Taking on the big boys

Sean Egan, co-founder of Egan-Jones Ratings, talks to Dalia Fahmy about his frustration at the restrictive structure of the credit rating industry and his plans to turn Egan-Jones into a serious contender to rival established players, Moody’s, S&P and Fitch

Last April an angry squad of congressmen summoned 10 witnesses to Capitol Hill to investigate embarrassing failures in the country’s credit rating system and to find ways to fix it. Why, members of the House Financial Services Subcommittee wanted to know, did the world’s leading credit risk experts—Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings—fail to warn investors about financial problems at WorldCom and Global Crossing until it was too late?

One congressman wanted to know why