Overview
New York-based Standard & Poor's Corp. is a credit-rating agency and analysis company. Along with rivals Fitch Inc. and Moody's Corp., S&P is one of three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations. S&P, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc., also produces the Standard & Poor's 500 benchmark index of U.S. large cap stocks.
S&P and its rivals are facing regulatory scrutiny over whether some securities that vaporized amid the financial crisis deserved their top-tier ratings, according to The Wall Street Journal. Fee practices are expected to change to avoid incentives to go easy on company ratings in order to win business. The Federal Reserve's bank-rescue effort was seen as a windfall for rating agencies since new bonds under the program will need to pass muster with least two of the three NRSOs, the paper reports.
Deven Sharma became president in 2007, coming from McGraw-Hill management ranks.