Moody's Investors Service has finalized an agreement with Midroog, a new rating agency being formed in Israel, to hold an initial minority equity interest in the firm. Midroog has received approval from the Israeli Ministry of Finance to begin operations.
Moody's will have the ability to increase its ownership over time. Moody's will provide technical support on rating methodology and analyst training, based on its globally recognized credit analysis techniques for companies, municipal governments and structured finance securities, the investors service reported.
Midroog will provide a domestic ratings service, rendering opinions of the relative creditworthiness of issuers or issues within the State of Israel. Separately, Moody's will continue to provide globally comparable ratings for domestic as well as cross-border financings of Israeli based companies.
Moody's Investors Service publishes credit opinions, research, and ratings on fixed-income securities, issuers of securities and other credit obligations. The firm provides credit ratings and analysis on more than $30 trillion of debt covering approximately 136,000 corporate, government and structured finance securities, 67,000 public finance obligations, 6,000 corporate and financial institution relationships and 100 sovereign nations. Moody's is a subsidiary of Moody's Corporation, which reported revenues one billion dollars in 2002. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
