Blaise Ganguin - Standard & Poor’s Blaise Ganguin is Chief Credit Officer, Europe, with Standard & Poor’s, based in Paris, co-ordinating all analytical policy and quality assurance aspects of the rating process in Europe. He joined S&P in 1994 in Toronto as a corporate analyst and has since held various senior positions in Canada and Europe. He has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Toronto, a Masters in history and political science from the University of La

Once thought of as a sleepy backwater, the ratings business is now widely viewed as a key driver in some of the most dynamic market sectors, structured finance and structured credit, among others. In the wake of Moody’s announcement on its Joint Default Analysis, but ahead of the release of its revised methodology, IFR invited some of the industry’s key players to discuss the changing role and key challenges of the ratings business. Sam Theodore, managing director of financial institutions at DB

IFR: I think it is time to move on. I am going to be the first person to mention Joint Default Analysis (JDA), which had to come. Michael, Moody's is still near the beginning of wheeling this out; were you surprised by the reaction it received? Madelain: This has been a process that has been taking place a little over two years now. There has been extensive market outreach and discussion and I think one has to differentiate between the perception around the conceptual framework and the actual ex

IFR: If regulators worldwide rely heavily on the agencies, should they maybe not bear some of the costs? Theodore: Some of them (the regulators) pay for subscriptions to certain services, but in answer to the initial question of whether a rating agency should take the role of the regulator, my answer would be: if this is a passive process, there is nothing you can do. If a regulator chooses to use the rating and regulations, this is not an outcome that a rating agency should necessarily be looki

IFR: If it is more a question of track record, to what extent could unsolicited ratings be used to establish this? Ganguin: They have been used in the market to establish a platform and a track record, and it has been something of a hot debate in the US as to whether they were going to favour unsolicited ratings or not and the extent to which unsolicited ratings are used in a non-predatory way but more to establish a track record. This is something that all rating agencies have done to enter a n

IFR: How many ratings would an issuer realistically be willing to pay for? Ged Hawley (HBOS Treasury Services): It is quite difficult. Competition is a good thing, but the reality is, as an issuer, we look very hard at what our investor base wants from us and the reality is that S&P and Moody's stand out, with Fitch third. If somebody is putting together a transaction, they are obviously trying to provide a ratings sweep that is familiar to the investor base. Would we be prepared to pay more