Debt watchdogs chased profit during US spending spree

Moody's denies allegations that it went easy on firms

Credit-rating agencies assigned high grades to mortgages that later soured, leaving homeowners struggling. (David Zalubowski/ Associated Press)

NEW YORK - The housing mania was in full swing in 2005 when analysts at Moody's Investors Service, the nation's oldest and most prestigious credit-rating agency, were pressured to go back to the drawing board.

Moody's, which judges the quality of debt that corporations and banks issue to raise money, had just graded a pool of securities underwritten by Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender. But Countrywide complained that the assessment was too tough.

The next day, Moody's changed its rating, even though no new and significant information had come to light, according to two people briefed on the change who requested anonymity to preserve their professional relationships.

Moody's had assigned high grades to many securities containing Countrywide mortgages. Those securities and mortgages, issued during the lending spree of recent years, later soured - leaving investors with large losses and homeowners and communities struggling with foreclosures.

That was not the only time Moody's softened its stance on Countrywide securities. It elevated ratings several times after Countrywide complained, the people briefed on the matter say.

Since the subprime mortgage troubles exploded into a full-blown financial crisis last year, the three top credit-rating agencies - Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Ratings - have faced a firestorm of criticism about whether their rosy ratings of mortgage securities generated billions of dollars in losses to investors who relied on them.

The agencies are supposed to help investors evaluate the risk of what they are buying. But some former employees and many investors say the agencies, which were paid far more to rate complicated mortgage-related securities than to assess more traditional debt, either underestimated the risk of mortgage debt or simply overlooked its danger so they could rake in large profits.

A Moody's spokesman, Anthony Mirenda, said the company would not change ratings without substantive reasons.

"As a matter of policy, Moody's is obligated to reconvene a rating committee if there is new information put forth by an issuer that could have a material impact on a security's creditworthiness," he said, "and our policies prohibit changes to ratings for anything other than credit considerations."

He added that "Moody's knows of no instances in which a reconvened rating committee resulted in improper changes to ratings on Countrywide securities."

Bank of America, which took over Countrywide earlier this year, said it could not verify details of prior management's interactions with Moody's.

Members of Congress have grilled the agencies, asking their executives to answer accusations of incompetence and to say whether they assigned glowing ratings to keep clients happy and expand their business.

State and federal officials are also making inquiries. Moody's recently disclosed in its regulatory filings that it had received subpoenas from state attorneys general and other authorities pertaining to its role in the credit crisis.

Moody's said it was cooperating with the investigations.

"Moody's credit ratings play an important but limited role in the financial markets - to offer reasoned, independent, forward-looking opinions about relative credit risk, based on rigorous analysis and published methodologies," Mirenda said.

The company denies that it went easy on ratings to generate income.

That the credit-rating agencies missed immense problems in the mortgage-related securities they blessed is undeniable. Moody's declined to say how many classes of the securities it has downgraded. But the number is in the thousands and the original value in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

When Moody's began lowering the ratings of a wave of debt in July 2007, many investors were incredulous.