Bangkok--12 May--Standard & Poor's
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today published a Request for Comment on proposed updated methodology and assumptions for rating United States state governments. This updated methodology would replace portions of "U.S. Public Finance Criteria: GO Debt" published Oct. 12, 2006 and is related to "Principles Of Corporate And Government Ratings," published June 26, 2007.
PROPOSAL
Standard & Poor's publicly rates all 50 states based on our qualitative and quantitative analysis of a range of financial, economic, and institutional factors. We are proposing to separate the criteria for our review of states from the broader general obligation (GO) criteria in order to provide greater clarity and detail in explaining our methodology and the quantitative and qualitative factors that influence state ratings.
Specifically, we are asking market participants:
Do you agree with separating the GO criteria for U.S. states from the broader GO criteria article that we have historically published covering all levels of governments, in order to provide greater transparency?
Do you agree that the proposed rating factors and individual metrics focus on the key factors affecting state government creditworthiness? Can you comment on the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?
Do you agree with scoring each individual metric in order to establish an overall score for each factor and translating that score to a rating? Do you agree that it results in a more transparent approach?
RATINGS IMPACT
We do not expect any significant rating changes as a result of this criteria update.
DETAILS
The proposed criteria can be found at "Methodology For U.S. State Ratings."
RESPONSE DEADLINE
We encourage market participants to submit written comments on the proposal and the above questions by June 11, 2010 to
[email protected].
TELECONFERENCE
Standard & Poor's will host a teleconference on this proposal on Tuesday, May 18 at 2:00 p.m. ET.
Live Dial-In Number: 1-210-234-6461
Conference ID#: 7897363
Passcode: SANDP
Replay Number: 1-203-369-0072
Replays will expire on Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Live Streaming (audio only):
URL: http://www.mymeetings.com, Under Participant Join, select join an event
Conference ID#: 7897363
Passcode: SANDP
Replay Web Streaming (audio only):
URL: http://www.mymeetings.com/nc/join
Conference ID#: 7897363
Passcode: SANDP
Replay will expire on Tuesday, June 15, 2010
If you have any questions about the conference call, please e-mail
[email protected]. Please send any address corrections via e-mail to
[email protected].
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Media Contact:
Ana Sandoval, New York (1) 212-438-5095,
[email protected]
Analyst Contacts:
Robin Prunty, New York (1) 212-438-2081
James Wiemken, Chicago (1) 312-233-7005
Horacio Aldrete-Sanchez, Dallas (1) 214-871-1426
Colleen Woodell, New York (1) 212-438-2118
Mark Adelson, New York (1) 212-438-1075