U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001

79–888 PDF 2002

S. Hrg. 107–471

RATING THE RATERS: ENRON AND THE CREDIT

RATING AGENCIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 20, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Staff Director and Counsel

CYNTHIA GOOEN LESSER, Counsel

BETH M. GROSSMAN, Counsel

THOMAS J. HOLLOMAN III, Legislative Fellow

RICHARD A. HERLTING, Minority Staff Director

WILLIAM M. OUTHIER, Minority Chief Counsel

JANA A. SINCLAIR, Minority Counsel

DARLA D. CASSELL, Chief Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening statements: Page

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1

Senator Thompson ............................................................................................ 4

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 5

Senator Bunning ............................................................................................... 6

WITNESSES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2002

Ronald M. Barone, Managing Director, Corporate and Government Ratings

Group, Standard & Poor’s ................................................................................... 6

John C. Diaz, Managing Director, Moody’s Investors Service ............................. 8

Ralph G. Pellecchia, Senior Director, Global Power Group, Fitch Ratings ........ 9

Hon. Isaac C. Hunt, Jr., Commissioner, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission .................................................................................................................. 40

Jonathan R. Macey, J. DuPratt White Professor of Law, Cornell Law School ... 43

Glenn L. Reynolds, Chief Executive Officer, CreditSights, Inc. .......................... 45

Steven L. Schwarcz, Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law ............. 46

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Barone, Ronald M.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 55

Diaz, John C.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 116

Hunt, Hon. Isaac C., Jr.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 40

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 131

Macey, Jonathan R.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 43

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 138

Pellecchia, Ralph G.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 129

Reynolds, Glenn:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 45

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 148

Schwarcz, Steven L.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 46

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 168

APPENDIX

Article entitled ‘‘Private Ordering of Public Markets: The Rating Agency

Paradox,’’ submitted by Mr. Schwarcz ............................................................... 175

Chart entitled ‘‘Project Margaux: Whitewing Associates, L.P. Financing

Transaction, September 24, 1999’’ (submitted by Senator Levin) .................... 207

Responses to Questions posed by Senator Levin during hearing from:

Ralph G. Pellacchia .......................................................................................... 208

Questions for the Record and responses from:

Hon. Hunt ......................................................................................................... 211

Mr. Macey ......................................................................................................... 212

Mr. Reynolds ..................................................................................................... 213

Mr. Schwarcz ............................................................................................................ 215

(1)

RATING THE RATERS: ENRON AND THE

CREDIT RATING AGENCIES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2002

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

Present: Senators Lieberman, Levin, Thompson, Bennett, and

Bunning.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning, and welcome to this fourth

in a series of Governmental Affairs Committee hearings on the collapse of Enron and the implications for Enron employees, investors,

and the American economy as a whole.

We are engaged in an ongoing investigation here into whether

the private and public watchdogs did all they could have done to

prevent or at least anticipate and warn the rest of us of Enron’s

collapse.

Today, we are going to look at the private sector credit rating

agencies that wield immense power—to me, quasi-governmental

power—to determine which companies within the corporate world

are creditworthy and which are not. In pursuit of our purpose here,

which is to learn the lessons of Enron and craft solutions to avoid

future corporate calamities of this sort, we will ask why the credit

raters continued to rate Enron as a good credit risk right up until

4 days before it declared bankruptcy.

In this particular part of our investigation, I must say I have

learned a lot that I didn’t know before about credit rating agencies.

A credit rating, I suppose self-evidently, is an assessment of a company’s creditworthiness or its likelihood of repaying its debt. The

entire corporate credit rating industry consists of just three entities, three agencies—Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s,

and Fitch Ratings—three agencies that exercise significant power

over corporate America, the markets, and, therefore, our entire

economy. These are private companies, but the enormous scope of

their influence comes largely as a result of their government-conferred power.

John Moody, the founder of what is now Moody’s Investors Service, is recognized, I have learned, for devising credit ratings in

1908, and he did so for public debt issues, mostly railroad bonds

at that time. Moody’s credit ratings, first published in 1909, met

2

a need for accurate, impartial, and independent information on

these bonds.

Now, almost a century later, an investment grade credit rating

has become an absolute necessity for any company that wants to

tap the resources of the capital markets. The credit raters really

do hold the key to capital and liquidity, which, after all, are the

lifeblood of corporate America and of our capitalist economy. The

ratings they give affect a company’s ability to borrow money. It affects whether a pension fund, for instance, or a money market fund

can invest in a company’s bonds, and it affects stock price. So the

difference between a good rating and a poor rating can be the difference literally between success and failure, or more intensively

stated, prosperity and poverty.

The government, through hundreds of laws and regulations, requires ratings. Corporate bonds, for instance, must be rated if they

are to be considered appropriate investments for institutional investors. Most of the laws that require credit ratings involve banks

and securities, but their reach, actually quite interestingly, also extends into education where schools must be rated in order to participate in certain financial assistance programs, and even into

transportation where highway projects must receive a rating to

qualify for Federal funding, and into telecommunications where

companies must be rated in order to receive Federal loan guarantees. These rating requirements, quite understandably, have been

placed by lawmakers in a whole series of economic activities as a

way to give some independent assessment of the strength of the

company.

Along with this power that the credit rating agencies have,

comes special access and special protections. The credit raters, for

example, I learned, are allowed to look at a company’s inside information when making assessments, and they are exempted from liability when they participate in securities offerings, which are two

benefits that give them more information than other analysts have

who work within our system.

Someone once said that raters hold ‘‘almost Biblical authority.’’

On a ‘‘NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’’ program in 1996, New York

Times columnist Tom Friedman went so far as to say, ‘‘There are

two superpowers in the world today: The United States and

Moody’s bond rating service. And, believe me, it’s not clear,’’ Friedman said, ‘‘sometimes who is more powerful.’’

With so much power, access, and protection, it’s not surprising

that profitability also follows close behind. Not all the agencies’

books are open because some of them are subsidiaries of larger corporations, but Moody’s was spun off into a separate company a few

years ago, and by one calculation my staff came across, it is worth

$6.2 billion. So nothing wrong with that, except it just indicates the

scope of the enterprise.

It seems reasonable that a power of this magnitude should go

hand in hand with some accountability, and yet once the SEC

anoints or accepts the status of a credit rating agency which is now

enjoyed by the three, the agencies are essentially left alone. So I

think it is appropriate, as we try to learn the lessons of Enron, to

ask whether these agencies should have some more ongoing sense

of accountability, some oversight from the SEC, for instance, as we

3

ask whether they are adequately and as fully as possible performing a function as watchdogs or gatekeepers.

In the Enron case, it seems to me that the credit raters were no

more knowledgeable about the company’s problems than anyone

else who was following its fortunes, including those who were following it in the newspapers. I just want to briefly go over some of

the events leading to the raters’ decisions to withdraw their assessment of Enron as a good credit risk.

Remember after a summer of last year during which Enron stock

steadily declined, it was reported in the third week in October that

the SEC had asked the company to disclose its ties to outside investment partnerships set up by the company’s chief financial officer. Enron stock dropped 20 percent that day, October 22, to a closing price of $20.65 per share. On October 24, CFO Andrew Fastow

resigned, and the stock went down another $5 to $16.41. Five days

later, on October 29, S&P’s credit rating analyst appeared on CNN.

By this time, the agencies had put Enron on a credit watch, but

the company was still literally investment rated as a good risk. The

S&P’s analyst predicted that, ‘‘Enron’s ability to retain something

like the rating that they’re at today is excellent in the long term.’’ When asked about the off-balance sheet partnerships which had become public, as I mentioned, the analyst assured investors that

there would be no long-term implications. ‘‘That’s something that’s

really in the past,’’ he said.

Now, I want to go back to the last hearing we held in this series

when a Wall Street analyst said to this Committee that his ‘‘buy’’ recommendation was supported by the confidence expressed by the

credit rating agencies, which he specifically pointed out had access

to inside information about Enron’s liabilities that he didn’t have.

So S&P’s confidence had an effect on others, and I want to ask the

witnesses about that today.

We know that as time went on, the market was not convinced.

The stock price continued its descent, dropping to $8.41 on November 8, when Enron disclosed it had overstated earnings by over half

a billion dollars since 1997. But, still, the rating agencies kept

Enron at investment grade. By November 28, the day Moody’s and

Standard & Poor’s downgraded Enron to junk bond status, effectively, the company’s stock was trading at just over $1, and 4 days

later, of course, it went into bankruptcy.

In other words, the credit raters, despite their unique ability to

obtain information unavailable to other analysts, were no more astute and no quicker than the others to act in warning and responding, and I want to ask about that today. The agencies, I understand, defend their ratings as opinions protected by the First

Amendment. They refer to their assessments as the world’s shortest editorials. But the fact is that their endorsement, if I can use

the metaphor of the editorials, is required by law unlike, fortunately, other endorsements that newspapers give or don’t give,

which are not required by law.

So the point here is that almost all the watchdogs who should

have barked before a lot of good people were hurt by Enron’s collapse didn’t. Among them were the credit rating agencies who had

more access to Enron’s books than most of the other watchdogs,

and the fundamental question we want to ask today is: Why did

4

that happen? And what can we do together, hopefully, to make

sure that the authority that credit rating agencies have is used as

actively as possible to protect and defend the integrity of our

capital markets, let alone the confidence of the millions of average

investors and not-so-average investors who are institutional investors. So I look forward to the hearing today, and I thank the witnesses who are here for being here.

Senator Thompson.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think you have

framed the issues very well, and I will just simply ask that my full

statement be made a part of the record.

I was given a summary here that I think accurately summarizes

the issues, and it says basically that these rating organizations are

delegated responsibility by the government for certifying certain

debt. They have the opportunity to access information that other

professionals and the public cannot due to their exemption from

Regulation FD. They are protected from competition by the SEC as

a result of their status. They have the ability to effectively collect

a tax from companies issuing debt, and they operate virtually free

from liability. And yet some think that there is very little accountability, so the issue here is whether or not that is a good situation,

and if not, what, if anything, should be done about it.

I think there are First Amendment implications. I think it is

clear that people need to understand these organizations do not

recommend buy or sell. They deal in broad categories, and perhaps,

if nothing more, we can illuminate exactly what they do and what

they do not do for the benefits of investors and the extent to which

investors should or should not rely upon what they are looking at.

So I think that very well frames the issues, and I look forward

to our witnesses today.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Thompson. Your full

statement, of course, will be printed in the record.

[The prepared statement of Senator Thompson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR THOMPSON

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today. I appreciate the way this

series of hearings has focused on the gatekeepers. Obviously, there is not much congress can do about individuals who choose to skirt or violate the law. However, I

think it is appropriate for us to review the actions of regulatory agencies or, as we

are looking at today, private entities with special dispensations from the government. That is the way I believe we can affect some positive change.

During our first hearing which covered a number of topics, Professor Frank

Partnoy testified about problems he saw in the structure of the credit rating agencies. Since that time, we have had an opportunity to delve deeper into that topic.

The issues raised about credit rating agencies are not unlike those raised during

our hearing on Wall Street analysts. For example, the Wall Street analysts maintained ‘‘buy’’ and ‘‘strong buy’’ ratings until very late in the year last year. Similarly,

each of the three credit rating agencies on our first panel maintained investment

grade ratings until just four days before Enron declared bankruptcy. Like the Wall

Street analysts, some of the reasons given for the positive ratings on Enron are that

the credit rating agencies were misled, they are not auditors and had to rely on

Enron’s financial statements and the work of Arthur Andersen, and because of the

anticipated merger with Dynegy which never occurred.

The difference with the Wall Street analysts is that the credit rating agencies do

not have similar conflict of interest concerns because they do not have the same investment banking relationships. However, questions about conflicts and incentives

5

to dig deep have been raised as a result of the unique regulatory setup involved

here.

My understanding of that setup is that three specific credit rating agencies currently have Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization, or NRSRO, status. Several regulations and statutes require issuers or debt holders to rely on

NRSRO ratings. As a result, issuers have little choice but to pay for ratings. Credit

rating agencies, by virtue of their exemption from Regulation FD, have the opportunity to obtain information that others cannot. And they are basically free from liability.

However, despite this special status, there appears to be little accountability.

Some writers have noted that the requirements for NRSRO status appear to be ‘‘inputs’’—their reputation, access and organization—but does not include ‘‘outputs.’’ that is, for example, some method of following the agencies to see how timely and

accurate their ratings are.

A number of proposals have been floated from adding more NRSROs, to eliminating the NRSRO status altogether, to maintaining the status quo and providing

more oversight. I look forward to hearing from the three credit rating agencies today

to hear their explanation for their decisions. I would note that during the hearing

on Wall Street analysts, we had to pick and choose among a number of firms, but

because of the oligopoly associated with the NRSROs, we have all three of those

firms here today. I am also pleased that in these hearings on government oversight

we finally have a government official here today and I look forward to the testimony

of Commissioner Hunt. I also look forward to hearing the experts discuss the current regulatory framework and what, perhaps, should be done to provide stronger

incentives and to engender greater confidence.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Levin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your continuing

determination to get to the bottom not just of the Enron disaster,

but also as to whether or not the problems disclosed are more endemic, more generic, and, therefore, require us to take some very

determined and specific actions to try to restore confidence in our

markets and in financial statements.

As the many failures of various players come to light and as we

dig deeper and deeper, the credit rating agencies clearly have a

role here that we have to investigate and, if necessary, take action

to see if we can’t improve this situation so that their ratings can

be more reliable.

As our Chairman pointed out, one of the big questions that we

are looking at is why were the rating agencies so slow to downgrade after the deceptions and the decline of Enron became public.

Even before the deceptions and decline became public, the agencies

were given access to information long before. Why didn’t they see

early signs, for instance, of the extreme use of structured finance

deals, the use of undisclosed guarantees not made public but which

apparently were made available to the rating agencies, which clearly affected the financial circumstance and situation of Enron? Not

just the undisclosed guarantees here, which were not made public

apparently, but also items which were left off these financial statements—liabilities which were omitted, which it would seem to me,

with an inside view that the credit rating agencies have, would

have shown that liabilities of Enron were omitted from the financial statements, which should have been disclosed.

So there is a whole host of questions here. I am glad that the

agencies are represented this morning, all of them, and that you,

Mr. Chairman, are pursuing this investigation because there are

many, many layers that need yet to be uncovered, to be disclosed,

to be analyzed, and for corrective action to be taken.

6

Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Levin.

Now we will go to the first panel: Ronald Barone, John——

Senator BUNNING. Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Oh, I am sorry. How could I forget the big

man.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BUNNING

Senator BUNNING. That is all right, Mr. Chairman. I understand

you want to get to the witnesses, but I do have some background

that I would like to—— Chairman LIEBERMAN. I apologize. Please.

Senator BUNNING. Back in March 2001, Fortune Magazine published an article by Bethany McLean titled, ‘‘Is Enron Overpriced?’’ Now, this is March 5, 2001. In that article, she asked several individuals to explain how Enron made its money. The responses were

not encouraging, according to the article. An analyst from Standard

& Poor’s said, ‘‘If you figure it out, let me know.’’ An analyst from

Fitch, who I believe is also testifying on our first panel today, said,

‘‘Do you have a year?’’ While these may have been off-the-cuff statements, they are very

disturbing. Many of the people the public and the investors depend

on to give them independent, unbiased, and accurate information

dropped the ball. There is certainly enough blame to go around

from the accountants to the analysts. Of course, most of the blame

rests solely on the shoulders of those Enron executives who apparently were not truthful to their employees, investors, or analysts.

But that doesn’t let the rest of you off the hook.

Last month, this Committee held a hearing on why Wall Street

analysts continued to recommend Enron stock even as the company

was collapsing. Those analysts told us that Enron withheld information and that the company’s financial documents were not properly audited. This may be true. However, the one independent financial analyst on the panel, Howard Schilit, from the Center for

Financial Research and Analysis, said that there were clear warnings in Enron’s public filings and that just by reading over the

statements the night before the hearing, he was able to pick out

multiple problems. He said, ‘‘For any analyst to say there were no

warning signs in the public filings, they could not read the same

public filings that I did.’’

The question that must be asked and answered is: How did

Enron get away with the questionable business practices for so

long? And what changes need to be made to ensure other companies cannot follow in Enron’s footsteps?

I appreciate the time the panelists testifying today have set aside

to be here, and I look forward to gaining their perspective on this

important issue.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Bunning.

Now we will go to the first panel: Ronald Barone, John C. Diaz,

and Ralph Pellecchia. Gentlemen, as is the custom of the Committee, I would ask you all to stand at the table and raise your

right hands so I can administer the oath. Do you solemnly swear

that the testimony that you will give this Committee today is the

7

1The prepared statement of Mr. Barone with attachments appears in the Appendix on page

55.

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you,

God?

Mr. BARONE. I do.

Mr. DIAZ. I do.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I do.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much. Please be seated,

and let the record show that the witnesses have answered the

question in the affirmative.

Mr. Barone, Managing Director of Standard & Poor’s, we thank

you for being here, and we look forward to your testimony now.

TESTIMONY OF RONALD M. BARONE,1 MANAGING DIRECTOR,

CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT RATINGS GROUP, STANDARD & POOR’S

Mr. BARONE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

Committee. I am Ronald M. Barone, a Managing Director in the

Corporate and Government Ratings Group of Standard & Poor’s.

From 1994 until Enron’s bankruptcy in December 2001, one of my

roles was to serve as an analyst and then a manager with respect

to our ratings work for Enron. On behalf of Standard & Poor’s, I

welcome this opportunity to appear at this hearing. As a member

of the financial community that relied on Enron for complete, timely, and reliable information, and instead received incomplete, deceptive, and, it now appears, fraudulent representations, Standard

& Poor’s supports the Committee’s urgent sense of the need to investigate the circumstances relating to Enron’s collapse.

Standard & Poor’s credit ratings have gained respect because

they are based on objective and credible analyses. Our reputation

ultimately depends on the credibility of our opinions. In order to

ensure maximum objectivity and in-depth analysis, ratings are assigned by a Committee, not by an individual, and no portion of an

analyst’s compensation is dependent on the performance of the

companies the analyst rates. The record bears out our method, as

there is a longstanding and strong correlation between the ratings

we initially assign and the eventual default record.

At their core, our ratings opinions are based on the issuer’s public information, including audited financial statements. We also

may have access to certain confidential information—we did with

Enron—but only to the extent the company is willing to provide

such information. We expressly rely on the companies we rate not

only for current and timely information at the time of the initial

rating but for material updates to that information.

From December 1995 until November 1, 2001, Standard & Poor’s

rating of Enron was BBB-plus, which we define as adequate ability

to repay debt but subject to worsening economic conditions. This

placed Enron at the lower levels of investment grade ratings, well

below what Enron repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, sought.

Standard & Poor’s made continuous efforts to monitor Enron’s

credit quality closely. When Enron’s troubles began to surface late

last year, we changed Enron’s outlook to negative on October 25.

Over roughly the next month, we downgraded Enron three times,

8

1The prepared statement of Mr. Diaz appears in the Appendix on page 116.

despite Enron’s announced acquisition by financially stronger

Dynegy. Indeed, we stated publicly that without the proposed

merger, Enron’s credit rating would likely fall below investment

grade.

On November 28, the day we determined that the merger was

unlikely to occur, yet still before Dynegy publicly called it off,

Standard & Poor’s lowered Enron’s rating to B-minus, a non-investment grade rating.

We now know things we did not know when we were rating

Enron. Despite our repeated requests for all information material

to our analysis, Enron appears to have intentionally concealed the

true nature of its debt obligations by treating almost $4 billion

worth of in-substance loans as financial hedges. Moreover, as documented in the report of Enron’s special committee, the company

also failed to adequately disclose its material dealings with the

Chewco, LJM1, LJM2, and Raptor partnerships.

In fact, beginning in October 1999, and prompted by Standard &

Poor’s express request for full information regarding Enron’s offbalance sheet partnerships, Enron made a series of formal presentations to us which they labeled as ‘‘a kitchen sink analysis’’ of all

the non-recourse debt for its off-balance sheet affiliates. But in the

presentations, two of which I have included with my testimony,

there is no mention of any of these partnerships.

Had Enron told Standard & Poor’s the truth about its financial

condition during the ratings process, as it was required to do, the

impact on Enron’s rating would necessarily have been significant.

In addition to having a financial impact, Enron’s disclosure failures

related directly to Enron’s honesty and, thus, to the validity of all

its numbers. Enron’s deceptions about its true debt burdens and

off-balance sheet dealings not only hid many of its debt obligations

from view, but were done, the Powers Report concluded, to accomplish favorable financial statement results, not to achieve bona fide

economic objectives.

Enron hid its true financial picture and, more specifically, its

true creditworthiness from Standard & Poor’s. Standard & Poor’s

publishes thousands of ratings that are subject to market scrutiny

every day. We welcome that scrutiny, and I welcome the opportunity to testify here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Barone.

Now we are going to hear from John C. Diaz, who is the Managing Director of Moody’s Investors Service. Thanks, Mr. Diaz.

Please go forward with your testimony now.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN C. DIAZ,1 MANAGING DIRECTOR,

MOODY’S INVESTORS SERVICE

Mr. DIAZ. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Thompson, and

Members of the Committee. My name is John Diaz, and I am a

Managing Director of Moody’s Investors Service. I am pleased to

have the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Moody’s,

the role that rating agencies play in the markets, and Moody’s actions in rating the Enron Corporation and its debt instruments.

9

Moody’s Investors Service is owned by Moody’s Corporation, a

New York Stock Exchange-traded company. Moody’s is the oldest

credit rating agency in the world. Our roots trace back to 1900,

when John Moody & Company first published Moody’s Manual of

Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities. From its beginning,

Moody’s Investors Service has focused on rating debt instruments,

and as early as 1924, Moody’s was rating nearly every bond in the

U.S. bond market.

Moody’s and other rating agencies occupy a niche in the investment information market. Ratings express relative creditworthiness. The heart of our service lies in ratings on long-term fixed-income debt instruments. We also provide, for instance, short-term

ratings, deposit ratings for banks, and various rating services in

foreign countries. Moody’s has nine primary long-term debt rating

categories. Investment grade ratings range from AAA at the high

end down to a low of Baa. Ratings below Baa are considered to be

speculative grade, or junk. Moody’s supplies this long-term scale to

ratings on other types of financial obligations and to companies.

We also assign short-term ratings—mainly to issuers of commercial

paper—on an independent scale that ranks obligations Prime–1,

Prime–2, Prime–3, or Not Prime. In all, Moody’s ratings are designed to provide a relative measure of risk, with the probability

of default increasing with lower ratings.

As part of Moody’s commitment to predictive ratings, we review

the relationship between defaults and our ratings. We publish an

annual study, which we call our default study, which consistently

shows that higher-rated bonds default less frequently than lowerrated bonds, although the rates of default may vary over time. Our

default studies show the predictive nature of our ratings. Put simply, as a forward-looking opinion, ratings effectively distinguished

bonds with higher credit risk from bonds with lower credit risk.

Our strong record is due in large part to the availability of reliable information. The combination of the financial disclosure regime in the United States, audited accounts, information that is

provided directly to Moody’s, and issuers’ good-faith dealings have

normally been sufficient. Enron was an anomaly, partly in the nature of its activities, and certainly in the disclosure of its activities.

As we have come to learn, Enron’s public disclosures and its responses to our specific requests for information were misleading

and incomplete. Although we do not have investigative authority,

our analysts are encouraged to exercise skepticism with respect to

an issuer’s claims and promises. That skepticism led us to assign

Enron a long-term rating that, at all times, was no better than low

investment grade and contained speculative elements.

Throughout Moody’s rating history with Enron, we followed processes and practices that conformed to our established methods of

credit analysis—methods that have been proven to predict relative

creditworthiness. In the case of Enron, however, that methodology

was undermined by the missing information upon which our ratings should have been based and the misleading information on

which the ratings were, in fact, based.

Having said that, my colleagues at Moody’s and I wish we had

discovered the information that would have allowed us to serve the

market more effectively in this instance. We acknowledge that the

10

1The prepared statement of Mr. Pellecchia appears in the Appendix on page 129.

public bond markets look to us for our opinion forecasts of longterm creditworthiness, and we recognize that the market does not

expect a very large issuer of bonds, which we have rated investment grade, to default very shortly after holding such a rating.

The integrity and reliability of our ratings and rating processes

are the essence of our business. We are constantly striving to enhance rating processes and quality, and we have examined the circumstances around the Enron bankruptcy to see what lessons can

be learned. For example, we are looking more comprehensively at

the role of so-called rating triggers, which can cause payment obligations to accelerate or require the posting of collateral based upon

a rating downgrade. We have enhanced our analysis of short-term

corporate financial capacity, that is to say, liquidity, and we are reviewing more thoroughly the sufficiency and certainty of an issuer’s

near-term sources of cash and credit under conditions of stress. We

have also contacted the large asset management firms in a coordinated review of their use of ratings in the marketplace. Finally, we

commend this Committee, along with Congress in general, for your

efforts to ensure the continued health of our financial markets.

I thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Diaz.

Finally, we are going to hear from Ralph Pellecchia, Senior Director of the Global Power Group of Fitch Ratings. Good morning.

TESTIMONY OF RALPH G. PELLECCHIA,1 SENIOR DIRECTOR,

GLOBAL POWER GROUP, FITCH RATINGS

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the

Committee. My name is Ralph Pellecchia, and I am a Senior Director in the Global Power Group of Fitch Ratings. I joined Fitch in

July 1989 as an analyst in the natural gas and power sector. I have

been the lead analyst following Enron at Fitch since May 1997. At

Fitch, I am the primary analyst for 14 companies in the Global

Power Group and one of 15 Fitch analysts covering the North

American Global Power sector.

Fitch is in the business of publishing independent ratings and

credit analysis of companies around the world. I am responsible for

coordinating this activity for the companies assigned to me. My

work includes regularly visiting companies I cover, maintaining

contacts with members of the finance staff and other important

personnel at those companies and staying current on events affecting the companies and the industry that I follow. I also conduct

much of the quantitative and qualitative analysis that Fitch uses

to assess credit of the companies we rate in my area.

Finally, my role as the primary analyst is to synthesize the

quantitative and qualitative analysis and to propose a rating, with

the final rating outcome to be determined by a credit committee.

The credit committee is comprised of a minimum of five voting

members typically specialists from the industry/sector, but frequently includes members from other groups within Fitch.

In my role as primary analyst, I am guided by procedures and

practices followed at Fitch. The ratings process related to Enron

was in all respects consistent with those procedures and practices.

11

The assessment process itself is a blend of quantitative and qualitative factors. The quantitative factors that are parts of the rating

process include an evaluation of published financial information,

supplemental financial information, and peer financial performance. Qualitative factors include business fundamentals, competitive position, growth opportunities, the regulatory environment,

and our view as to the abilities of management.

Our analysis of Enron followed the rating process described

above. Over the past several years, because of a significant shift in

its business mix and a rapid revenue growth, Enron’s reported financial profile, in size alone, as presented in its income statement

and balance sheet, changed significantly. Yet although the market

capitalization of Enron increased dramatically over the past several

years, the various credit ratios and other factors used by Fitch supported a constant BBB-plus rating during the period from 1993

until the fourth quarter of 2001. It should also be noted that of the

more than 300 entities rated by our Global Power Group, the senior debt rating of more than 60 percent of the companies in the sector is above BBB-plus. BBB-plus is in the lowest investment grade

category.

In mid-October 2001, Enron released third quarter results that reflected a $618 million third quarter loss and a $1.2 billion reduction in shareholder equity. Shortly thereafter, adverse press reports

appeared, an informal SEC investigation was announced, and the

CFO was replaced. Following these events, on October 25, Fitch

placed Enron’s rating on Rating Watch Negative warning that ‘‘the

loss of investor and counterparty confidence, if it continues, would

impair Enron’s financial flexibility and access to capital markets,

therefore, impacting its ability to conduct its business.’’ Eleven

days later, on November 5, Enron’s senior debt rating was downgraded to BBB-minus, the lowest possible investment grade rating,

and left on Rating Watch Negative, an indication of the possibility

of future downgrades.

On November 8, Enron restated its earnings for a 5-year period,

and on November 9, 2001, Enron announced its merger agreement

with Dynegy. This announcement caused Fitch to revise the rating

watch status to ‘‘evolving.’’ It was Fitch’s opinion that Dynegy was

a financially viable and knowledgeable purchaser with a sound financial and business profile on a stand-alone basis supplemented

by a strong financial backer and investor through its affiliation

with Chevron-Texaco. The merger agreement with Dynegy provided

Enron with $1.5 billion in cash, which supplied needed liquidity.

We also held the opinion that Dynegy, as a direct competitor, was

quite familiar with Enron’s operations. The evolving status, however, reflected a high level of execution risk compared with other

acquisitions by entities rated higher than the target company. In

those cases, Fitch would typically place the target’s ratings on Rating Watch Positive. Fitch warned in its commentary accompanying

the ratings action of November 9 that, ‘‘If the merger were to terminate, Fitch believes Enron’s ability to manage its business would

be severely impaired and would expect to downgrade its securities

to highly speculative grade. Termination provisions to the merger

agreement add an element of uncertainty to completing the merger.’’

12

In the 3-week period following the merger agreement, Enron disclosed additional liabilities and incurred substantial cash outflows

that compromised its financial condition. Fitch commented on these

developments on November 21, stating that in the absence of a

merger agreement with Dynegy, Enron’s financial condition was ‘‘untenable.’’ At the time we published that comment, based upon

discussions with Enron and Dynegy management, it was our understanding that the parties were committed to the merger, but at

revised terms that reduced the value received by Enron shareholders. Based upon the inability to execute a revised merger

agreement, as well as obtain additional secured bank financing,

Enron’s ratings were lowered to CC on November 28, indicating

probable default.

Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Pellecchia. Interesting

opening statements by the three of you. We will do 7-minute

rounds of questions on the Committee.

As I listened to your statements and familiarize myself with this

whole Enron saga, one thing that struck me is, although you have

reported the different levels of concern that each of you had about

Enron as last year went on, the market in some way was better

reflecting increasing concerns about Enron than the credit rating

agencies were, because in some sense the market during the year

was going like that, whereas the agencies were maybe going like

that, [gesturing] and notwithstanding the additional access that we

know that you had to information.

Let me go to some of the remarks, Mr. Barone, that I quoted

from you and Mr. Shipman—Mr. Shipman’s were the quotes from

CNN in October, and then I didn’t quote this in my opening statement, on November 2 at S&P’s public conference call according to

a transcript that was provided to my staff. You said, ‘‘We have a

great deal of confidence that there are no more surprises to come.

We’re confident we capture or are privy to the obligations that

Enron has. I think it’s going to take a little more time before everybody can get fully comfortable so that there’s not something else

lurking out there, but at this point we feel very confident that

that’s unlikely.’’ So my question, obviously, is: What was the basis for your confidence then that the off-balance sheet problems, which were

known, were in Enron’s past or that nothing else would come out

soon?

Mr. BARONE. Thank you, Senator. The confidence we had was

gained from discussions with Enron’s management at that time,

the new president, Greg Whalley, and CFO Jeff McMahon. They

explained to us that, as much as they knew, from their investigation, there were no further partnerships that had debt obligations

that they were unaware of. But that, indeed, and as my comments

stated, they had not fully completed all that the investigation was

to provide. The Powers Report was not yet completed at that time.

But for all that they saw, what they knew, that was their assessment. And we gained confidence from that discussion.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask the other two witnesses, because my concern is that with your remarks, notwithstanding the

slight downgrade, although you still kept them at investment grade

13

at that point, in early November, a month before Enron goes bankrupt, because of the way in which information was conveyed

through CNN and other newspapers, etc., that you were still sending a message to the market that everything would be OK at

Enron.

Now, I understand what you have said about why. I want to engage the other two of you in this conversation, which is—how does

the communication typically go between the rating agencies and a

company like Enron, particularly at moments like this where there

is alarm? Are you calling them or—and we know from other indications all over the history of this company, they were very aggressive—were they calling you to make the case don’t worry? Mr.

Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Maybe I can go back a little

bit to the beginning of the crisis at Enron. On October 16, the company announced their earnings restatements and their equity

charges. On that day, we placed the company on review for possible

downgrade on our fundamental concerns about their accounting

and about a potential crisis of confidence.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You do that just based on the public announcement of what has happened?

Mr. DIAZ. No. We had talked to Enron a few days before that and

they had given us a heads-up on the writedowns that were to come

and began to explain to us the equity charge. And we were very

surprised at not only the asset writedowns they were taking but

also at the nature of the equity charge. And we were questioning

and scratching our heads about the type of accounting that they

were using for that charge and how did that $1.2 billion of equity

actually come about.

They made a rough attempt to explain to us the complexity of

the hedges, but we were not satisfied with their explanations. So

we told them that we would likely put them on review for downgrade and then take a harder look at the situation.

So throughout that crisis stage, we had become increasingly concerned. At that time, Andrew Fastow was no longer involved in the

discussions, so we were talking primarily to Tim Despain and then

Jeff McMahon, who had joined as the new CFO.

Our discussions during that time were concentrated on understanding the liquidity position of the company and how that was

impacting the trading business. When we became further concerned on, I think, October 24—my recollection is not exact—we

had asked them about their availability of commercial paper, and

they told us they were still able to place commercial paper, but

that the price was getting much higher for them. So as we got

ready to go to committee to act on the rating, they announced that

they had drawn down their credit lines.

So the bottom line at that point was that we were increasingly

concerned about the liquidity, and we downgraded them on October

29, and then kept the rating on review for further downgrade. We

also put the commercial paper rating review for downgrade.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Barone, I quoted you on the November 2 conversation, so I should give you an opportunity to say a little bit more about what Enron may have told you before that.

14

Mr. BARONE. Yes, generally going back to your question, Senator,

we were calling Enron, and—— Chairman LIEBERMAN. They were not initiating calls with you by

and large?

Mr. BARONE. There was an active dialogue back and forth, Senator, as we do with many issuers. If they have news to tell us, they

would be active and do that, or respond to questions. They would

research our questions and they’d call us back with answers.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Were they more active than most companies, even at this point, in trying to convince you that everything

was OK?

Mr. BARONE. Not unusually so. They’ve had a campaign for years

to try to be higher rated, as many firms try who have a different

opinion than we do.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. How do you carry out such a campaign?

Mr. BARONE. They try to show us, whether it be a financial or

qualitative assessment, that we take one view of the information

and they take a different view of it. They try to get at the heart

of our review, and we try to get at the heart of their review. And

often we have to agree to disagree.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Am I right that in conversations with our

staff leading up to the hearing, Mr. Barone, you told them that

Enron officials told you that they didn’t know what else was out

there?

Mr. BARONE. That is correct.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. This was at the end of October, and that

they had a special committee investigating?

Mr. BARONE. That’s correct.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But, still, you felt confident enough to

make the statement you did on November 2?

Mr. BARONE. That is correct. They explained to us that in the investigation: (1) they found, I believe, the LJM1, LJM2, Chewco,

and Raptors; (2) they had started to scrub down everything they

could get their hands on; and (3) they would be surprised if they

would find anything further. And while they said clearly that they

did not have the full report, they believed they had uncovered the

majority of what there was to uncover, and that this was what they

expected.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I am over my time. Mr. Pellecchia, I will

come back to you in the next round. Senator Thompson.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you very much.

In listening, it is surprising to me the extent to which you seemingly rely on the management leadership for your information. You

know, Mom and Pop can read these public documents, and it seems

that what we are learning from all of this is that there is really

not much value-added for the average investor in looking at either

the—what the analysts are saying or what the raters are doing;

that when you have a complex set of documents, that you don’t

really go behind the documents, even though you have a right to;

that when the company officials refused to divulge certain information, they can get away with that; and that you rely an awful lot— when things pop up that seem troublesome, you rely an awful lot,

if not exclusively in some cases, on what the corporate management tells you.

15

Is that an unfair assessment or is that about the way it is?

Mr. BARONE. Senator, we do rely on what senior management

tells us. It is in their best interest to tell us and be forthright and

not convey a different message, because if we convey a message to

the market that is different than what the market perceives over

the long term, then the credibility of Standard & Poor’s and then

ultimately the credibility of the company is at risk. And you saw

what happened with Enron as to what happened when the market

loses confidence in their credibility. And so it is in their best interest to tell us the truth, and we rely on that.

Senator THOMPSON. That is kind of a chicken-and-egg deal. Are

you saying you don’t think it is ever in—strictly from a self-interested standpoint, it is never in the interest of a corporate executive

to minimize bad news and stretch the truth? Clearly it is sometimes in their interest to play the short-term game and hope things

turn out better, right?

Mr. BARONE. Yes. Many of the firms put forth their best foot, but

they don’t put forth fraudulent information.

Senator THOMPSON. What is it exactly that Enron put out that

was most deceptive in retrospect, do you think? Did it have to do

with these related-party transactions?

Mr. BARONE. I would say it had to do with the total amount of

their obligations, whether it be these related-party transactions or

other partnerships—— Senator THOMPSON. Mr. Diaz, briefly, could you pinpoint anything?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, it’s less what they put out. It’s more what

they didn’t put out. It’s the fact that the off-balance sheet partnerships were never disclosed anywhere. We’ve come to learn about

names like Braveheart, Raptor—— Senator THOMPSON. Is that what we now know was apparently

being referred to in footnote 16, related-party transactions?

Mr. DIAZ. I believe that was related to LJM2, one of the Fastow

partnerships. There are a lot of other partnerships, Senator, partnerships like Braveheart, Raptor, Southampton, and Rawhide. The

names just seem to be coming out.

Senator THOMPSON. In retrospect, is not footnote 16 also referring to them? I mean, it is in the plural here.

Mr. DIAZ. I believe that, having looked at it in some detail and

tying it back to the Powers Report, I believe that it’s talking about

the LJM2 transactions, the Chewco transactions, and the Raptors,

which I think are embedded in their LJM2. It’s still difficult to understand exactly what they were doing.

Senator THOMPSON. I think that makes the point, that we are

still here today trying to figure out what they are talking about in

footnote 16.

Mr. DIAZ. That’s right. It’s a very obtuse footnote. You know,

there is some disclosure there, but it’s extremely difficult to understand what is going on.

Senator THOMPSON. The question becomes: What should the rating agencies’ obligations be? You can’t audit every firm that you

deal with. On the other hand, some are bigger than others. Some

are more obtuse than others, I guess, in their public documents.

What should the rating—if you are just going to look at this and

16

say this is very confusing and obtuse and call up the corporate executive and say is everything all right, and he says everything is

all right, if that is it, you can see—— Mr. DIAZ. I understand the point, Senator. I think in looking at

a footnote like 16, clearly what needs to be done in those situations

is try to get behind it and try to understand a lot more of what’s

there.

Looking in hindsight at how that impacted the ultimate confidence in the company, it’s pretty clear that there were—and from

my point of view, we certainly look at it as a situation where we

could have dug more into and tried to get behind that.

Senator THOMPSON. It would be fair to say that if you ran across

this same situation again, you would delve into it deeper?

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir.

Senator THOMPSON. I noticed here that on November 8, after reviewing a copy of the merger terms, the merger with Dynegy, you

were concerned there were too many conditions that would allow

parties to walk away from the merger, and Moody’s informed

Enron that it might drop its rating to below investment grade. Subsequently, Moody’s received a number of telephone calls from interested parties, including Richard Grasso, CEO of the New York

Stock Exchange, Robert Rubin of Citibank, Michael Carpenter of

Salomon Smith Barney, and William Harrison of J.P. Morgan

Chase. The banks assured Moody’s that they were not planning on

getting out of the merger. Again, the next day, Moody’s downgraded Enron, but not below investment grade.

Clearly, Enron had called all these investment bankers up to get

them to call you, right?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator——

Senator THOMPSON. And I am asking whether or not that is correct. And, second, what are we to make of this? Here clearly are

interested parties trying to presumably have some impact on what

your rating was going to be. Is this normal in the business?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, what I’d like to say is, first of all, we were

ready to downgrade Enron that morning. The first bit of information was that there was a significant change in the transaction.

There was going to be up to $1 billion of new equity put in, and

they were going to be changing the terms of the agreement. That

was what we were led to understand—so that we held off on the

press release.

Throughout the course of the day, we had calls from bankers,

and we also had a meeting with bankers—and I can’t recall if

Dynegy was actually in the room. But the bottom line there was

that the agreement was changed. There were substantial changes

made that made it more difficult for Dynegy to walk away. They

eliminated a material adverse change clause. They eliminated rating triggers that were in the financing agreement. And, also, they

agreed to collapse the structure of the combined entity so that the

bonds of Enron and the bonds of Dynegy were pari passu.

From our point of view, we were looking at the combined entity

as having an investment grade rating of Baa, at the low end, so

we gauged the probability that the deal would go through to be

high. We gauged the probability that Enron’s liquidity would be

shored up enough for Enron to survive——

17

Senator THOMPSON. I understand what you are saying, but without getting into the merits of the deal and the reason, I understand

you were concerned there were too many ways to walk away and

then they began to close that door somewhat.

Mr. DIAZ. Right.

Senator THOMPSON. But in the meantime, these bankers were

calling you to tell you, I suppose, that they, according to what I

have got here, were not planning on getting out of the merger. Of

course, that is like a politician saying they are not planning on

running for office, I suppose. They are not presently planning.

Senator BUNNING. Except in your case. [Laughter.]

Senator THOMPSON. Of course, they did walk away from the

merger, what, 20 days later, I think, after I guess S&P’s downgraded them. I am just asking for information. Is this a normal

kind of interplay? I mean, do you get calls like this telling you we

know you are concerned about this deal that would affect the welfare of the company, I am in on this deal, and I want you to know

here is our present intention?

Mr. DIAZ. In general, we do get calls from banks and companies

when the company’s rating is under pressure. That is not an anomaly. Certainly, the intensity of that day was pretty high given the

situation of Enron, but that did not—was not an influencing factor

on our decision. The influencing factor on the decision was the

change in the merger—in the terms of the merger agreement.

Senator THOMPSON. Well, I am not suggesting it was. All I am

suggesting is clearly they were—from their standpoint they were

making the call for some purpose. And if it wasn’t to influence your

decision, I am not sure what it was.

Mr. DIAZ. It was to get us to wait— that is to say—listen to the

new terms of the deal, is really what they were trying to do. They

weren’t saying please don’t do this because Enron’s going to go

bankrupt. They were saying we have a new deal on the table.

Senator THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Thompson.

If I may, just following on the line of a question Senator Thompson raised, I assume you allow for the, if I can call it this, self-interest of the people calling and having Enron’s rating remain high.

Mr. DIAZ. Sure, right.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In other words, various of people, of the

institutions that Senator Thompson has cited, we know from public

sources were either heavily—were creditors of Enron or perhaps

had fees which would be gained by the completion of the DynegyEnron proposed merger. But I presume you allow for that as you

consider what they are saying.

Mr. DIAZ. That’s right. There were a lot of self-interested parties

in that situation. We certainly understand that. But, we’re still

looking at whether or not the deal was going to go through and

what the impact on the combined companies was. That was the

bottom line for us.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. Senator Levin.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to pursue the line of Senator Thompson’s questions as to

what was not disclosed to you that you now know should have been

disclosed to you, and what was deceptive and fraudulent. Mr.

18

Barone, you used the word ‘‘fraudulent,’’ which means there was a

representation of something which wasn’t true. Can you give us

some examples of what was represented to you that was not true?

Mr. BARONE. Yes, Senator Levin. Enron had presented to us

something called its ‘‘kitchen sink analysis,’’ which purported to

show the full extent of all its obligations with partnerships, third

parties, related parties, and the like. And we have come to learn

that this representation of the kitchen sink—and I think they

wrote the words ‘‘100 percent disclosure’’—did not include all of the

so-called third-party related transactions.

Senator LEVIN. Would you supply that document to the Committee?

Mr. BARONE. I believe, Senator, it’s included with my full testimony.

Senator LEVIN. That is fine. Thank you.

Can anyone else give examples of what was not disclosed to you

or what was disclosed to you and misrepresented in the disclosure?

Mr. Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, Senator. We also received the ‘‘kitchen sink analysis.’’

Senator LEVIN. Is that the same analysis?

Mr. DIAZ. I can’t say it was exactly the same analysis, but it was

supposed to represent the complete picture of the company’s total

obligations, and it clearly did not. As I’ve said earlier, there have

been quite a few names of partnerships that have come out in the

press and all the reports that we had no knowledge of and were

not included in that.

Senator LEVIN. Mr. Pellecchia.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, I would add, in addition to the fact that

the company restated its financial statements back to 1997, the

types of information they would supply us—and we also got a

‘‘kitchen sink analysis’’—as far as the company’s off-balance sheet

debt and guarantees was consistent with what was provided the

general public. So there wasn’t any real additional information that

we had. And I would say to the question of whether these presentations were fraudulent, what we read in the Powers Report certainly seems to say that they entered into transactions for a very

different purpose than what was represented to us, particularly

with what was called these LJM transactions, which were presented to us as a technique to transfer risk to sophisticated investors.

Mr. BARONE. Senator, may I——

Senator LEVIN. Please.

Mr. BARONE. I want to add, too—and I noted this in my opening

remarks—that what was also hidden from us, not disclosed fully—

or at all, I should say, are those almost $4 billion of in-substance

loans that Enron made with financial institutions that were originally reported as financial hedges. And that was not disclosed as

well.

Senator LEVIN. Was it falsely disclosed or not disclosed?

Mr. BARONE. I believe it was not disclosed as a loan, as it

worked.

Senator LEVIN. Was it disclosed as a hedge?

Mr. BARONE. I don’t know for sure, sir.

19

Senator LEVIN. What is the understanding that you have with

your clients as to what is disclosed? Do you have a written agreement with them, a contract as to the amount of disclosure and

what your access will be, inside access that is not publicly disclosed? Is that all set forth in a contract, Mr. Barone?

Mr. BARONE. We have an agreement—I don’t know if it’s contractual or not, but it’s an agreement that is included in our rating letter, that they provide us full, timely, and accurate disclosure of all

material information relating to their rating. I don’t know the exact

words, sir, but it is quite broad and comprehensive.

Senator LEVIN. And they sign that, they agree to that?

Mr. BARONE. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. Is that true with the other companies, too?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. We have a similar representation, but it’s not

a signed agreement.

Mr. BARONE. Senator, I don’t know—excuse me, I apologize. I’m

not exactly sure they’re signed or not. I don’t want to represent——

Senator LEVIN. All right. Mr. Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. We have applications for ratings in which the maintenance of the rating is based on our satisfaction with the information that’s being provided, but there’s no specific agreement about

the kind of or the type of information that has to be given to us.

Senator LEVIN. All right. Let me go through one of the transactions with you. Enron North America was trying to show strong

cash flow on its 1999 end-of-year statement. According to the Powers Report, what Enron North America did or ENA did was pool

a group of loans that it held into a trust. The trust then sold about

$324 million of those notes and provided the purchasers with certain rights to cash flow from repayments of the loans. So these

were collateralized loan obligations.

When they sold the loans, ENA was able to report an increase

in cash flow, and since the risk of default on the loans was transferred to the trust, ENA didn’t report or account for the possibility

of a default. They left that out from their own reports.

Now, the trust that purchased those loans then sold interests in

those loans to investors, but the sales did not go well. According

to the Powers Report, the lowest-rated notes, those with the last

claim on repayments of the loans, were extremely difficult to sell

and no outside buyer could be found. At the end of 1999, LJM2

purchased about $20 million of those lowest-rated notes.

So LJM bought the notes that nobody else would buy, but some

credit rating agency would have had to have rated those notes. And

I think it was your agency, Mr. Pellecchia.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. We did.

Senator LEVIN. Is that correct?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. Now, how can your credit rating agency give an

investment grade to those notes when nobody else would buy them?

How does that work?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, I’m a corporate analyst. This transaction

was one that was structured in a way that the credit quality of the

pool of loans—and I would say these loans were on a stand-alone

basis very weak companies, loans to very weak companies—was

structured in such a way so that there were different tranches of

20

ratings that apply to different groups of securities that were sold,

and they were able to attain high ratings through this enhancement that is much higher than you could individually for each of

those individual loans.

Senator LEVIN. So even though nobody else would buy them, they

were given investment grade rating because of the guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, I believe that this particular transaction—again, I’m not a structured analyst—was one that met all

the qualifications that you would need for separateness and other

qualifications for doing a structured transaction, and it was marketed and it was sold.

Senator LEVIN. Could you try to answer that, or get the answer

for the record on that question for us?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. As to——

Senator LEVIN. How is it possible that those specific notes can be

listed as investment grade if, in fact, nobody would buy them? Can

you talk to the person who did the analysis on that—you said it

wasn’t you—and give us the answer?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. My answer was also I think they were sold,

and——

Senator LEVIN. They were sold to LJM. They were sold right

back to Enron.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. That might have been in the secondary market,

but I will provide that information.

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, according to an Enron employee

who worked on the transaction, the head of ENA finance, told one

of the investors that if the note defaulted, Enron would make the

investors whole. Enron had agreed, in other words, to repurchase

the notes at face value, which guaranteed the investment. Now my

question to you is: Was it publicly known that that guarantee existed?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I do not know the answer to that. I would say

as far as a rating agency’s obligation, we would have rated the securities based upon the risk to the investors, and——

Senator LEVIN. Would the guarantee affect that risk? Wouldn’t it

be less risky to buy it if there was an Enron guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. It certainly would, yes.

Senator LEVIN. OK. Was it publicly known that there was an

Enron guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I do not know if it was publicly known, and I’m

not sure there was an Enron guarantee.

Senator LEVIN. So you don’t know yourself whether there was an

Enron guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Apparently, LJM, as you explained—and I

didn’t know the facts on that—stepped up and bought securities

which probably in effect would have done the same thing as providing a guarantee.

Senator LEVIN. So my specific question is: Was it known to your

agency that there was such a purchase guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I know that we had discussions with Enron personnel as to the situation with the loans, and I’m not sure exactly

what agreements were struck, if anything, or what we learned from

that.

21

Senator LEVIN. Well, wouldn’t that affect the creditworthiness of

the notes?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. It would have, certainly.

Senator LEVIN. And your rating?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. But you are not sure because of memory, or you

are not—— Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, I’m not sure about exactly what was—— Senator LEVIN. Your ratings are affected by whether there is a

guarantee, but you are telling us you don’t know whether there

was a guarantee.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I do not know if there was a guarantee.

Senator LEVIN. But whether or not there was a guarantee would

have affected your rating?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I would assume it would be considered, yes.

Senator LEVIN. OK. Can you find out for us whether anyone in

your company knew whether or not there was a guarantee?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. And can you also then answer this question: If

there had been a guarantee, assuming it went back to Enron,

would that have affected the value of Enron’s stock?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I would answer from the credit rating standpoint. What we try to assess is the types of guarantees and the

amount of guarantees Enron has. So the fact that if Enron had a

guarantee, that would be a consideration in the credit rating.

Senator LEVIN. OK. But also not on the credit rating—— Mr. PELLECCHIA. Of Enron Corp.

Senator LEVIN. Of the Enron Corporation, so that would affect

their stock.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. It would be considered in the credit rating.

They had approximately $2 billion of guarantees outstanding to affiliated companies. Some of those guarantees were supported by

collateral, some weren’t. So you would make judgments, basically,

upon what the effect of a guarantee would have on Enron Corp.

Senator LEVIN. Would you say this: To the extent that those

guarantees were not known to the public, that they were, therefore,

telling the public that their company was in a lot better shape than

it really was, because guarantees which were outstanding wouldn’t

have been disclosed? Is that a fair statement?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. If Enron had a guarantee——

Senator LEVIN. If Enron had guarantees outstanding which were

not disclosed publicly, that, therefore, they would have been—their

financial statements would have looked better than, in fact, they

should have because it wouldn’t have disclosed outstanding potential obligations. Is that a fair statement?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes, I do not believe Enron—and I’m not aware

that Enron guaranteed that debt.

Senator LEVIN. I am not talking about that debt. I am talking

about in general.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. In general, we would recognize guarantees in

the context of all its obligations, yes. That would be a consideration.

Senator LEVIN. My question is: If the guarantees were not disclosed publicly, would that——

22

Mr. PELLECCHIA. That—we should be aware—they should be disclosed publicly, and as far as I know, every guarantee that Enron

had was—that we were aware of was consistent with the guarantees that they published in their information, the public information. As far as I know.

Senator LEVIN. I see my time is up, but the bottom line is that

you are not answering my question about failure to disclose guarantees publicly. But what you are saying to us is this: That you believe that every single guarantee that you were aware of was disclosed publicly?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Levin. Senator Bunning.

Senator BUNNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Just a little background for the average American and average

person who looks at credit ratings as a means of investing. The

SEC grants credit rating companies NRSRO status, and currently

only your three companies—S&P’s, Moody’s, and Fitch—are those

companies. You have special access to the companies that you deal

with. In that, you can have private conversations with companies’

management that analysts cannot have. You can see financial information about companies that is not public, and you are shielded

from fraud under the security laws. All that true?

Mr. BARONE. That’s true.

Senator BUNNING. Well, you realize in 1997 the SEC looked at

this and said maybe there is a monopoly here, maybe you three

shouldn’t be the only ones doing this because the only three people

that you could go to for a credit rating was Standard & Poor’s,

Moody’s, and Fitch. Is that correct? And they tried to change the

rules, and you fought them tooth and nail. The Justice Department

fought them tooth and nail also. They criticized the new rules that

pertained perpetuating the anticompetitive environment of credit

agencies. The Justice Department was for changing the rules. The

rule was never acted upon.

Now, I think you have a major obligation to look beyond what

is given to you by any corporation. If the people rely on your ratings, investment grade or non-investment grade, particularly institutional investors, particularly anyone whose stock is on a roller

coaster in a down spiral, and your three companies are still rating

that as investment grade material.

Now, I don’t even want to get to November. But I want to get

to March and the document that Fortune Magazine put out. Someone said how can you rate these companies—how can you rate

Enron specifically investment grade, and people from your companies made light of it. S&P’s said, ‘‘If you figure it out, you let me

know.’’ Is that a quip or is that a serious statement by S&P’s? This

is quoted in Fortune.

You, Mr. Pellecchia, said, ‘‘Do you have a year?’’

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Here’s what I—could I answer that?

Senator BUNNING. I mean, is that a correct quote or not?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I believe what I was asked was exactly how

does Enron make its money, and my response was, ‘‘Do you have

a year?’’ That was—— Senator BUNNING. In other words——

23

Mr. PELLECCHIA. That was a glib answer. But the spirit—— Senator BUNNING. OK. I know it is a glib answer, but you are

responsible for the ability to grade that either investment grade security or non-investment grade security.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator BUNNING. And you are making light of the fact that you

are not sure how they are making their money?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, I think the spirit of the answer was

Enron’s a big company, it’s a complex company—— Senator BUNNING. Your duty was to get beyond the bigness and

just the words coming out of the corporate mouths. Is it true or is

it not true that the CFO and the chairman of the board made calls

to Mr. Diaz and Mr. Barone that they were aggressively trying to

get a higher grade credit rating for their company? Is that true or

false?

Mr. BARONE. That’s false. Mr. Lay did not call aggressively seeking a higher rating for the company. Mr. Lay called to——

Senator BUNNING. He didn’t call you personally?

Mr. BARONE. He called me personally, but not for that reason,

sir. He called me to let me know that he was committed to the current credit quality of the company, that they would take steps necessary to preserve what he thought was a very important credit

rating, and the similar steps to those that he had taken in the past

by issuing equity or selling assets——

Senator BUNNING. Was there any pressure exerted by Enron to

get a similar upgrade or remain the same kind of credit rating

from your company?

Mr. BARONE. During this period of time, sir, no.

Senator BUNNING. Is it normal for the president and CEO of a

company to call you?

Mr. BARONE. There are some that do, sir, and some that don’t.

It depends. This was the first time I had heard from Mr. Lay, but

there are other firms that we follow under my purview, and some

of them call and some of them don’t.

Senator BUNNING. Don’t you think there should be a separation,

a separation between the analyst making a credit rating and the

company executives? I mean, if somebody can testify before this

Committee, it was right in the filings before the SEC that I could

pick up that there were problems in the company. You as experts

in credit ratings couldn’t see that?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, I spoke with Mr. Lay one time only, and that

was just before putting them on review for downgrade, and what

he was trying to do is keep us from putting him on review for

downgrade.

Senator BUNNING. Thank you.

Mr. DIAZ. And we did not——

Senator BUNNING. That doesn’t answer my question.

Mr. BARONE. Sir, we often speak with the senior management of

the firm——

Senator BUNNING. I understand that—— Mr. BARONE [continuing]. Because strategy is a very key element

to rating.

Senator BUNNING. What about the filings that they filed with the

SEC as of all during this time that you were in charge of their

24

credit ratings? You couldn’t pick anything out to give you a headsup or a red flag——

Mr. BARONE. No, from the——

Senator BUNNING [continuing]. And some other analyst could?

Why were you not able to pick up the red flags?

Mr. DIAZ. Maybe I can address that. Senator, I mean, hindsight

is a great thing and——

Senator BUNNING. We all know that.

Mr. DIAZ [continuing]. People looking at this situation now can

go back and sort of look for flags and situations where——

Senator BUNNING. It is your job.

Mr. DIAZ. But what I’m trying to say, Senator, is fundamentally

we were looking at a company that on its face looked like it had

a very strong franchise in wholesale trading. It looked like it was

showing earnings, increasing earnings, because of the mark-to-market accounting.

Senator BUNNING. Then why was the stock plummeting? If all of

those things be true, why was the stock going straight down?

Mr. DIAZ. The stock started to plummet in—I believe in the

spring of——

Senator BUNNING. Inside traders were selling the devil out of it.

Mr. DIAZ. We’re not equity analysts, so we don’t focus necessarily

on stock.

Senator BUNNING. I understand that, but there is a reason for a

stock to react.

Mr. DIAZ. Sometimes, Senator, there are many reasons why

stocks go down. I mean, bear markets cause stocks to go down.

Enron stock had been hyped by the broadband euphoria, and it had

gone from the mid-40s to 90, and we didn’t upgrade the company

then because we thought Enron is doing great. We kept the same

low investment grade rating that we had because of the fundamental issues that we always looked for at the company.

Senator BUNNING. But somehow, sir—and I beg to differ with

you—you have to be more responsible to the many people who rely

on your ratings. And if you are not more responsible, then we have

got to get more people rating.

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, I guess——

Senator BUNNING. My time has expired.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Go ahead.

Senator BUNNING. Go ahead, Mr. Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. Could I answer? Thank you. Senator, we stand on our

record. We have a 100-year record that we publish every year——

Senator BUNNING. It just takes one.

Mr. DIAZ. One company that misleads.

Senator BUNNING. Billions and billions, and millions of employees lost every penny they ever had.

Mr. DIAZ. I understand that, Senator. But the reason was because the company misled. Their executives have——

Senator BUNNING. You have never had a company mislead you?

Mr. DIAZ. Not to the extent of Enron. Not a company that, in effect, has their executives refuse to testify, that have had their accountants indicted for shredding documents. You know, we’re in a

situation—we believe that Enron is an anomaly, that Powers ReVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
25

port, a board-commissioned report, that points out to the dealings

of the CFO. In my experience——

Senator BUNNING. I don’t doubt that they are an anomaly, but,

in fact, Global Crossing could be another Enron.

Mr. DIAZ. I’m not aware of—I don’t rate Global Crossing, so I

don’t know the details——

Senator BUNNING. Well, OK. You don’t grade it, but it is in the

same situation.

Mr. BARONE. Senator, this was not a ratings problem. This was

a fraud problem.

Senator BUNNING. It was also a rating problem. Your reaction

was way too late and too little.

Mr. BARONE. The market expects us, with all due respect, Senator, to take a tempered, deliberate approach. And as my

colleague——

Senator BUNNING. No. The market expects you to anticipate

what happens and also warn people if something is red-flagging

you. You didn’t——

Mr. BARONE. And that’s exactly what——

Senator BUNNING [continuing]. Do it until after the fact. Thank

you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Bunning. Senator

Bennett.

Senator BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for

having to slip out, but I appreciate the fact that the panel is still

here for my questions.

Now, follow me through this and see if I have it right, and if I

don’t, set me right.

We, of course, start from the fact that is pretty well established

that the Enron management was engaged in fraud. They were hiding things. They were lying. So you weren’t used to that. You

weren’t expecting that. And you were caught by surprise by that.

However, would it be accurate to say that their accounting gimmicks, the things they did to perpetuate that fraud, relied heavily

on the credit ratings? Whenever Enron credit ratings dropped

below investment grade levels or triggers, the special purpose entities required that the Enron parent guarantee the value of the

SPE. That trigger was written into the deal, as I understand it. So

as long as the credit ratings were high, the SPE does not demand

the collateral, and Enron does not have to pledge its stock. Is that

an accurate description of the way this was constructed?

Mr. BARONE. In general, yes, sir.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator BENNETT. OK. Now——

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, that’s an accurate description of two SPEs

that we rated. There are apparently many others out there that we

didn’t know about.

Senator BENNETT. OK. But as long as the credit rating is above

the trigger, the stock does not have to be pledged, does not have

to be delivered, and, therefore, Enron can say to the analysts and

everybody else, well, it is unencumbered because this is a contingent liability, but it is a contingent that is not going to come to

pass because the credit rating is sufficiently high.

26

So when the credit rating triggers the trigger, that is when

things begin to be really, really difficult. So the credit rating does

play a critical role in how this whole structure operates. Am I all

right so far?

Mr. BARONE. In general, yes, sir.

Senator BENNETT. OK. So when the credit rating hit the trigger,

and that is when former Secretary Rubin called the Treasury, as

I understand it, because he could clearly see that this is where everything was going to go, the question is: Did the credit rating

firms understand how crucial the triggers were as you were drawing up your credit rating? Did that enter into your decision making? I am not just issuing a garden variety rating here that some

investor will say, ah, I don’t think I want to take a chance on this

stock or, what the heck, I made a lot of money in junk bonds, and

if they are going to say this is junk, why, I will jump in, I prospered during the Michael Milken era, whatever.

It is not just that with an individual investor making that kind

of analysis and that kind of a decision. It is a trigger that could

bring the whole thing down. Were you aware of the significance of

the trigger? And did that enter into your analysis as to where you

were going to place it?

Mr. BARONE. Yes, sir. We were well aware of the triggers’ existence in some of the partnerships that we knew about, specifically

Marlin, Osprey–1, Osprey–2. And we do take into account the existence of those triggers in affecting Enron’s credit rating. And, indeed, the assets that are in those entities as they began to lose

value, we would then, because of the likelihood of Enron having to

pony up, as it were, this contingent obligation, we put back to

Enron some amount of that obligation and utilized that information

in determining its credit rating.

On the sum, over the years we have placed roughly—and not just

for these two or three partnerships, but for the ones that we did

know—all the ones we knew about, placed roughly $2 to $4 billion

of additional liabilities back to Enron for these contingent-like or

related-party obligations, guarantees, leases, and other things that

appear off-balance sheet. So, yes, Senator, we do take them into account.

But the other—going to your point, there’s—as you get closer to

it, clearly there’s a heightened awareness of the impact that this

could have. Again, Enron’s stock trigger—there was a stock trigger.

There was a credit trigger. It was an ‘‘and’’ situation. So when they

blew through the stock trigger, we were still at BBB-plus. I believe

the other agencies, because it was either of the agencies, if they

lowered it below investment grade, here still at BBB-plus level, felt

comfortable at that range that there was no—you know, no reason

for alarm, so to speak.

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, can I follow up on that?

Senator BENNETT. Sure.

Mr. DIAZ. Certainly we were aware of the triggers. I’d just like

to point out one thing. When we held our rating committee—I

think it was November 7; it’s in the record if I’m incorrect—that

evening, we concluded that we would downgrade Enron to Ba2,

non-investment grade, and we were ready to put that press release

27

out the next day. We were aware of the consequences to Enron, yet

we made that decision.

The reason that we ultimately did not bring it down to non-investment grade had to do with the changes they made in the merger agreement and the additional equity they were willing to put in.

And that’s why we ended up with a Baa3 rating as opposed to Ba2.

But we were aware of the circumstances, and that would not have

stopped us from downgrading to below investment grade because

we felt that fundamentally the company no longer merited that rating.

Senator BENNETT. So the thing that saved your rating and gave

them a temporary reprieve from the harshest of all triggers was

your conviction that the merger was going to give them sufficient

capital to survive?

Mr. DIAZ. Three things: That the merger would give them the

capital to survive; the probability that the merger would go

through based on the changes they had made; and that the combined entity would be investment grade because of the structural

changes they made to the deal.

Senator BENNETT. Well, those are all three if’s. In order for the

thing to make it, all three have to fall in place. If any one of them

falls out of place, the whole thing collapses.

Now, we are here with the brilliance of hindsight, and I recognize that and don’t want to put myself in your position when you

are trying to look at it in foresight. But it does seem to me, to just

summarize it, in order for Enron to avoid the disaster of the noninvestment grade rating, three things have to happen. There is no

absolute assurance—of course, I guess in this world there is no absolute assurance of anything. It was your judgment that it was

likely that all three would happen.

Mr. DIAZ. Right. Yes, Senator. We based a lot of that judgment

on probabilities. So we felt there was a high probability that because of the equity infusion that was coming into Enron, Enron

would have sufficient capital to get through the period and so forth.

Senator BENNETT. Yes.

Mr. DIAZ. And we felt that the outs in the agreement were taken

care of, and it had Chevron-Texaco behind it and motivated banks

to make the deal happen.

Senator BENNETT. OK. Well, I have gone over my time, Mr.

Chairman, and we are mixing this panel with the previous hearing.

But the question obviously arises why an analyst faced with this

kind of circumstance—and you are not analysts like the stock pickers that we had—wouldn’t say, OK, they are on the brink of disaster, and the only thing that can save them is if the three following things all come to place simultaneously, and life being what

it is, if one of the three falls out, it ain’t going to work. And as an

investor, I would really love to have had that understanding of just

how tenuous it was before I make a decision. That is assuming I

had any money to invest.

Thank you. This has been helpful.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Bennett. A very interesting line of questions. You can feel the frustration, I think, of the

Members of the Committee as we look back, and this is the basic

question about whether you could have done more. I don’t think

28

anybody is accusing you—I am certainly not—of sort of malfeasance here. Nobody is accusing you of conflicts of interest, which

were rife in some of the other cases that we have held investigations on. The question here is whether you were aggressive enough

and used the power that you have. And these rating triggers, your

ratings had enormous impact on the companies.

Let me go back to this critical—and ask a few questions about

it—moment when the merger was being discussed, and you had a

decision to make as to whether to downgrade. You put Enron on

a credit watch, but you didn’t lower them below investment grade

rating. Obviously this is a significant decision. You have conversations. You receive a call, I believe at that time, from Ken Lay, or

certainly people from Enron. You receive calls from people that

Senator Thompson mentioned, from the New York Stock Exchange,

from various investment banks involved, etc.

I have got to ask: Did you receive calls from anybody else? For

instance, did you receive calls from any government officials which

were aimed at urging you to not downgrade Enron’s rating?

Mr. BARONE. Through the whole process, sir, the only folks we

were in conversation with were Enron and Dynegy about the merger prospects. We were never called by the banks, investment bankers, any government officials, or anyone else.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. No, we never received any calls from government officials.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And as far as you know, no one else at

the company?

Mr. DIAZ. As far as I know, no one else at the company.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Pellecchia.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. We received no calls from anyone either in government, investment bankers, in any way to try to persuade us to

do anything with the rating. However, in the course of our analysis

and what we do as analysts is to get and receive and respond to

calls from all types of people who work for financial institutions.

So probably every major investment bank and commercial bank

called me one time or another between October and December relative to Enron. But none of those calls were in any way indicative

of any pressure to do anything with the rating.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And not at the level presumably that Senator Thompson indicated. Did you agree that you had heard from

Mr. Grasso and Mr. Rubin?

Mr. DIAZ. I believe we did get calls. I was not in those calls, but

I don’t believe that any material discussions ensued from those

calls.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. But, in any case, none of you heard

from government officials.

Here is what is obviously agitating all of us, which is that this—

credit rating agencies have grown up in some ways like Topsy, with

an enormous power, with this sort of semi-sanction of the SEC

NRSRO designation, but not that much that goes into them approving you for it. Then hundreds of statutes come along, Federal,

State, and local, I presume, that say you have got to get the approval of these credit agencies to be out in the markets. And yet

you are exercising real quasi-governmental authority, power, and

29

yet there is—and I must say in fairness that, by and large, your

record is a very good one, I mean, judged in the most objective way

that the number of defaults of companies that you have rated as

investment grade is quite low. I think on AAA it is at 1 percent,

and maybe on the others it is at 6 percent. Is that about right?

Mr. BARONE. Less than 1 percent on AAA.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But this is our frustration. You have got

a big actor—Enron—comes along and its downfall has disastrous

consequences for its employees, for average—for their retirement

security, for investors, for the economy, in fact. And we look and

say, now, OK, you are the one that had—you had more access to

them, and yet I think our—if I can summarize, I will say it for myself, I feel as if you weren’t as aggressive as you should have been

in asking for more information with the authority that you had.

Even some of the—I know it was a glib answer, but I know that

even some of the questions that have been—that your answers

have raised in my mind about the concern about their accounting

practices, about the partnerships—and let me ask the baseline

question. I assume each of you is saying that if you knew then

what you know now about Enron, you would have downgraded

Enron below investment grade. Is that correct?

Mr. BARONE. Senator, if we knew then what we know now, we

would have withdrawn Enron’s rating for failure to disclose proper

information.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Which would have had the effect of basically putting them out of business, probably.

Mr. BARONE. I don’t want to speak for what the market’s reaction would be.

Mr. DIAZ. We would have had a lower rating on Enron for—probably for a few years before.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. For a few years before.

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, I mean, it looks like their partnerships began to

be put together back in at least 1999.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But you didn’t know about them. Mr.

Pellecchia.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I would say the same answer. We would have

had a lower rating well before 2001.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So looking back now at the confusion of

their accounting practices, which you, I think, knew about, you had

some sense that something—it was hard to understand everything

there. Don’t you feel that you should have asked more of them as

you look back? Mr. Barone.

Mr. BARONE. Senator, we rely on the audited financial statements, and insofar as we read and understood fairly well where

they were making their money based on the representation of those

audited financial statements, we would ask questions, and we

would receive answers and use that information in our ratings

analysis.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But you are expert—— Mr. BARONE. We are not forensic accountants, if that is the question, and we don’t have subpoena power, and so there’s a lot

that——

Chairman LIEBERMAN. You know, maybe—in some ways I have

been thinking, What is the analogy? You have authority here over

30

the markets and companies that is somewhat comparable—the first

thing that comes to mind is the FDA, Food and Drug Administration. They don’t let a drug go out on the market—this is a controversy in itself—until they have gone over all sorts of investigations to guarantee that it is safe, and then doctors prescribe the

drug, people use it in reliance on that.

To some extent, we have asked you to play—to a real extent, we

have asked you to play a similar role with regard to corporations,

and yet—and you do have power, but the power is the threat that

you will lower their rating or remove it. You can put people out of

business. And it just looks—again, I want to be fair to you. Most

of the cases people are leveling with you, and your record is pretty

good, a low percentage of defaults. But here was one that as we

look back, understanding hindsight is always clearer, you want to

say to yourself: Why didn’t you press harder for more information

on accounting? Why didn’t you press harder on partnerships? Even

in that ‘‘kitchen sink’’ disclosure that they made, it just doesn’t— it seems like it left a lot of questions in your mind.

Actually, Mr. Diaz, let me ask you this question. I appreciate the

end of your opening statement because you said Moody’s has gone

around and talked to a lot of people, held interviews, and—let me

read it—you are going to do some things differently. ‘‘Going forward, we are enhancing the ratings process by putting increased

focus in several areas. We have substantially intensified our assessment of liquidity risk for issuers with both investment grade

and speculative grade ratings.’’ And Enron had a speculative grade

rating, correct?

Mr. DIAZ. They had a low investment grade rating at the lowest

level for pretty much their whole history, and then became speculative grade at the end.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. ‘‘We’re also focusing’’—it is interesting to me—‘‘on corporate governance and how aggressive or conservative are accounting practices.’’ Now, I am encouraged by that, but isn’t that a way of saying

that you wish you had done that earlier as well?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, again I would hark back to our fundamentally

good record. But we didn’t sit on it. We look all the time at ways

that we can improve. We’ve, over the years, constantly put out

comments on the rating process, on securitization, on other issues.

So certainly the Enron debacle focuses our attention on certain

areas that we would like to get better understanding of, including

rating triggers. But it is our ongoing—that’s not something that we

just started because of Enron. It’s something we’ve had ongoing for

a while, and certain areas are going to be a focus of more intense

activity going forward.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. My time is up. I appreciate it. Obviously in the next panel we are going to hear from some people who

have ideas about how to alter the status quo to give you the authority or give you some sense of accountability for the enormous

authority that you do have that really matters in a case like this.

Senator Thompson and I were just talking about it. He said to me,

you know, the bridge only collapses very rarely, but when it does,

we wonder why the inspectors hadn’t noted the crack that led to

the bridge falling and a lot of people getting hurt. And that is esVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
31

sentially the tough, but I think reasonable, question that we are

asking of all of you today.

Senator Thompson.

Senator THOMPSON. Yes, just one or two points, Mr. Chairman.

Studies indicate that for the most part credit rating agencies do get

it right, and companies rated in the AAA range rarely default, companies rated in the BBB range default only at slightly higher percentage. And I think it is important for us to keep in mind that

these companies do not recommend buy or sell, that basically what

they are dealing with is a broad, general category with regard to

the ability of a company to fulfill its financial commitments; and

that while there is a relevance between the stock price and the rating, it is certainly not directly tied. A company could see its stock

go down for any number of reasons, and it still may be practically

unaffected in terms of its ability to fulfill its financial commitments. Is that correct?

Mr. BARONE. Or vice versa.

Senator THOMPSON. Or vice versa. So I think we need to understand that.

One of the things that interests me in looking at some of this history here is the statements that representatives of your companies

make with regard to these stocks. I am wondering—of course, we

are in the age of constant television coverage and cable and all of

that, and some of the analysts have become superstars, and maybe

the raters are going in that direction, and I guess it is strange for

a politician to be commenting on that. But it looks to me like you

have got your ratings, but then you have got your statements. And

October 25, S&P’s changed Enron’s rating to a negative, but retained its BBB bond rating. Fitch also placed Enron on the watch

for a downgrade on October 29. Moody’s downgraded Enron one

notch to B2A2, and kept it on review for another downgrade.

The same day S&P’s primary Enron analyst Todd Shipman went

on CNN, even though S&P’s had placed Enron on credit watch negative, Shipman said, ‘‘Enron’s ability to retain something like the

rating they are at today, investment grade, is excellent in the long

term.’’

When asked about the off-balance sheet partnerships, Shipman

remarked that S&P’s was ‘‘confident that there is not any longterm implications to that situation, that that’s something that’s

really in the past.’’

Then S&P’s met with Enron on October 31 and was told that

Enron would sell off assets to shore up its access to capital. The

next day, November 1, S&P’s downgraded Enron to BBB and

placed it on a negative credit watch.

Still, in its press release announcing the downgrade, S&P’s said

it ‘‘continues to believe that Enron’s liquidity position is adequate

to see the company through the current period of uncertainty.’’

It looks to me like that you are making your ratings, which are

clearly broad category ratings—you are right, you are not making

recommendations of buy and sell, but then either through your

analysis on CNN or your press release you get into the stuff that

the analysts get into, and you really are getting into painting a picture of long-term viability of the company. I guess the question—

I don’t know how long your ratings are supposed to apply. I mean,

32

suppose you have questions long term, but the current situation

looks OK, that sort of thing. I mean, should you really be getting

into all of that? Is this a recent phenomenon? Your ratings are one

thing, but any analyst that comes out of there under questioning

and he doesn’t know what the questions are going to be, he clearly

doesn’t want to say anything that is going to cause a lot of problems for the company, then go back to headquarters and get this

handed to him. So he is put in a really awkward position, it looks

to me like, the same position that an analyst is in, really, to be

positive, and it looks like touting the stock, in effect.

Is this what you consider to be part of your obligation? Is this

a phenomenon that hasn’t been around that long? Or have you always had your people out there commenting on their opinions as

to various aspects of the company and not being content simply on

putting out the ratings?

Mr. BARONE. I think it all depends on each market, sir, and the

energy market has had a lot of attention, say, the last 3 or so

years. I think there has been a stepped-up media interest, investor

interest in the market. And so when we are called upon to provide

an opinion beyond what we have written, whether it be in a news

broadcast or an interview with a publication of sorts, we comply

when and where we can.

Senator THOMPSON. So you have an analyst function. You see

yourself as providing an analyst function as well as a rating function.

Mr. BARONE. Well, again, what we’re providing, sir, is just our

opinion. It goes back to the credit analyses that we have performed.

Obviously we cannot convey anything greater in terms of confidentiality or anything like that than what we may have received. We

just try to put forth what we may have written already in various

articles or rationales on the company’s credit. We are not recommending—we are not there recommending. We are not there supporting. We are not a company’s advocate. We’re not their dis-advocate. We really don’t care. We’re there just to call it as we see it,

as a third-party, objective, credible opinion, as our default studies

have proven.

Senator THOMPSON. What do you see your appropriate role as in

this?

Mr. DIAZ. Our role is simply to gauge the company’s creditworthiness. It’s an opinion of the company’s ability to repay its

debt. And we do talk to the press and to other interested investors

and lay out the weaknesses and strengths of a company. But it’s

not our role to recommend or to tout any company, simply to lay

out what goes into our analysis.

Senator THOMPSON. Here, Mr. Barone, the S&P’s Enron analyst

says, after making your rating, your representative comments on

Enron’s ability to retain that rating in the long run. It says not

only are we giving this rating today, but we are telling you that

it’s our opinion that you’re going to—they’re going to have this rating for a long time.

Mr. BARONE. Ratings generally go from an intermediate to longterm purview, the long-term rating.

Senator THOMPSON. Well, then does that really add anything to

the rating itself in this comment?

33

Mr. BARONE. I am not sure I follow your question.

Senator THOMPSON. I get the impression you are saying that he

is saying nothing more than what the rating itself says.

Mr. BARONE. Right, and I don’t believe he was asked anything

further than that. Our view at that time was, given the information we had to our avail, that there was a strong—that we had an

opinion——

Senator THOMPSON. Mr. Pellecchia, do you have any comment on

that?

Mr. PELLECCHIA. I think our commentary is particularly important, specifically the commentary that is written that goes along

with the rating, for instance, the warnings that you can give investors, such as what we said during the Dynegy-Enron merger period, and we said if the merger goes away, Enron’s ratings will

drop several notches to speculative grade. So I think that that

gives a warning to investors that this is——

Senator THOMPSON. You give a balanced treatment background

as to how you came to that rating.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Yes.

Senator THOMPSON. I venture to say that is something you would

never be able to do on CNN or any of the other cable shows.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. To be honest, some of these conversations that

we have talked about involve an hour conversation with a reporter.

Senator THOMPSON. Complicated situation.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. That picks up the most provocative——

Senator THOMPSON. And investors watching the show want to

know——

Mr. PELLECCHIA. But I think that’s an important——

Senator THOMPSON [continuing]. If you guys say a stock is going

to be—this company is going to be in good shape.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Let me just follow up with a few

questions. We have talked about a couple of trusts and about some

triggers. The trust names were referred to as Osprey and Marlin,

and you were aware that there were triggers that would guarantee

that investments in those trusts would, in fact, be repaid, I believe,

Mr. Barone, right? You knew about the triggers. In fact, I think

you testified that was relevant to your assessment of Enron’s credit

rating because they ultimately were the guarantor of that investment in those trusts. Is that a fair——

Mr. BARONE. That’s correct, sir.

Senator LEVIN. Now, I just want to go through the timetable on

this and discuss what these triggers were and when the gun went

off. My understanding is that the stock price of Enron fell below

a certain level on May 5, so that was one of the triggers at that

point. Enron then was on the verge of having to pay $2.4 billion

back to investors in that Osprey trust.

What were the other criteria? Do you remember offhand?

Mr. BARONE. That the ratings fall below investment grade from

either of the agencies.

Senator LEVIN. Now, when that happened, you were aware of the

trigger on the stock price.

Mr. BARONE. Yes.

34

Senator LEVIN. And you also were aware that the other criteria

depended on your own rating, so that if you responded to the gun

going off on that date by changing your rating, that would have

certain massive consequences for Enron.

Did you on that day when that happened consider lowering your

rating?

Mr. BARONE. No, sir, not at all.

Senator LEVIN. Did you know about it?

Mr. BARONE. Yes.

Senator LEVIN. All right. If, in fact, that trigger was relevant to

the rating, why would the fact that the gun went off not be relevant to a changed rating?

Mr. BARONE. Again, the stock price dropping could be tied to

multiple reasons. Whereas, the credit rating, the thing that I knew

and knew best about, tied to the creditworthiness, is something

that we can manage and we can monitor. The stock price dropped

for many reasons. There was a general market decline. Most stocks

had dropped from the last 2 years from general economic conditions. So it didn’t cause us any alarm because we were looking at

the fundamentals of the company, its business models, financial

profile as we believed it to be, and its qualitative assessment, and

we were still at BBB-plus. We had three notches to go before this

trigger, the second part of that, the ‘‘and’’ clause would have been

tripped.

Senator LEVIN. You were the tripper?

Mr. BARONE. We could have been, sure.

Senator LEVIN. It was in your hands as to whether it was tripped

or not.

Mr. BARONE. Sure. Absolutely.

Senator LEVIN. But the first criteria had been met.

Mr. BARONE. Right.

Senator LEVIN. Was that public?

Mr. BARONE. Which part, sir?

Senator LEVIN. The triggers.

Mr. BARONE. I think these were private—I believe these partnerships were set up privately under 144(a) rules, so I do not know

whether they were disclosed, whether the general market knew

about them. Clearly, the investors who invested in them knew, and

many of those who decided not to invest in them would have

known because it was marketed to quite a few people on Wall

Street.

Senator LEVIN. But the people who invested in Enron would not

have known?

Mr. BARONE. The common equity shareholders? I can’t say, but

probably not, sir.

Senator LEVIN. It seems to me that this permeates this problem,

the fact that there were hidden guarantees here that affected

Enron’s stock. This is a guarantee that could trigger a $2.4 billion

repayment from Enron or Enron stock, not known to the public but

known to you.

Mr. BARONE. I would say, sir, the Mom and Pop investors were

not likely to know about it, but the institutional holders of the common shares were probably aware of it. It’s just speculation on my

part. I don’t have firsthand knowledge.

35

1 Chart entitled ‘‘Project Margaux’’ appears in the Appendix on page 207.

Senator LEVIN. Well, this is one of the reasons that Mom and

Pop got the shaft. There were guarantees here that were not disclosed to that average investor that you folks knew about. You

folks knew about those guarantees, right?

Mr. BARONE. Right. Yes, sir.

Senator LEVIN. There is something wrong here. Something very

wrong, because we have advisers who know parts of the investment

banking—part of what an investment bank knows, you folks know.

Mr. BARONE. Right. This was a private deal, sir.

Senator LEVIN. I understand, and you are aware—— Mr. BARONE. We would have breached confidentiality if we had

disclosed this.

Senator LEVIN. You are aware of it, though, and you are rating

Enron’s credit. So you know something. You don’t act on it here

even though you are aware of it. That bothers me, by the way. It

seems to me that it was relevant to your rating; therefore, when

it was triggered, it should be relevant to a re-rating. I will state

it that simply. OK? If it is relevant to begin with, then the change

in it makes it relevant to the re-rating.

Mr. BARONE. Are you asking a question——

Senator LEVIN. No, I will just make a statement on that. Since

you are the one who said that it was relevant to your determination as to how to rate their debt, the fact that there were these

triggers, that was relevant; the fact that the trigger went off, it

seems to me would be relevant as well to your rating of debt. I will

make that as my statement.

Mr. BARONE. It was specifically written, sir, with an ‘‘and’’ clause

so that it wouldn’t be subject to general market condition, as I understand it. They purposely put both triggers in, the slide of the

common equity price as well as a decline in credit, knowing fully

if both occurred that that would clearly indicate a significant impairment of their financial profile.

Senator LEVIN. I will just repeat: The second part is in your

hands. That is the rating issue that is in your hands. So it is not

some outside objective factor. It is whether you rate them below

market grade.

Mr. BARONE. Or my colleagues.

Senator LEVIN. Of course, your colleagues. I am looking at you,

but it is all three of you.

One other question here. I want to show you a typical structured

financing deal. Hundreds of these structured finance deals were

rated by you folks, or at least were entered into by Enron. If you

look hard enough, you will find Enron on that chart. It is up somewhere in the top left bowl of the spaghetti. There is a little piece

of spaghetti way up there.

This is a diagram of the Whitewing part of the financing of

Project Margaux,1 which is a European energy deal. This is a document which was produced from one of subpoenas issued by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Now, wouldn’t something as incomprehensible as this raise some

questions to you about the purpose and the viability of this project?

Because you are going to give a rating now to the instruments

36

which result from that project. When you look at this and you realize there are hundreds of these things that Enron is getting into,

Enron had more structured financing deals, I think, than any typical company, $15 to $20 billion a year in structured financing

deals from 1997 to 2001. Here is one of them.

Two questions. Were your companies aware of the huge amount

of structured financing deals at Enron? Second, shouldn’t this have

triggered some questions in your mind, this kind of a haystack

where you are supposed to find the needle of debt? Shouldn’t that

have raised some questions in your mind as to the purpose and viability of the project? Let me start with you, Mr. Barone.

Mr. BARONE. We were aware of many of their structured finance

deals, and Enron’s aggressive use, if you will, of structured finance

deals was one of the many reasons we only rated it BBB-plus, sir.

If you looked at Enron’s financial profile on its face, you would

have come to a conclusion that this could have been a company

with a much higher credit rating, and yet we take into account the

aggressive use of financial structures and such.

Senator LEVIN. Would you agree this is a relatively incomprehensible structure?

Mr. BARONE. Not necessarily. I’m not a structured finance analyst, but we have structured finance analysts at Standard & Poor’s,

very capable ones, who make it their livelihood to understand

structures like—— Senator LEVIN. We would appreciate if one of them would take

a look at this and tell us whether that is a typical structured deal

and whether it is comprehensible. Let the Committee know for the

record, would you?

Do you have any comment, Mr. Diaz.

Mr. DIAZ. I would, to a great extent, echo Mr. Barone’s comments. We were aware of a lot of their structured transactions. We

rated a couple of them. But we were not aware, obviously, of a lot

of the off-balance sheet partnerships. And, also, I also am not a

structured finance analyst, but this kind of structure doesn’t look

dramatically different, all the wiggly lines and all that, than a lot

of the ones that are done by our structured people.

Senator LEVIN. That looks to you like a typical structured finance

deal?

Mr. DIAZ. It looks like the kinds of deals that I have seen other

companies put together, and again I wouldn’t rate them myself. I

don’t have the expertise to do structured financing. But it’s not, on

the face of it, out of the ordinary.

Senator LEVIN. OK. Perhaps you could ask one of your structured

finance folks to tell us if that is typical, too, as well.

Mr. Pellecchia.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Well, my response would be certainly that the

complexity of the company and the types of transactions that it entered into was a factor in keeping Enron’s rating in the BBB category. I don’t think there’s any question about that.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Bunning.

Senator BUNNING. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Can I go back to March 2000? Both S&P’s and Fitch rated Enron

as BBB-plus and Moody’s rated Enron as Baaa–1, which is in the

37

slightly higher than ordinary but not at the top like a AAA rating.

It is somewhere between BBB-plus and——

Mr. DIAZ. The Baa category is at the low end of the investment

grade spectrum. It has——

Senator BUNNING. Baaa.

Mr. DIAZ. Baa, we call it, B-a-a. So a Baa–1 rating would be at

the top of the low investment grade rating category.

Senator BUNNING. But it is still an investment grade rating?

Mr. DIAZ. It is an investment grade rating, yes, sir.

Senator BUNNING. OK. However, even as Enron’s stock, common

stock, crumbled through most of 2001, the credit rating agencies—

that is you three—didn’t downgrade Enron from investment grade

status until 4 days before it declared bankruptcy—4 days.

Now, I know you are not security analysts as far as having the

ability to understand why a stock would be going down so fast. But

insider trading is published constantly on the Internet. As Senator

Levin said, you were part of a two-pronged deal that said Enron

was going to have to cough up $2.4 billion, their stock had hit $20

a share on the down side, but as long as they held their investment

grade rating, they didn’t have to do any of the $2.4 billion. The insider selling in that stock was unbelievable. Everybody that knew

anything about the company was bailing out as fast as they could

get their market shares to the market.

Now we also have a lockdown on their 401(k) plan, so the ordinary people in the company can’t sell their stock.

Now, doesn’t that ring a bell with you and say why in the world

are all these people bailing out if this is such a sound corporation?

And why in the world would I sell a share at $20 that was just

$90 a few months prior if, in fact, I believed it was going to turn

around and go back up? That makes no sense to me at all. And it

should have triggered your investigation because you were part of

that two-pronged deal. As long as they held an investment grade

status, they didn’t have to ante up the $2.4 billion.

Didn’t that set off any alarms in your financial rating of those

companies?

Mr. BARONE. No, sir. We see insider trading from firms quite frequently, and determining why a director or an officer of the company is selling its shares of stock——

Senator BUNNING. This was massive. This wasn’t just one or two

or three people. This was anybody who knew anything about the

company. They were bailing. They had bad feelings about the company. And all you had to do was trigger the other half of that and

make them come up with $2.4 billion if their stock is under $20,

and that would have done it completely in, the $2.4 billion, because

you know darn well they couldn’t pay it off. They had no means

of paying $2.4 billion off.

I would like to know why you held that rating to 4 days before

they filed bankruptcy.

Mr. BARONE. For us, Senator, we were aware of the Dynegy

merger on——

Senator BUNNING. Well, the Dynegy merger is an if. If they are

successful in merging with Dynegy, then maybe they would be able

to survive.

38

Mr. BARONE. It is our practice and the practice that the market

has come to recognize, when mergers occur, to take into account

the probability of the merger. We deal in probabilities, as my colleagues said. And our assessment was that there was a strong

probability at the time that it would succeed. And when we lost

confidence in that probability, that’s when we decided to act prior

to the merger being dis-consummated, so to speak.

Senator BUNNING. That is a pile-on, as far as I am concerned.

That is after the fact. You are depending on something that the potential of it happening is not going to be 50/50 maybe.

Now, you are supposed to have inside information that we don’t

have, that the average investor doesn’t have, and yet you didn’t

flag it.

Mr. BARONE. I’d say, sir, our assessment was that there was a

greater, much greater, chance than 50/50 at the time when we

made that assessment on November 1 or 2, that the merger would

go through. Indeed, if we thought it was just 50/50, we would have

lowered the rating to properly reflect that.

Senator BUNNING. We need more people doing the ratings then,

because obviously you three all agreed.

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, I think I’ve testified before that we also believed that the probability of the merger going through was high.

We had a rating committee that included our senior management,

and we came to the conclusion, given the changes in that agreement, there was a very high probability the merger would go

through. So that’s the key for holding the rating during that period.

Just as another point, one of the comments that I’ve made is that

we’ve been trying to figure out how can we improve the process,

and one thing that we’ve done is talk to the major asset management firms to try to understand how they use ratings and how they

would like us to, in effect, do the ratings.

One of the things that they’ve said to us is that they like the stability of ratings, but the other point is that when things are

going—when a company is under certain amount of distress, they

would like for us to give the company the ability, if there’s a probability of correcting the problem, to give them the opportunity to

do so.

Senator BUNNING. Do you all realize that once you take a corporate bond and make it a junk bond, the potential of bankruptcy

in that company is really high?

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, I think when we take—a company that

wouldn’t be an Enron——

Senator BUNNING. Any other company that might be listed, or

not even listed, just private——

Mr. DIAZ. A Ba category, which is not investment grade, is still

a viable category. A company can live as a Ba company for many

years.

Senator BUNNING. How long?

Mr. DIAZ. The probability of default is in our studies, but I think

the probability of default over a 10-year period for a Ba—and I may

be wrong and would have to double-check, but it is in the neighborhood of 16 to 20 percent, which means that 80 percent, roughly— and, again, don’t hold me to the numbers, but it’s a fairly high

number—would actually survive for 10 years. So it’s not a situation

39

where it’s Ba and death. In Enron’s case it was because of the triggers, and it was because everybody was running away from it. But

it’s a different situation.

Senator BUNNING. They were running long before you ever downgraded.

Mr. DIAZ. No, because the—— Senator BUNNING. They were.

Mr. DIAZ. Well, the—— Senator BUNNING. The general public, the management of the

company, and all others were running from that stock, and because

you failed to act in downgrading it below investment grade, it held

on a heck of a lot longer than it would have.

Mr. DIAZ. But we had good reasons for doing so. We were looking

at a good probability of a merger with a bona fide partner, with

Chevron-Texaco behind it, and with bank funding that would have

made it work—if Enron itself—the real problem was that Enron

itself was rotting from inside. The fact is that Dynegy—I don’t

think Dynegy knew, I don’t think the banks knew how bad the situation was.

Senator BUNNING. And all the poor people that worked for it

were the ones that took the big hit.

Mr. DIAZ. That’s right, Senator, and that’s a real tragedy.

Senator BUNNING. Yes, it is a tragedy. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Bunning, for some excellent questions.

Thank you, gentlemen. Your testimony has been very important

to this Committee as we try to learn the lessons of Enron as we

follow the trail down to places that we didn’t expect we would go.

And I want to ask you to go back—maybe you are doing this already—and speak with the executives at your companies about how

you can use, better use the real life-and-death power you have over

corporations to protect us investors, individual and institutional,

from the next Enron. We know it is the exception, but a lot of people, as you all just said, were hurt by it. And we think you are in

a position to do more than was done in this case to try to protect

the economy and a lot of people from the pain and suffering that

they endured as a result of what happened. But for now, I thank

you for your testimony this morning.

Mr. DIAZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARONE. Thank you.

Mr. PELLECCHIA. Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We are now going to call panel two: The

Hon. Isaac Hunt, Jonathan Macey, Glenn Reynolds, and Steven

Schwarcz. And as you come to the table, I will just ask you to remain standing so I can administer the oath before you begin your

testimony.

I would ask the four witnesses to please raise your right hands,

if you would. And do you solemnly swear that the testimony you

are about to give this Committee today is the truth, the whole

truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?

Mr. HUNT. I do.

Mr. MACEY. I do.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I do.

Mr. SCHWARCZ. I do.

40

1The prepared statement of Mr. Hunt appears in the Appendix on page 131.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Please be seated, and let the

record show that each of the witnesses has answered the question

in the affirmative.

Thanks very much for being here. Some of you have come quite

a distance, but thanks particularly for your patience as we heard

the testimony of the first panel, and we now look forward to your

helping us answer some of the questions that were both asked and

we are left with by the first panel. First we are going to call on

the Hon. Isaac C. Hunt, Jr., Commissioner of the U.S. Securities

and Exchange Commission.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ISAAC C. HUNT, JR.,1 COMMISSIONER,

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Mr. HUNT. Good morning, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Thompson, and other Members of the Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on behalf of the SEC regarding credit rating agencies and the Commission’s experience with the credit rating industry.

The recent collapse of Enron has renewed questions as to whether rating agencies should be subject to increased regulation, particularly because all three nationally recognized statistical rating

agencies rated Enron and/or its credit obligations as investment

grade less than 1 week before Enron filed its bankruptcy petition.

As you know, for almost a century, credit rating agencies have

been providing opinions on the creditworthiness of issuers of securities and other financial obligations. During this time, the importance of these opinions to investors and other market participants

and the influence of these opinions on the securities markets has

increased significantly, particularly with the increase in the number of issuers and the advent of new and complex financial products, such as asset-backed securities and credit derivatives. The

globalization of the financial markets also has served to expand the

role of credit ratings to jurisdictions other than the United States.

Today, credit ratings affect securities markets in a number of important ways, including an issuer’s access to and cost of capital, the

structure of financial transactions, and the ability of fiduciaries

and others to invest in particular investments.

During the past 30 years, regulators such as the Commission

have increasingly used credit ratings as a surrogate for the measurement of risk in assessing investments held by regulated entities.

Specifically, since 1975, the Commission has referenced the ratings

of specified rating agencies in certain of its regulations, referring

to these rating agencies as ‘‘Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations.’’ The term ‘‘NRSRO’’ was originally adopted by

the Commission solely for the purpose of the Commission’s net capital rule. Subsequently, the Commission used the ratings of

NRSROs to distinguish ‘‘investment grade’’ securities from those

that are ‘‘non-investment grade,’’ in regulations under the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Company Act of 1940. Congress itself employed the term

‘‘NRSRO’’ when it defined the term ‘‘mortgage-related security’’ in

Section 3(a)(41) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Other FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
41

eral and State regulators also incorporated the NRSRO concept

into their rules.

Currently, to determine whether a rating organization is an

NRSRO, the Commission staff reviews the rating organization’s operations, position in the marketplace, and other criteria (which are

elaborated on in my written testimony). If the Commission staff determines that the NRSRO designation is appropriate, the staff

sends a no-action letter to the rating organization stating that the

staff will not recommend enforcement action to the Commission

against broker-dealers that are using ratings issued by the rating

agency for purposes of the net capital rule.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sir, excuse me. Am I right that this only

happens once in the life of a credit rating agency that it gets this

no-action letter?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, Senator, that’s true, although we try to put the

rating agencies on the same schedule for inspection as we do other

investment advisers that are registered with us as investment advisers. Whether that is right or wrong is open to debate, but they

are. And that is about every 5 years.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is interesting. So in that capacity—

though presumably these no-action letters in some of the cases of

these three agencies go back decades, correct?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir. There were four others that we gave no-action letters to, but they were all subsequently merged into the existing three. So at one time there were seven.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So that every 5 years, because they also

have the status of investment advisers, you do go back—— Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN [continuing]. And do an inspection. And

what is that about? What does it constitute? What do you look at?

Mr. HUNT. Well, we look at the books and records. We look at

their operations. We look at their capacity. We do a much broader

inspection when we give them the no-action letter. But when we go

back and look at them every 5 years as investment advisers, we

look at their books and records and their operations. I would not

say it’s as extensive as the first look we do when we give them the

original no-action letter.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. Understood. Thank you.

Mr. HUNT. Over the course of its history, the Commission has

considered a number of issues regarding credit rating agencies. Not

surprisingly, many of the instances in which either the Commission

or Congress reflected on the need for regulation coincided with a

large-scale credit default such as the Orange County default and

the default of the Washington Public Power Supply System bonds

or, for example, Penn Central. Ten years ago the Commission seriously considered the need for oversight authority of credit rating

agencies, given their increasing role in the financial and regulatory

systems. The Commission at that time did not reach a consensus

on the need for regulation.

In 1994, the Commission did, however, issue a concept release

soliciting public comment on the appropriate role of ratings in the

Federal securities laws, and the need to establish formal procedures for designating and monitoring the activities of NRSROs. In

1997, the Commission published a rule proposal that would have

42

adopted a definition of the term ‘‘NRSRO’’ that set forth the criteria a rating organization would have to satisfy to be acknowledged as an NRSRO. Generally, under the proposed amendments,

the Commission would consider the same criteria currently used in

the no-action letter process. To a large extent, the proposal was designed to bring greater transparency to the existing process and to

provide for a formal appeal process to the Commission and, if necessary, to the Federal courts.

Observers have criticized the national recognition requirement as

creating a barrier to entry for new credit rating agencies. However,

the Commission historically has not found that the requirement

creates a substantial barrier to entry into the credit rating business. At this time, the Commission plans to examine the competitive impact of the NRSRO designation and will consider suggestions concerning other market-based alternatives that might address the competitive concerns association with the NRSRO framework. The Commission’s examination, which may include hearings,

will ascertain facts, conditions, practices, and other matters relating to the role of rating agencies in the U.S. securities market. We

believe it is an appropriate time and in the public interest to reexamine the role of rating agencies in the U.S. securities markets.

Thank you. I will be happy to try to answer your questions.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Commissioner Hunt, for that testimony and for what you indicated at the end. I gather you are

going to commence your own inquiry here as a Commission.

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Motivated in part by the Enron episode?

Mr. HUNT. Motivated in part by the Enron episode. Motivated in

part by our concern that how people get this rating is not transparent to most of the investing public.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right.

Mr. HUNT. Motivated in part because, as more and more entities

use credit rating agencies, there may be more need for more than

three, as there is now a need for more than four accounting firms.

So for all those reasons, we think we are going to take a thorough

look at what they do and whether we should have more authority

over them and whether indeed we should even come to you and ask

for more authority over them.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. Is it your judgment—well, maybe

this is a preliminary question, but I will ask you: Is it your judgment now that if you chose to exercise more authority over the

credit rating agencies, you would need legislative authorization or

that it is within your legislative mandate now?

Mr. HUNT. We could do a lot of it through rulemaking. Our hearings might show whether and to what extent we need more legislation.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. I am greatly encouraged by that decision that the Commission has made. I appreciate it. And as I understand it, it goes not only to the question of whether there is sufficient competition within the credit rating agency sector, but also

to the larger question of whether there is a public interest in having the SEC specifically do more oversight of the agencies.

Mr. HUNT. They perform an ever more important role in our securities markets, as you understand.

43

1The prepared statement of Mr. Macey appears in the Appendix on page 138.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes.

Mr. HUNT. They are involved in hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in our market, and so we thought it was time to

take a look to see where we are and where we ought to go.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, excellent. Thank you.

Next we are going to hear from Jonathan Macey, J. DuPratt

White Professor of Law, John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics, Cornell Law School. Pretty extensive title there, Professor

Macey. Thanks for being here.

TESTIMONY OF JONATHAN R. MACEY,1 J. DUPRATT WHITE

PROFESSOR OF LAW, CORNELL LAW SCHOOL

Mr. MACEY. It’s nice to be here. I am going to talk a little bit

about the role of credit rating agencies in the economy.

The purpose of credit rating agencies is to inform investors of the

credit quality of securities and warn investors when credit quality

of securities deteriorates. Rating agencies are paid large fees by

corporate clients in order to maintain ratings for the debt. For example, Enron paid Moody’s between $1.5 and $2 million annually

to maintain its ratings on its various public and private debt.

Being a credit rating agency is a great business to be in. The industry is dominated by the two leading firms, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s. Analysts have estimated that the profits of the big

credit rating agencies have grown at the phenomenal compound annual rate of 15 percent for the past 20 years.

Customer demand is strong because a host of regulations exists

that forbid investors from purchasing securities that aren’t rated.

For example, money market mutual funds cannot hold securities

unless they have one of the two highest ratings from rating agencies. Bank regulators long have required banks to write down

bonds they hold in their portfolios unless they attain a certain rating. And they can’t even own securities that aren’t rated investment grade by one of the major rating agencies.

These sorts of regulations have extended to securities firms

where ratings are used to determine how much capital broker-dealer firms need to hold against the securities in their portfolios under

the so-called net capital rules. There are quotas on the quantity of

lower-graded bonds that pension funds and insurance companies

can have in their portfolios. The higher the credit ratings assigned

by the rating agencies, the greater the percentage of the securities

value you can count towards meeting a firm’s net capital requirements.

Rating agencies have enormous power because government regulation creates an artificial demand for their services. Regulators

have bestowed upon the big rating agencies the legal designation

‘‘Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization’’—

NRSRO—and have shielded rating agencies from competition, creating a comfortable oligopolistic environment. I would just add that

this is the same problem, in my view, that plagues the accounting

industry in this country as well.

Of course, it’s not just government regulation that gives rating

agencies such immense power. They also get power from the extenVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
44

sive use of debt covenants and other financial instruments to create

conditions of default. The downgrading of a rating by an NRSRO

can throw a company into default under the terms of its debt covenants. But the artificial demand for the services of rating agencies

that has been created by regulation should not be ignored.

These massive regulatory subsidies, in my view, have given rating agencies a lack of accountability by removing market incentives

from the work they perform. Rating agencies have few incentives

in the current environment to do good work. Their incentives in today’s regulatory environment are to reduce costs as much as possible, knowing that regulation guarantees a fixed stable demand for

their services. This, in my view, may account for the agencies’ lack

of vigorous pursuit of the situation involving the Enron special purpose entities.

The regulatory subsidies given to credit rating agencies would

not be particularly troubling were it not for the fact that credit ratings, in my view, may not provide useful or timely information

about the creditworthiness of companies in today’s markets if the

information is marginal because the information contained in credit

ratings already has been incorporated into securities prices by the

time a rating agency gets around to acting. For example, in Enron,

the company’s $250 million in senior secured debt retained its investment grade rating until November 28, 4 days before the energy

firm filed for bankruptcy. But with respect to the market, in the

2 weeks before the bonds lost their investment grade status, their

price had plummeted from $85 to $35.

Clearly, the financial markets were not waiting around for the

credit rating agencies in the case of Enron, which is a good thing

since the ratings providing by the rating agencies lagged the information contained in securities prices by a full year.

We have heard and the rating agencies have responded to these

sorts of criticism by point to the fact that very few companies with

investment grade ratings default over a 5-year period. The rating

agencies also can show that companies that have been rated AAA

are less likely to default than companies with lower ratings, and

bonds with high ratings are stable over time.

Of course, this sort of track record isn’t a big comfort to investors

and companies like Enron when the rating agencies pull their investment grade ratings on the eve of default. The problem, in my

view, is that there is little follow-through. The rating agencies rely

too much on their corporate clients for information and don’t ask

tough questions of management that would permit them to deter

future Enrons from occurring.

For example, in the case of Enron, the rating agencies have excused their tardiness by saying that they kept their ratings high

only because the rating was dependent on the merger with Dynegy.

But nobody needed the rating agencies to tell them what would

happen if the merger went through. They needed to know what

would happen if the merger didn’t go through.

Poor credit ratings threaten to distort the process by which capital is allocated among businesses because in today’s regulatory environment rating downgrades are self-fulfilling prophecies, triggering repayment of debt and bond covenants and causing those seVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
45

1The prepared statement of Mr. Reynolds appears in the Appendix on page 148.

curities by virtue of the regulations to be worth less than identical

securities that haven’t been downgraded.

In my view, I would make a few substantive recommendations

with respect to the interactions between Commissioner Hunt’s

agency and the rating agencies. I think that the SEC should consider whether the rating agency should be obliged by regulation to

disclose the public documents on which they relied as the basis for

their rating determinations, and also to disclose whether the information contained in their ratings is based on anything other than

publicly available documents like non-public interactions with the

issuer or other entities.

I also think it would be useful to have disclosure about whether

ratings are being issued despite the fact that the rating agencies

lack the information that a reasonable investor would consider relevant to the formulation of a rating and to disclose the extent to

which the ratings that are being issued were based on credit

spreads rather than financial reporting.

Thank you very much.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Very constructive and helpful

testimony.

Next we are going to hear from Glenn L. Reynolds, chief executive officer of CreditSights, Inc. Thanks for being here.

TESTIMONY OF GLENN L. REYNOLDS,1 CHIEF EXECUTIVE

OFFICER, CREDITSIGHTS, INC.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is my pleasure to

get an opportunity to testify on a subject that I know is of grave

concern to many of the institutional debt and equity investors that

we deal with on a regular basis. The difficulties in navigating a

very complex market are challenging enough without the added

pressures of questioning the integrity of reported numbers, the adequacy of disclosure, or the ability of the rating agencies to get sufficient information to do their job effectively.

In the aftermath of Enron, there have also been some questions

about the steps the rating agencies took in bringing many of these

issues to a head and the depth and vigor of their due diligence. The

response to date, which has been to speed up the pace of downgrades but not necessarily shed more light on the expectations built

into a given rating, have not been satisfactory and will not allow

us to deal with future Enron-type situations.

Disclosure guidelines and accounting rules may be the responsibility of the SEC and the FASB, but the rating agencies can play

a vital role in zeroing in on material risks and major shortcomings

in the disclosure of those risks.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Reynolds, would you excuse me a second? Under the arcane procedures and life that we lead here in the

Senate, I have just been notified that a member of the Senate has

lodged an objection to three committees proceeding with their business after noon, which is the right of the members, 2 hours after

the Senate convenes. This Committee is one of those. This has

nothing to do, as far as anybody would understand, with the subject of our inquiry. It probably has to do with something unrelated

46

1The prepared statement of Mr. Schwarcz with an attachment appears in the Appendix on

page 168.

that the given Senator is trying to get attention for. One can only

speculate that it might have something to do with the course of judicial nominations. I don’t know.

You have all come from some distance, and we are not transacting business as it were here, so I hope this is not considered an

act of civil disobedience. I am going to say that the official hearing

is over, though I would like to ask the record to continue to be

kept, and that we are going to just continue this discussion, because you have come a long way, you have got something to offer,

and I would hate not to hear it.

So, with that caveat, please proceed.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I can just defer to my written testimony, and we

can go right to questions and answers.

INFORMAL DISCUSSION

[12:04 p.m.]

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, go ahead and finish. But this is now

not a formal hearing of the Governmental Affairs Committee. This

is a discussion among a group of people interested in the credit rating agencies and what we have learned about them from the Enron

episode.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Let me cut to the chase. If a company fails to answer critical questions that are crucial to an assessment of the

risks, it should either prompt a withdrawal of the rating or even

potentially a downgrading in certain circumstances. The recurring

refrain from the rating agencies that the issuer will not tell them

just does not hold. It rings hollow when one considers that a rating

has a requirement for access and that any conflicts with the rating

agencies will be an incentive for the market and the SEC, to be

somewhat unforgiving and, in particular, as we saw in the case of

Enron, the market.

With that I will just end my comments.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks.

Professor Steven Schwarcz is a professor of law of Duke University, a shorter title than Professor Macey has, but we are, nonetheless, pleased that you are here.

TESTIMONY OF STEVEN L. SCHWARCZ,1 PROFESSOR OF LAW,

DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW

Mr. SCHWARCZ. Thank you. Anticipating this would be an informal hearing, I did not wear a suit today.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well done. [Laughter.]

Mr. SCHWARCZ. One of the things I should say is I will be speaking about the rating agencies, but I am an expert on structured finance. I actually would have answers to many of Senator Levin’s

questions, and the third edition of my treatise on structured finance came out in January, and I would be happy to answer any

questions afterwards.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me urge you to, if you haven’t already, be in touch with Senator Levin after the hearing because

47

1The article submitted by Mr. Schwarcz appears in the Appendix on page 175.

this is a particular interest of his, and he has done a lot of—we

have sent out a number of subpoenas through his Subcommittee,

and one of the topics they are interested in is structured financial

deals here. So you could be helpful to him.

Mr. SCHWARCZ. I will do so. Thank you.

Rating agencies are not substantively regulated by the United

States. or any other major financial-center nation. Financial-center

nations, nonetheless, impose a minimal form of governmental control by giving official recognition to rating agencies that meet certain criteria. This is exemplified in the United States by the

NRSRO designation.

Now, as you know, if a rating agency is designated a NRSRO, its

ratings can be used to satisfy rating requirements established by

governmental agencies like the SEC in certain Federal regulatory

schemes.

Today’s hearing is being held because of a failure of the NRSROdesignated rating agencies to predict the Enron meltdown. In this

context, I should note that rating agencies have always made their

rating determinations based primarily on information provided by

the issuer of securities. Thus, a rating is no more reliable than that

information.

Furthermore, ratings do not cover the risk of fraud. To the extent

Enron provided the rating agencies with insufficient or fraudulent

information, that would explain their failure to predict Enron’s demise.

I’ll now turn to an analysis of the need for regulation, and I have

submitted with my testimony—I don’t know if you have copies or

not—an article I wrote that is forthcoming, in fact, any day now,

(in fact, it was published at 2002 University of Illinois Law Review

1), entitled ‘‘Private Ordering of Public Markets: The Rating Agency Paradox,’’ 1 which focuses on whether rating agencies should remain unregulated.

The normative rationale for regulation in an economic context is

improving efficiency. There are two ways that regulation could do

this: By making rating agencies perform better the tasks they already do, or by limiting the negative consequences of their actions.

I conclude in my article that regulation would neither improve such

performance nor limit such negative consequences.

Now, having said that, I understand that this Committee session

is being held because of the Enron problem, but I believe Enron

does not raise a systemic problem for rating agencies. They have,

as has been acknowledged, a remarkable track record of success in

their ratings and, indeed, recent experience is fairly reliable.

However, most of the information in terms of reliability of ratings looks to see whether defaults have occurred at the time of an

investment grade rating; and that can miss situations where default occurs, as happened with Enron, right after a company is

downgraded below investment grade.

Nonetheless, there is a recent internal analysis by Standard &

Poor’s that is publicly available which uses information extracted

from its proprietary database on over 9,000 companies with rated

debt that confirms the stability of investment grade ratings, findVerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:46 Aug 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 79888.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
48

ing, for example, that all A-rated companies at the beginning of a

given year would have an 87.94 percent chance of maintaining that

same rating by year-end.

Now, I agree that Enron is a very visible and dramatic exception

to these data. But statistically, the failure to predict Enron’s demise does not materially change these data; and, as mentioned, to

the extent that failure arose from Enron’s providing the rating

agencies with insufficient or fraudulent information, then the failure is truly an anomaly.

Now, to get to the issue of NRSROs, there are many countries

that make their applicability of laws turn on variants of the

NRSRO-type designation. Whether the applicability of law should,

as a normative matter, turn on a rating is beyond the scope of my

testimony. I do note, as I said, that external credit ratings are

being relied on in regulations worldwide. But so long as the applicability of law does turn on such ratings, some form of regulatory

approval of rating agencies would appear appropriate. And in this

context, I’ve examined the appropriateness of the NRSRO designation as a rating methodology.

The central question is balancing the protection provided by the

NRSRO designation with the goal of ensuring that a sufficient

number of rating agencies receive such designation to ensure competition. In this context, it has been proposed by the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice that NRSRO designation be

awarded to some foreign recognized rating agencies as well as to

arm’s-length subsidiaries of domestic firms active in evaluating the

business and securities of companies. There should be relatively little risk if these entities are well capitalized, have reputations for

quality financial analysis in the investment community, and have

acceptable business plans to rate securities. Consideration even

might be given, for example, to firms that utilize alternative rating

approaches such as, as Professor Macey mentioned, credit spreads

and stock price volatility. The risk could be further minimized by

making any de novo applicants for NRSRO status provisional for

some period of time, such as, for example, 12 months.

Now, in this way, the potential anticompetitive effect of NRSRO

designation can, consistent with the integrity of that designation,

be reduced. This seems to me like a very sensible approach.

In closing, I should simply say that we all need to put these

issues into perspective and not be as bent on placing blame as

Enron’s executives were to find profits.

Thank you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Professor Schwarcz.

Mr. Reynolds, since that announcement cut you short a bit, let

me go to you first to give you a chance to say a little bit more. In

your testimony, you have indicated that the credit rating agencies

are not using the power that they have to get all the information

they need to make full and fair assessments of the companies, and

you say—and I agree with you, and I would guess most Members

of the Committee do, certainly after the first panel—that another

Enron could be prevented if the rating agencies take advantage of

that strength.

Let me ask you first why you think they don’t use the power they

have now.

49

Mr. REYNOLDS. It may be a practiced behavior. It may be a sense

that there’s a confidentiality that exists between the rated company

and themselves that they’re not supposed to step outside those

boundaries. Maybe they need a mandate to have the willingness to

do that. But one of my concerns—and a lot of the people I speak

to regularly who are in the debt markets and default swap markets

and equity markets—there is a very unlevel playing field in information flows. They will have access to material inside information,

and they’re exempted from Reg. FD. But if it’s a material risk factor, we’re supposed to have this information disclosed to begin

with, so they are a very good set of eyes and ears to extract that

information, and whether it be within a tighter regulatory framework or just by their own decision to voice conclusions that may

not be clearly in the public domain, it would have benefit.

Keep in mind that we are in markets now that are a lot more

blurry than they used to be. We have banks actively participating

in the tradable debt market. They have access day in and day out

to inside information. They’re transacting in the credit default

swap market, which in turn sends signals to people who watch

those markets to see what the banks are thinking, because they

know everything the rating agencies know, and a lot more. And

they are taking actions which are reflected in pricing.

So there is a way to watch the system at work, but it seems that

it’s an unlevel playing field skewed towards those institutions

which have access to information, and that is not, as we referred

to earlier, the Mom and Pop investors.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask this: What opportunities do

you think, based on what you know of the Enron case, did the credit rating agencies miss that they should have found and pursued?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Well, the existence of off-balance sheet transactions were discussed in some detail earlier, but there is one area

that was not, which is the counterparty credit exposures which are

generated in a trading operation.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Describe that a little bit for the record.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Basically, a trading operation enters into a tremendous amount of buy and sell transactions: Swaps, commodity

swaps, interest rate swaps. These all give rise to theoretical lines

of credit. It’s off-the-shelf statistical modeling. Every Tom, Dick,

and Harry in the derivatives world could model this for you. It is

a line of credit that’s generated with a counterparty.

Now, when concerns started to arise in the marketplace with

companies who were closest to Enron, there was a serious risk of

them pulling in the credit lines and asking for collateral to be posted, and that is the run on the bank that people have been referring

to in some of these hearings. The first thing they should have been

looking at was that, finding out what those lines were—— Chairman LIEBERMAN. There was enough that they knew that it

should have engaged their interest that they should have pursued

it more.

Mr. REYNOLDS. It’s standard practice in risk management to

know your counterparty exposure by every counterparty. Theoretical line of credit, you have either payables or receivables.

Standard practice, any brokerage analyst deals with it regularly.

It’s just not as common with utilities.

50

So it could have been pursued with some vigor because that at

the end of the day is what killed the company. Debt hurts you.

Lack of liquidity kills you.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Commissioner Hunt, let me ask

this question about both the initial NRSRO determination made by

the SEC and also the reviews that are done in their capacity of investment advisers every 5 years. I wonder, what do you look for in

both of those stages? And, particularly, second, do you look at how

diligently the credit agency is doing its work?

Mr. HUNT. We look at their capacity to do their work, their internal controls. We do not second-guess their ratings, as we would not

second-guess an asset manager’s selection of equity securities. But

we do look at their internal controls, their capacity to do the work,

the kind of personnel they have, the number of personnel they

have, and their books and records.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask the two law professors here.

I think each of you thinks there is a basis for further regulation

of credit rating agencies, though I understand you come at it from

a different point of view. If you were the SEC or Congress, ideally

how would we regulate them better? What more would we ask of

them?

Mr. MACEY. I guess the really quick thing, Senator, one, as I

mentioned during my testimony, would be this disclosure point—— Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, I wanted you to talk a little more

about that.

Mr. MACEY. Well, the idea is that, as I think several people have

observed, what—the process by which credit rating agencies reach

their results is a very opaque process, and it would be—I think it

would be useful for investors to know exactly what it is they’re relying on.

For example, as I mentioned during my testimony, credit rating

agency ratings tend to lag markets. It would be interesting to know

the extent to which they look at the market prices, particularly in

the securities they rate, to derive ratings, the extent to which

they’re using non-public information as they are able to do under—

with the exemption they have under Regulation FD.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What would be the best method or mode

to make this disclosure?

Mr. MACEY. I think a filing with the SEC would make sense. As

Commissioner Hunt mentioned, there are—the agencies are already regulated by the Commission, and I think it would be a natural follow-on to get some kind of exposure.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. What other ideas did you——

Mr. MACEY. The second is—a couple of people have touched on

also. I think competition would be a good thing; to have a lot more

of these rating agencies would be a good thing, and to have some

easy entry and rivalrous competition. And, finally, I think that

there should be a hard look taken at what I call the chicken-game

problem; that is to say, if you look at the Enron situation, the credit rating agencies really were in a difficult position because pulling

the rating, as was discussed in the previous panel, for certain of

these private investment vehicles was the death knell for the company. And so you have this idea that these kinds of contractual arrangements allowed the company, in a case like Enron, which is

51

run by some pretty aggressive folks, apparently, to play chicken

with the credit rating agencies and say, Do you really want to be

responsible for our death? Who’s going to be the first to kind of

swerve in this game?

I don’t think that’s a particularly healthy situation, and I think

that it puts the rating agencies in a very difficult situation. I’d

have a look at those kinds of—— Chairman LIEBERMAN. It is a very interesting point. We keep

pressing on this. We pressed them in the first panel.

Mr. MACEY. Right.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That they have enormous power that they

are not using to get more information, at least. But I suppose the

other part of it is that with such enormous power, life and death,

you are hesitant to drop the boom. Our hope is they use the power

to get more information and report it to us. But how would you

qualify that?

Mr. MACEY. Well, I think this problem is—happily, this particular aspect of the problem is rather rare; that is to say, it’s my

understanding, or at least the credit rating agencies tell us that in

most of their rating situations, pulling the rating does not trigger

these sort of covenants and is not going to be the death of the company. And so I would isolate those situations like Enron where it

is, and I would urge the appropriate agency, obviously, in this case

the SEC, to see whether or not there would be some better way of

crafting these contractual provisions.

Specifically, my own view is that a far superior way in this limited context would be credit spreads; that is, instead of looking at

ratings, we can look at the spread between the yield to maturity

on the Enron senior unsecured debt and some similarly structured

government bond. And at the initial issuance, we would have a

spread of, say, you know, 2 percent or 200 basis points, and if the

spread goes to 9 percent or 900 basis points, that should sort of be

a clue that there’s something going on in the company that maybe

we should take a look at.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good. Interesting. Professor Schwarcz.

Mr. SCHWARCZ. Yes, thank you. I agree with Jonathan Macey in

terms of the fact that there probably should be additional entities

designated as NRSROs, and as I mentioned in my testimony, those

could include some foreign recognized rating agencies as well as

arm’s-length subsidiaries of domestic firms active in evaluating the

business and securities of companies.

The Law Review article I submitted goes into great detail on

these possibilities, and I won’t bore people now with those details.

I disagree with Jonathan on two points, however.

One is that he indicated that we need a lot more of these

NRSROs, and I would be concerned that if we had too many of

them, it would create almost a perverse incentive for issuers to

shop around for the highest rating they could find. And so I would

want to at least keep the number restricted to the very highest

quality of these potential new rating agencies or NRSROs.

Second, in terms of credit spreads, there are data that indicate

that for a thick market of publicly traded bonds, that credit

spreads may be, to some extent, more accurate than ratings. But

there also are data that show the opposite, and in my testimony

52

and in my article I cite at least an IMF study from 1999 that concludes that ratings are much more reliable than credit spreads.

Beyond that, I should say that credit spreads are only effective

where you have public trading of securities in a thick market. That

means credit spreads have very little application, for example, to

new issues of securities where there is no market at all and, therefore, no spreads. They have no application to structured finance

deals or other structured deals where the rating depends as much

on the legal structure as anything else, and the legal structure is

not known to and certainly not fully understood by most market

participants. And, third, they have little or no application to privately placed deals unless there’s a very thick trading market. So

most privately placed deals would not be eligible for the use of

credit spreads.

What I suggest, however, in my proposal is to have the foreign

recognized rating agencies and other players potentially be appointed on a provisional basis as NRSROs; and that some of these

players can be those that have considered credit spreads and stock

price volatility as alternative ways to assess creditworthiness. And

I think we can then all find out how accurate their ratings will be

based on experience.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Reynolds, do you have an opinion between the two we have heard on the question of competition,

whether if we created a climate in which there were more credit

rating agencies, that would encourage all of them to do more aggressive work or whether, as Professor Schwarcz said, there would

be a certain amount of shopping around for a good rate?

Mr. REYNOLDS. There historically has been a bit of shopping for

higher rates going on among issuers. This has led to some ratings

inflation, particularly in the money markets in past years. But a

practical matter is that you’re not going to see a lot of large-scale

market entrants. You have fewer today rather than more. Everyone

complains about the lack of new NRSRO designations, but if you

look beyond the S&P’s and Moody’s big two, the other four rolled

up into one. So there are significant barriers to entry away from

the NRSRO designation scale: Specialized skill sets. It takes a lot

to build a credit research company of that scale globally to be taken

seriously. So you run the risk that where you get in is to be the

proverbial professor in college, the other one that will give the A.

And that’s certainly not going to help the dialogue.

I think the way we help the dialogue is for all of these agencies

to be far more transparent in the information that is factored into

their rating, because then the market economy can do an object gut

test on the quality and depth of the understanding of the company

as well as the industry and as well as what you have in the case

of Enron, highly convoluted, financially engineered enterprises.

One of the Senators earlier mentioned the fact that you’re acting

like analysts. Well, you have to be an analyst because ratings will

have absolutely no credibility in the marketplace if you can’t get

on a conference call with an S&P’s and Moody’s analyst and grill

him on his thought process.

So I think that it’s quality of information that is the biggest challenge right now and probably the easiest to solve. It will take 10

53

years to build another NRSRO unless Warren Buffet has a few billion to put to work. But he has it right now invested in Moody’s.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. All right. Maybe that is a good note to

end on. We have, of course, let me restate for the record, previously

concluded the formal hearing. I thank you very much.

Senator LEVIN. One question.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I want to let you know, because there has

been an objection to us proceeding.

Senator LEVIN. Oh.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. No, no. I adjourned the hearing, but what

I hope is not seen as a matter of civil disobedience, I am continuing

an informal discussion, since we are not transacting business,

among the group of us here who are interested in this subject. So

if you would like to enter into that informal discussion—— Senator LEVIN. I don’t want to in any way contribute to the delinquency of a Chairman here. [Laughter.]

Senator LEVIN. Being a Chairman myself.

Let me just ask an informal question.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. I am sure you will get an informal

answer.

Senator LEVIN. If I could ask Mr. Hunt, I had a chance to just

briefly ask you a question in the back room, and if you haven’t

been asked this question, perhaps I would do it now. That chart

which—— Mr. HUNT. Yes, I saw the chart. It’s a wonderful chart. [Laughter.]

Senator LEVIN. And if you haven’t been asked—— Mr. HUNT. I have a copy of it. You were kind enough to give me

a copy.

Senator LEVIN. Well, we thought we would get another opinion

on this. Enron did a huge amount of structured financing deals

from 1997 to 2001. Our estimate is $15 to $20 billion a year. And

this is one of the many that our subpoenas have uncovered, and

this produced investments which were rated by Moody’s in this

case. What is your reaction, if you would, to that chart? Is that

comprehensible?

Mr. HUNT. I think my reaction to—I heard the first panel say

that their structured analysts could understand this, and I take

them at their word that they could. If you put this in a prospectus

for Enron stock and sold it to the public, most of the public

wouldn’t have the slightest idea what this meant. I mean, it would

not be useful to the average investor. It might be useful to somebody who is experienced in analyzing these kind of structures, but

in my judgment, while Enron did need to make more disclosure,

this kind of disclosure would not have been helpful.

Senator LEVIN. Does that look like it is more intended to obfuscate and hide——

Mr. HUNT. One could argue that, Senator, yes, sir. One could

argue that it is needlessly complicated, but since I’m not an expert

in structured financing, I don’t know whether it’s needlessly complicated or just complicated.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. We wanted you to know that, in your absence, Professor Schwarcz made a declaration which may be

against his self-interest that he is an expert on structured finance.

54

Senator LEVIN. Well, I don’t know the answer to my question.

Were you asked this question?

Mr. SCHWARCZ. I was not asked this question—— Senator LEVIN. If it is clear to you, I assume that it would be

clear to any average investor.

Mr. SCHWARCZ. Well, I think there are two issues, I would say.

First of all, I have not had the chance to study this chart, nor do

I frankly even know whether the chart is accurate in terms of all

the players. I can generally guess from the chart, just quickly looking at it, who the players are, that you have the originator on the

left and the SPVs or SPEs on the bottom and the investors on the

right. But one would have to diagram this out and just doublecheck it and check the money flows.

There is another part of the problem. I’m writing an article entitled ‘‘The Use and Abuse of Special Purpose Entities in Corporate

Structures,’’ and one of the things that I’m considering is whether,

in fact, some of these transactions are getting so complicated that,

indeed, it’s impossible to explain them to the ordinary investor. On

the other hand, the question is what do you do about that? Do you

restrict the structures and thereby really inhibit the flexibility and

creativity of American business?

And I have some solutions, some possible things that we can discuss. My thought process is still sufficiently incomplete that I don’t

want to discuss this in public, but I’d be happy to discuss it in private.

Senator LEVIN. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Levin. Again, thanks to

all of you for a substantial contribution to this Committee’s efforts.

It is now my unique pleasure to adjourn this informal discussion.

Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

(55)

A P P E N D I X

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

184

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

207

208

209

210

211

212

213

214

215

Æ