Forsyth-OBSR declares a ratings war

WITH THE LAUNCH OF A RATINGS SERVICE AIMED AT BREAKING Monopoly held by S&P, we LOOK AT the factors which will ensure success or failure

The onshore qualitative funds ratings service launched last week by the partnership of Old Broad Street Research and Forsyth Partners has been given between 12 and 24 months to prove itself of use to the funds industry. The web-based service has been set up as a direct attempt to break Standard & Poor's effective monopoly on qualitative ratings on funds for the intermediary market. Unlike Lipper, Morningstar, Micropal and now the FT which all carry quantitive ratings, the new group aims to win users from S&P Fund Research, long the giant and benchmark of the qualitative ratings indust...