Introduction

On 19th March 2008, Standard & Poor's assigned recovery ratings to more than 1,800 unsecured loan and bond issues sold by nearly 900 speculative- grade rated corporate issuers in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

A list of the EMEA recovery ratings assigned and the corresponding issue-level rating are available in Latest Announcements section below.

Since May 2004 Standard & Poor’s Rating Services has been assigning recovery ratings to senior secured loans and bonds in the sub-investment grade leveraged finance market. To date we have assigned over 180 recovery ratings in this rapidly developing market. Since December 2006 we have assigned recovery ratings to subordinated secured instruments; an important part of many LBO financings in Europe.

Whilst the US and European leveraged finance markets share many characteristics and are becoming increasingly integrated, an important factor in Europe is the different insolvency regimes which can have a material impact on the recovery prospects. To support our own analysis and assist investors, we have published 12 reports to date and plan to publish 40 by year-end globally. These reports are available on Ratings Direct using the Advance Search / Research function, then typing the words “Law of Insolvency” into the keyword search box.

For more information contact:
Paul Drake +44 (0)20 7176 7207
David Gillmor +44 (0)20 7176 3673
Paul Watters +44 (0)20 7176 3542