ISINs & SEDOLs

[mc2fool]

Not sure if this is the best place for this but ...

Having recently got a list of gilts* which included their ISINs and then discovered that Interactive Investor doesn't accept ISINs but does take SEDOLs, I went looking for how, if possible, to get one from the other and actually it's quite simple, for ISIN to SEDOL at least.

The ISIN for a security is simply the SEDOL with the country code (e.g. "GB") and "00" bunged on the front, and a check digit added on the end, so if you've got the ISIN you can easily extract the SEDOL. E.g.

GB00BL68HJ26 is the ISIN for the Treasury 0.125% 30/01/2026 gilt and the underlined part, BL68HJ2, is the SEDOL
IE0005042456 is the ISIN for the iShares Core FTSE 100 ETF and the underlined part, 0504245, is the SEDOL

Of course, there are some sources that list both anyway, but if you've got a spreadsheet containing ISINs then the quick way of getting the SEDOL is =MID(ISIN,5,7)

SEDOL to ISIN Is a little more complex 'cos of the check digit at the end. For individual cases there's https://www.isindb.com/convert-sedol-to-isin/

* from https://reports.tradeweb.com, free registration required.