From Books On line:  The syntax for declaring a cursor is: 

Transact-SQL Extended Syntax

DECLARE cursor_name CURSOR

[ LOCAL | GLOBAL ]

[ FORWARD_ONLY | SCROLL ]

[ STATIC |...

First I would recomend cleaning out "extra" chars like ".,-:;" etc.  Secondly I would remove any common parts of company names or at the very least make sure that they...

Try Using a Table Variable:

Transactions that involve table variables last only for the duration of an update on the table variable. Therefore, table variables require less locking and logging resources....