Standard&Poor's Ratings Services launched its Recovery Rating Scale in Europe in May 2004. Since then, we have assigned more than 65 public and confidential recovery ratings. Recovery ratings allow us to provide issue-specific recovery estimates for first secured debt, both loans and bonds. As the European markets mature and more empirical data on past recoveries becomes available, we will consider providing recovery estimates for other types of corporate debt. The Recovery Rating Scale differs from the issue rating in that it is an absolute measure of the recovery prospects for a piece of secured debt and is completely delinked from a company's corporate credit rating. Issue-specific recovery rates have become increasingly important for lenders and borrowers as the
