{"id":911,"date":"2011-08-23T11:29:06","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T15:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=911"},"modified":"2011-08-23T11:30:48","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T15:30:48","slug":"sp-chief-stepping-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/08\/23\/sp-chief-stepping-down\/","title":{"rendered":"S&P Chief Stepping Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, State Impact reported on how the S&P downgrade and other economic convulsions have affected, or could affect, the New Hampshire economy<\/a>.\u00a0 And speaking of S&P, the Associated Press reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“The president of Standard & Poor\u2019s [Deven Sharma] is stepping down, an announcement coming only weeks after the rating agency\u2019s unprecedented move to strip the United States of its AAA credit rating.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Alex Wong \/ Getty Images<\/p>

Deven Sharma has headed S&P since the start of the economic crisis in 2007.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n

Sharma’s been at S&P since 2006, and has headed the agency since 2007.\u00a0 As for why he’s leaving…?\u00a0 McGraw-Hill Cos., which is the parent company to S&P, made a statement late yesterday saying\u00a0Sharma\u00a0“was ready for new challenges.”\u00a0\u00a0There were, however, some pretty\u00a0big omissions,<\/p>\n

\n

“McGraw-Hill\u2019s statement did not mention the Aug. 5 downgrade that sent shock waves through global financial markets and was sharply criticized by the Obama administration, which said the agency\u2019s analysis was fundamentally flawed. Other major rating agencies have maintained their AAA ratings on the United States.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\n

It also did not refer to recent reports that the Justice Department was investigating whether S&P improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Bloomberg News piece published by the <\/span>San Francisco Chronicle <\/em>notes that Sharma took over the ratings agency a month after it started back-peddling on its high ratings for mortgage-backed securities<\/a>.\u00a0 Apparently Sharma did a decent job of increasing revenue–S&P’s coffers reportedly grew by 10.4 percent just over the last year.\u00a0 But, as the Bloomberg piece quotes one industry insider,<\/p>\n

\n
\n

“‘Since Sharma came in, he has done little to enhance the credibility or reputation of the ratings agency,’ Joshua Rosner, an analyst at the New York-based research firm Graham Fisher & Co., said by phone. ‘Given the recent downgrades, it appears their operational management and ratings modeling have not been meaningfully strengthened.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another source put it more bluntly,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Toshifumi Kitamura<\/p>

Douglas Peterson of Citibank is set to take over S&P in mid-September.<\/p><\/div>\n

“‘It looks like he’s being helped out the door,’ Noel Hebert, a credit strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities USA Inc. in New York, said in a phone interview. ‘If it was a planned retirement, it should have been handled in a different way.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sharma’s replacement, Douglas Peterson, is Citibank NA Chief Operating Officer, which is Citi’s main banking division.\u00a0 Until last year, Peterson was CEO of Citigroup Japan.\u00a0 And, from deep inside the it-comes-from-an-anonymous-source-so-take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-department, Bloomberg reports this change was (maybe!) a long time coming, “Peterson was approached by McGraw-Hill in March, a person with direct knowledge of the talks said.”<\/div>\n
In other words, there’s a chance that maybe, (maybe!) the US downgrade wasn’t as big a factor in Sharma’s departure as one might think given his apparent sudden interest in nebulous “new challenges.”<\/div>\n
The Associated Press reports Peterson’s set to take over S&P on September 12<\/a>.\u00a0 And Sharma will remain with McGraw-Hill–as an advisor–until the end of the year.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, State Impact reported on how the S&P downgrade and other economic convulsions have affected, or could affect, the New Hampshire economy.\u00a0 And speaking of S&P, the Associated Press reports: “The president of Standard & Poor\u2019s [Deven Sharma] is stepping down, an announcement coming only weeks after the rating agency\u2019s unprecedented move to strip the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[138,517,151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}