Executive Summary
This document describes how Kroll Bond Rating Agency and its affiliates (collectively, KBRA) evaluate debt and/or other obligations issued by investment funds or secured by investment fund assets. Investment funds are differentiated by strategy, geography, tenor, and ownership structure. This methodology encompasses those differences, and outlines KBRA’s general approach to analyzing the factors that KBRA considers when assigning ratings to investment fund debt transactions. It also describes how KBRA monitors changing risk in these transactions through our surveillance process.
This methodology also addresses debt secured by certain pools or investment vehicles that may share structural features that are similar to investment funds. As appropriate, KBRA’s analysis of investment fund debt may integrate other KBRA rating methodologies to address specific transaction structures, operational features or asset composition. KBRA employs judgment in the application of all…