Weekly Downgrade Wrap-Up (Including Too Many Withdrawals)
As usual, we have a week’s worth of downgrades PE-backed company debt from Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s. (It’s a day early this week as tomorrow is a holiday.) This week there are only four, two of which were followed by withdrawals. As these withdrawals -- which happen “at the company’s request” -- increase, I'm starting to wonder about the ratings agencies (which naturally take their fair share of the blame for the credit crunch). I don’t like the idea that if a company doesn’t like what’s being said about its debt, it can make one phone call to silence the critics. It’d be like a public company dropping an analyst that rates it a “sell.” It’s unfair to debt holders.
9 April 2009•3 mins read
