Moodys enters India with Mutual Fund Rating Services

Pune 7 2002- Moodys Investors Service, one of the leading global rating agencies, has announced that it will enter India mutual fund rating service this month. As a harbinger of its entry in the Indian market, Moodys is collaborating with CNBC India - Indias premier business channel - on the Mutual Fund of The Year Awards

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Moodys enters India with Mutual Fund Rating Services
Cooperation Agreement with CNBC India for Annual Mutual Fund Awards

Pune 7 2002- Moodys Investors Service, one of the leading global rating agencies, has announced that it will enter India mutual fund rating service this month. As a harbinger of its entry in the Indian market, Moodys is collaborating with CNBC India - Indias premier business channel - on the Mutual Fund of The Year Awards, which is in its second year.

Moodys, which has a presence all over the world including the Asia-Pacific countries of Japan, Korea, China and Australia, is a well known name in India particularly in the area of country and institutional ratings. With the launch of its Mutual Fund Rating Services in India, Moodys will further strengthen its business in the Asia-Pacific region and establish closer linkages with India, which is one of the largest emerging markets in the world.

The Mutual Fund of The Year Awards (MFA), which was launched successfully by CNBC India a year ago, will serve to showcase the credit rating firms expertise in mutual fund analysis and ranking. The first MFA was held in February 2001 and instantly took on the role of the premier investment yardstick for investors all over the country. Not surprisingly, the entire financial services sector looks forward to the rankings and the award function has become an eagerly awaited event. The involvement of Moodys will further enhance the sheen that the MFA has garnered so far.

Mr. John Rutherfurd, CEO -- Moodys Investors Service states; Moodys has provided mutual fund rating information to investors throughout Europe and the US for more than a decade. We are excited about delivering our mutual fund services to one of the fastest growing mutual fund markets in the developing world. We look forward to our participation with CNBC India and the Mutual Fund Awards. CNBC India and MFA provide a high quality, professional platform to educate and inform the investor community.

Says Mr Haresh Chawla, CEO -- CNBC India, When the MFA was instituted by us, it was in appreciation of the fact that the Mutual Fund industry was playing a significant role in developing the equity culture and a healthy long term investing ethos. Therefore it was essential to recognise the expertise and performance of this critical investment service. The MFA is intended to create the definitive guide for Indian investors to identify the best-managed mutual funds in the country. The unrivalled global expertise of Moodys in this sphere adds a qualitatively enhanced dimension to the award. As India's premier business news platform, CNBC India represents the interests of the investing community. This award will drive awareness about the benefits of informed investing."

About Moodys
Moodys Investors Service, a subsidiary of Moodys Corporation (NYSE: MCO), is the leading provider of credit ratings, research and analysis covering debt instruments and securities in the global capital markets. The company, with offices in New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Sydney, San Francisco, Frankfurt, Dallas, Madrid, Toronto, Hong Kong, Singapore, Limassol, Sao Paulo, Milan and Mexico City, assigns ratings to more than 4,200 corporations and 68,000 public finance debt securities issued by corporations and governments in more than 100 nations.

About CNBC India:
CNBC is a business channel that aims to give its user the competitive edge, be it in investing, in business or in getting ahead in ones career. CNBC is not about just knowledge and information, but about how this information can be used to garner success. Today, the CNBC logo is a symbol of aspiration, ambition and success for its users. And the baseline says it all - Profit From It.

CNBC India is a tribute to Indias growing importance on the international business radar. A service of Dow Jones and NBC brought to India by the joint venture between Television Eighteen and CNBC Asia, the channel is the new Indian face of the worldwide leader in business news.

The high quality of CNBC Indias programming is a strong testimony of the channel's inherent content development capabilities. Many of the highlights on the channels list of firsts are yet to be emulated - coverage of stock markets from the opening trade to the closing quote, the 24 hour live stock market ticker, corporate result exclusives, Hindi business news bulletins and more - making it a unique amalgam of the best in international and indigenous business news programming.

In a land that worships movies, cricket and the soap opera, CNBC India has carved out a strong niche - a niche that is growing everyday, fuelled as it is by the burgeoning community of active investors. For these viewers, prime time has been redefined. They are part of a highly involved audience whose definition of prime time is derived from the business activity during the day, business activity brought to them by CNBC India.

Sameer Ranade
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