S&P replaces president with Citibank exec after US downgrade
The chief of Standard & Poor's will step down next month, to be replaced by a senior Citibank executive, in a move announced a few weeks after the credit rating agency downgraded US government debt and sparked a row with Washington.
S&P's parent, McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, said today that Deven Sharma, who has served as S&P president since 2007, would step down on September 12, to be succeeded by Citibank chief operating officer Douglas Peterson.
"S&P will continue to produce ratings that are comparable, forward looking and transparent," McGraw-Hill said in a statement, adding that Sharma would work on a strategic portfolio review for the group until leaving at year-end.
The US downgrade on August 5 helped lead to the biggest sell-off in share markets since the global financial crisis three years earlier and sparked a row with the US Treasury over some of the agency's calculations in arriving at the new rating.
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