Moody's To Buy 4.99% Stake In Euler Hermes Rating GmbH

(RTTNews) - Moody's Corp. (MCO) announced a collaboration with Euler Hermes Rating GmbH or EHRG, a Hamburg-based ratings agency, to provide credit ratings for small- and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs and mid-cap companies across Europe. EHRG is a subsidiary of Euler Hermes.

As part of the collaboration, Moody's has agreed to acquire a 4.99% stake in EHRG. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The investment was funded through international cash on hand and is not material to Moody's earnings.

Euler Hermes Rating, through its collaboration with Moody's, will launch new credit ratings services for SMEs and mid-cap companies in select European countries by leveraging Moody's Investors Service's credit ratings methodology expertise and drawing upon the Euler Hermes group's extensive experience analyzing the trade credit of European companies. The new rating product will be launched in Germany in early 2017, followed by other European countries later in the year.