In 2004, well before the risks embedded in Wall Street’s bets on subprime mortgages became widely known, employees at Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, were feeling pressure to expand the business.One employee warned in internal e-mail that the company would lose business if it failed to give high enough ratings to collateralized debt obligations, the investments that later emerged at the heart of the financial crisis.“We are meeting with your group this week to discuss adjusting criteria for rating C.D.O.s of real estate assets this week because of the ongoing threat of losing deals,” the e-mail said. “Lose the C.D.O. and lose the base business — a self reinforcing loop.”
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In June 2005, an S.& P. employee warned that tampering “with criteria to ‘get the deal’ is putting the entire S.& P. franchise at risk — it’s a bad idea.” A Senate panel will release 550 pages of exhibits on Friday — including these and other internal messages — at a hearing scrutinizing the role S.& P. and the ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service played in the 2008 financial crisis. The panel, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, released excerpts of the messages Thursday.
The released documents will be very interesting to read.
