Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Supports Initiative to Establish European Rating Agency

Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Supports Initiative to Establish European Rating Agency

NYTimes: A Corporate Sleuth Tries the Credit Rating Field

From The New York Times:

A Corporate Sleuth Tries the Credit Rating Field

Jules Kroll, known for corporate detective work, wants to shake up a business tarnished by the financial crisis.

http://nyti.ms/hjwQ03

Financial Times: Moody's forecasts 'distress' for US muni markets

February 20 2011 10:50 PM GMT
Moody's forecasts 'distress' for US muni markets
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By Aline van Duyn in New York
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'There may be additional defaults in the municipal sector. There certainly is going to be distress'

Read the full article at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/01c136f6-3d2d-11e0-bbff-00144feabdc0.html (subscription may be required).

Jules Kroll Acquires Bond-Rating License - WSJ.com

This could be interesting. I wonder if the top rating will be a triple-K. Hmm, guess that might not work, on a whole bunch of levels.

Jules Kroll Acquires Bond-Rating License - WSJ.com

Bond Sale? Don't Quote Us, Say Credit Firms - WSJ.com

Bond Sale? Don't Quote Us, Say Credit Firms - WSJ.com

Fascinating position for the rating agencies to be in. We expect people to rely on ratings as part of the capital markets process, but we don't want to be called experts because that might mean we'd actually have to demonstrate some kind of discipline to our criteria and quality control of our ratings.

It's not just about the agencies

Buried in Credit Agencies Under Fire at Conference - Finance Career Management, Finance Career News - fins.com, which covers extensively the lambasting that the agencies took again this year at the Ira Sohn Research Conference, is a warning from Steve Eisman of FrontPoint Financial Services Fund about a pending collapse in the financial instruments funding the commercial education companies. His preso is called "Subprime Goes to College." (Hat tip to the MarketFolly blog for summarizing the presentations, which don't seem to be available online yet.)

Hey, Schweethart, get me bond ratings.

An interesting new entrant into the bond ratings business is Kroll Bond Ratings, whose startup is reported by Integrity Research in A Shake Up is Comming [sic] in the Credit Rating Space. Yes, it's the same Kroll that started the high-end detective agency in 1972, Kroll Associates.

Kroll claims it will do less predictive modeling to assign ratings, and will actually send people to see if mortgage-backed houses are being lived in. Good luck staffing that!