Moody's — The Rating Giant
历史时间线
- 1900: John Moody publishes "Moody's Manual of American Industrial and Miscellaneous Securities"
- 1909: Begins rating railroad bonds with letter grades — birth of modern credit rating
- 1924: Expands to cover virtually all US bonds
- 1975: SEC designates Moody's as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO)
- 2000s: Moody's Analytics (data and software) grows alongside ratings business
- 2008: Criticized for overrating mortgage-backed securities before financial crisis
- 2020s: ESG ratings and climate risk analysis become major growth areas
商业模式
- Moody's Investors Service: Credit ratings for bonds, structured finance, sovereign debt
- Moody's Analytics: Risk management software, data, research, and consulting
- Revenue split: ~60% ratings, ~40% analytics (analytics growing faster)
护城河分析
- Regulatory moat: NRSRO designation limits competition — only 3 major players
- Issuer-pays model: Companies pay to be rated, creating recurring revenue
- Data advantage: 100+ years of default data enables superior risk models
- Analytics growth: Moody's Analytics diversifies away from controversial ratings business
关键数据
- Revenue: $6.5B+ annually
- Market cap: $70B+
- Coverage: 100,000+ rated entities globally
- Analytics growth: 10%+ YoY (faster than ratings)
有趣事实
- Moody's started by rating railroad bonds because John Moody noticed investors had no reliable way to compare the financial health of different railroad companies — a problem that sounds surprisingly modern
- The "Big Three" (Moody's, S&P, Fitch) control 95%+ of the credit rating market — making it one of the most concentrated industries in finance