| Rate the Raters 2012 |
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Despite announcing it would close its doors in Australia in October, S&P hasn’t dropped the ball, bringing in consistent results from respondents in Money Management’s Rate the Raters survey 2012.
It has been over two decades since S&P entered the country, acquiring a stake in Australian Ratings in 1990 and taking full ownership of the company in 1996.
S&P’s head of research for fund services Leanne Milton said its departure from the Australian market would leave a gap in the competitive industry.
“We (ratings houses) have quite different business models and we (S&P) had quite a broad coverage of funds and we were prepared to look at some managers potentially earlier than other research houses and that’s just part of our process relative to others,” she said.
Respondents have praised S&P for the quality and experience of its personnel for the past two years, rating over 90 per cent in the ‘average’ and ‘above average’ categories combined in 2011 and 2012, and 41 per cent in the ‘above average’ category this year.
Milton said S&P’s focus on sourcing high quality analysts helped set it apart. She said company culture supported analysts upgrading skills and internal mentoring between senior and junior team members.
It is an example of how S&P has continued to power on as the Australian business winds up. S&P still did sector ratings and talked to the managers they rated, Milton said.
The company is also waiting to hear back from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission about proposed industry regulations.
She said transparency was an important part of the job and 36 per cent of respondents rated it ‘above average’ for transparency levels and a further 50 per cent ‘average’.
“Everyone was brought along on the approach so everyone understands exactly what our approach was and how S&P went about our research,” she said.
Milton said the industry had also been comforted from S&P as a global brand name.
