.S. Treasury OFAC SDN list).

Do you collect social media or negative news?

No.

What about paywalled corporate registry databases?

We do not break paywalls. When corporate registries are paywalled, we will generally first seek to

establish a licensing arrangement through which we can purchase bulk data from registry authorities.

If this is not feasible, our second preference is to integrate a charge-per-use API with equivalent

information.

How often do you refresh your data?

Constantly. Each source runs on its own schedule to account for client usage, size, and complexity.

All refreshes take place at least once per year, and typically more frequently than that for the average

source.

I found a useful database. Can you integrate it into Sayari Graph?

We’re happy to take a look! Please contact your designated Customer Success Manager or shoot us an

e-mail at customersuccess@sayarianalytics.com.

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Do you cover the British Virgin Islands?

We have all the public corporate data from the British Virgin Islands that is allowed to be disclosed

by law. We also cover corporate registries in offshore financial centers like Bermuda, Luxembourg,

Macao, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as real property ownership rolls in places like Switzerland,

Montenegro, and the United States.

Using a graph-formatted database allows us to collate data into a single entity profile, allowing us to build

a model of the corporate world that includes information on people and companies from countries in

which the user may not know they are active and that may have more generous disclosure requirements.

This means that although the British Virgin Islands may not disclose shareholder information publicly,

Sayari Graph can still have shareholder information on BVI companies if, for example, they submitted

their articles of incorporation to the South Sudan corporate registry to open a branch office or establish a

partnership, which does require shareholder disclosures.

Our blog post on using foreign-filed documents examines this technique in detail.

Data Structure & Access Methods

Do you have an API for the data in Sayari Graph?

We offer RESTful API access to Sayari Graph via a standardized user contract with credit-based price

tiers. Responses include the same content available to you through the user interface, and allow queries

of both entities and documents. Searches are free of charge; users are only charged for viewing full

entity profiles or documents. For more information about our API, please see our public documentation

at docs.sayari.com, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager, or email us at customersuccess@

sayarianalytics.com

How are you sure your resolutions are correct?

We document our resolution rules, as well as our rules for generating less conservative Possibly Same

As relationships. There are risks inherent to any form of entity resolution, so we provide as much

transparency as possible to our users.

If I find a mistake or I think two entities are the same, can I fix that in the application?

We welcome suggestions for modifications to our entity matching logic. For data integrity reasons, we do

not currently envision allowing users to write to the Sayari Graph database or implement logic tailored to

specific entities. If you notice an entity that does not appear to abide by our resolution or Possibly Same

As rules, please let us know via your designated Customer Success Manager or via the blue Zendesk

widget in the application.

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Application Functionality

What tools do you offer to analyze entities domiciled in countries where the user does not speak the

local language?

Sayari Graph offers four types of translation functions:

• On-demand Google translation of text in the Sayari Graph user interface. Dossier View and Record View

have Translate buttons in the upper right-hand corner, and Search View allows the user to translate

search terms (before running a query) and search results (after running a query).

• Translations generated by Sayari. We built a deep learning model that generated translations of all

Chinese company and person names in our database. In Dossier View, these translations appear with

a label that indicates that we created them. We hope to build upon this foundation and add other

languages going forward.

• Character-by-character transliteration of search terms, currently active for the cyrillic alphabet and

Pinyin (Chinese). This means that each time you perform a search, your search terms automatically pass

through a transliteration model that looks for Chinese and cyrillic versions of the terms you entered.

For example, if you search for ‘Xue Mingyuan’ or ‘Viktor Vekselberg,’ even if there is no record with that

text in our database, Sayari Graph will still return any results where the transliteration of those names

into cyrillic or Pinyin characters matches the cyrillic or Pinyin names of entities in our database.

• Translations native to the original document, e.g. a Chinese company that discloses its English language

name in Roman alphabet characters. Translations will appear anywhere they are disclosed in the

document.

Why am I seeing multiple search results for the same person/company?

Without additional information or identifiers, there is no easy way to tell whether John Doe, CEO of a New

York corporation, is the same person as John Doe, shareholder of a Russian limited liability company.

Rather than merge the two profiles based on name alone – which would generate millions of false

positives – we instead keep them as separate entities by default.

We will tie two entities together if they match our entity resolution or Possibly Same As rules. All entities

in our database will have the opportunity to test against these rules each week when we pull in new data,

push changes to our logic, and recalculate all entities, attributes, and relationships. Please see docs.

sayari.com/resolution for more information on entity resolution.

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How do I send feedback about Sayari Graph?

For general product feedback, we have a survey form available via the user account menu in the upper

right-hand corner of the Sayari Graph application. For more substantive feedback, please get in touch

with your designated Customer Success Manager.

Can I integrate my own data into Sayari Graph?

We hope to develop the infrastructure for a “build-your-own-Graph” feature set during 2020.

What user workflow tools does Sayari Graph contain?

We hope to add export, watchlisting, and workspace functionality during 2020.

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