Overview Of Cras And Its Effect On Investment Portfolios

Credit ratings are opinions about credit risk and convey the agency’s opinion about the capacity and readiness of an issuer to meet its financial requirements on time. Each agency has its own individual structured assessment process and rating systems, however the overall outcome is provide companies with an average calculation of credit risk (Viney, 2012). Different factors affect a company’s credit rating, for example country risk which includes the economic, business and social environment and sovereign risk which includes direct/indirect political interventions. However BHP Billiton is currently under pressure due to the market environment, in particular relation to the current economic conditions.

The world’s financial system was almost brought down in 2008 by the collapse of Lehman Brothers that was a major international investment bank at that time. The government sponsored these banks’ bailouts that were funded by tax money in order to restore the industry. Before the crisis, banks were lending irresponsible mortgages to subprime borrowers who had poor credit histories. These mortgages were purchased by banks and packaged into low-risk securities known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). CDOs were divided into tranches by its default risk. The ratings of those risks were determined by rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. However, those agencies were paid by banks and created an environment in which agencies were being generous to ratings since banks were their major clients.

Then, in the 1990s, bonds were created consisting of subprime mortgages, which were higher risk mortgages with high interest rates, made to borrowers with lower credit levels. Essentially, banks were handing out mortgages like candy to consumers who were never going to be able to make the payments, but Wall Street kept buying and packaging the mortgages into bonds. Since these bonds were inherently riskier, one wonders why investors were still willing to buy. Investors, who look at ratings by agencies such as Moodys and Standard & Poors, had no reason to believe these bonds were risky investments. The agencies, whom were being paid by Wall Street, were assigning high ratings to these risky bonds.

ratings while MHS’s Moody bond rating remained stable at A2 from 1996 to 2007, and increased

In 2008, one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression occurred. The severity of this collapse cannot be understated as demonstrated by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the US, and with many other financial institutions such as Merrill Lynch and the Royal Bank of Scotland having to be bailed out. In addition, the Global Banking System was within a whisker of collapsing and if it where not for the trillions of dollars invested in the system by national banks then this banking collapse would have lead to economic catastrophe. Therefore, in order to avoid such a calamity from occurring again, it is important to ask the question why did this financial recession occur and what factors contributed towards this downfall? Although there are many reasons as to why this recession occurred it could be argued that securitized lending and shadow banking played the largest role in this economic crisis. It is therefore important to understand what securitized lending and shadow banking means. Securitized lending is the process by which a financial institution such as a bank pools illiquid assets, such as residential and commercial mortgages and auto loans (by which the bank receives from the public through house mortgages and loans), and loans these newly formed short-term bonds to third party investors in exchange for cash or collateral. Since its creation in the 18th century, securitized lending was increasingly popular and very much

The stakeholders in this case include investors, shareholders, and investment banks. At first they benefited because they were receiving high returns from the growing profits of Moody’s. Eventually, however, the demand for securities grew to the point where the banks could not create enough. This caused the stakeholders to suffer, and due to high interest rates, they could never recover.

Since the onset of the financial crisis 2008, the sovereign debt crisis in western economies and the new financial regulation with Basel III coming up, the financial industry faces the challenge of reinventing itself. The ring-fence for Commercial and Investment Banking, and new economic and regulatory capital requirements will determine the kinds of products banks will be able to distribute. It will have a huge impact in the Investment Banking business, which will suffer tough regulation and supervisory procedures. At the same time, credit risk models will be reviewed because they have failed to predict the crisis of 2008. The current financial and economic crisis doesn’t have any precedent in the past.

The main conflict that has plagued Moody's was they were paid by the same institution that issued the bonds it rated. The core of Moody's business was rating the safety and the security of the bonds issued by companies, government, and the public agencies alike. Their main goal was to satisfy the bond issuers who naturally would seek out the highest possible rating. However, this conflicted with investors who were more interested in seeking out a naturally accurate rating that was not false. Moody's was also tasked to rate to the creditworthiness of the various branches of the mortgage-backed security. Investors had no ideas as to how to assert the safety and security because products were grouped and sold in multiple shares to other investors. To resolve the conflict the relationship between the issuer of bonds and rating agencies should be better handled. This can occur in the form of the Securities and Exchange Commission to determine the best possible approach for this to occur. As well as for the house of representative to audit credit rating companies, investors, and

The incumbent credit raters had received severe criticism following the collapse in creditworthiness and prices of mortgage-and asset-backed securities during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. The three large rating agencies were accused of facilitating a vast bubble in these securities by issuing overly

Rating agencies also had a strong motivation to compete for market share by catering to their clients. In 2000, Moody’s became an independent, publicly owned firm after being released by its parent company, Dun & Bradstreet. This placed even more pressure on Moody’s managers to increase revenues and improve their shareholder’s returns. (Lawrence, p. 456) From this point on, we begin to see the credit rating agencies drastically underestimate the risks of mortgage-backed securities in a selfish attempt to further their own bottom lines. The birth of structured finance came from new techniques of quantitative analysis used by Wall Street investment banks, and suddenly, Moody’s was not just evaluating corporate, municipal, state and federal government bonds. Structured finance consisted of combining income-producing assets—everything from conventional corporate bonds to credit card debt, home mortgages, franchise payments, and auto loans—into pools and selling shares in the pool to investors. (Lawrence, p. 456)

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Threat The leading ratings agencies, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch — a triumvirate some liken to an oligopoly, almost dominate the whole market. Their long history operations, great reputation and customers’ loyalty in the industry lead them incomparable to new entrants. Furthermore, Kroll also faces competition from new entrants like Meredith Whitney, a banking analyst who is getting into the ratings business, and Morningstar, of mutual fund fame, and the Chinese municipal rating agency Dagong with huge capital. Therefore, it is tough for Kroll to break into this new industry where the three dominant incumbents have 97% of all ratings.

It should be noted, prior to the crisis, there was already an increasing concern of economists and critics about the credit quality that was provided by the financial sector at the time when there was low interest rates that were applied by the government. There were also issues about the inappropriateness or ineffectiveness of the standards that were used in extending credit by the financial sector (Calvo, 171).

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List of abbreviations List of tables Acknowledgements Abstract 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Introduction Problem statement Objectives and hypothesis of the study Literature review Structure and performance of the financial sector in