Douglas Peterson to Become President of S&P

Standard & Poor’s, the rating company that downgraded the U.S. AAA credit ranking for the first time, will replace President Deven Sharma with Citibank NA Chief Operating Officer Douglas Peterson.

Sharma, 55, will leave at the end of the year to “pursue other opportunities,” S&P’s parent McGraw-Hill Co. said in an e-mailed statement. Peterson, 53, will take over Sept. 12 and Sharma will work on company’s strategic review.

S&P downgraded the U.S.’s debt rating Aug. 5, to AA+ from AAA, saying political divisions in Washington were preventing the country from tackling its fiscal deficit. The cut has drawn criticism from investors including Warren Buffett and Legg Mason Inc.’s Bill Miller, who described the move as “precipitous, wrong and dangerous” in light of stock-market selloffs.

Weakening economic data has prompted concerns about the U.S. recovery. Nouriel Roubini, chairman of Roubini Global Economics LLC in New York, said in an interview Aug. 7 the U.S. may be headed into a “double-dip recession.”

Sharma having assisted McGraw-Hill with its division of the company into two separate organizations in November is now “ready for new challenges,” according to the statement. McGraw-Hill was divided between McGraw-Hill Financial and the credit rating service.

S&P spokesman David Wargin said he couldn’t immediately comment beyond the statement when called on his mobile phone after normal business hours in the U.S. Shannon Bell, a Citigroup spokeswoman in New York, didn’t reply to e-mail messages, left after regular business hours, seeking comment on Peterson’s departure.
_______________________
optimally organic
talk radio blog