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| "There is a market opportunity here. The rating agencies are still behaving as they did before. They have put on a new pair of shoes but they are still walking in the same way" Jules Kroll |
The Kroll name is so intertwined with the concepts of stealth and secrecy that Euromoney is rather taken aback when it arrives at its appointed meeting venue to find that the burglar alarm has been set off. But we are not here to talk about security, rather about openness and transparency and how Jules Kroll plans to extol these virtues to take on the rating agencies at their own game. Kroll, who sold his security company to– Marsh & McLennan five years ago, announced his plan to move into bond ratings in 2009. The Kroll Bond Rating Agency is now poised to begin issuing ratings this month. The acquisition of a tiny bank rater called Lace Financial over the summer has given him his Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO) licence, and Kroll now aims to show the market how these things should be done.
"Our business has always been based on the premise of identifying public-policy problems susceptible to private-sector solutions," explains Kroll.
