Standard & Poors to Release CreditStats Direct

Standard & Poors announced it will release CreditStats Direct, a new module to its RatingsDirect global credit ratings and research service, on Jan. 16. CreditStats Direct is designed to give S&P's clients the adjusted financial statement data that S&P ratings analysts use in their credit analyses. This particular data can give clients deeper insight into S&P's ratings and methodologies, according to the company.

The new module includes credit-adjusted financials and ratios for North American and European rated corporate and utility entities. It also provides six primary categories of financial information, including: key stats and ratios; income statement; balance sheet; cash flow statement; capital structure; and supplemental financials.

Among key features of CreditStats Direct are tools for comparing the financial statistics and ratios for up to 100 entities, Microsoft Excel export capability, full integration with existing RatingsDirect functionality and the availability of up to three years of historical data.

Luis Cerda, senior director, product development at S&P, told reporters at a conference on Tuesday morning that CreditStats Director can help users identify investment opportunities and mitigate risk better;provide line item by line item or company by company financial statement data for support credit quality evaluation using enhanced analytics; and improve efficiency with a side-by-side comparison tool.

According to Raisa Galak, VP, new product development, Standard & Poor's Securities Information, CreditStats, "creates a great deal of transparency. A credit analyst at a bank can download this information and run his own analysis and forecasting on credit quality."