CONSULTING SERVICES
RATING AGENCY ADVISORY
Provide companies with expert guidance to optimize their ratings and working relationships with the rating agencies.
Consulting Service
- Review and evaluate clients’ business plan documents and financial statements/data to gain a thorough understanding of the company’s strategy/operations, competitive advantages and core competencies, and key success drivers and results.
- Review and critique clients’ existing rating agency presentations and the rating agencies’ existing reports on the companies, identify positive and negative rating factors, and propose dialogue, data and presentation techniques to incorporate into the companies’ rating agency presentation packages.
- Assist company management in preparing rating agency presentations, conduct dry runs of the presentations, and assist the company in strategizing and preparing for rating meeting follow-up and ongoing dialogue with the rating agencies. A focus of this particular service is presenting in the best possible light all company strategies, initiatives and results, and avoiding commentary that will lead to unfavorable reactions.
- Provide guidance on ‘indicative’ ratings … the proposed impact on ratings of any corporate initiative. This guidance is, in effect, a “strategic handicapping” of any initiative or transaction; mergers/acquisitions and financial transactions are the two most common examples.
- Create strategies focused on obtaining improved ratings (commentary, information, dialogue management with the rating analysts).
