Gold Magazine September - October 2013, Issue 30 | Page 49

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e’ve all heard of Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings but the so-called “Big
Three” rating agencies are by no means the only ones. Capital Intelligence (CI) has
been providing credit analysis and ratings since 1985, and now rates over 400 Banks,
Corporates and Financial Instruments (Bonds & Sukuk) in 37 countries. A specialist
in emerging markets, CI’s geographical coverage includes the Middle East, the wider
Mediterranean region, Central and Eastern Europe, South Asia, South-East Asia, the Far
East, and North and South Africa. What few people know is that CI is based in Limassol.
The company’s Managing Director, Zafer Diab, spoke to Gold about how CI has expanded over the past three decades and described the company’s plans for future growth,
as well as recalling that it issued its own warnings about Cyprus over two years ago.

Gold: Many people will be surprised to
know that there is a credit rating agency
in Cyprus. Have you purposely kept a low
profile?
Zafer Diab: Certainly not! The media spotlight tends to focus on the big two or three
global rating agencies, particularly when they
get things wrong. Capital Intelligence has a
solid reputation among financial professionals,
especially in the banking industry, but it would
be fair to say that our rating actions are not
always monitored closely by the mainstream
media. There is another dimension to this with
regard to Cyprus. The island has historically
served as a regional location for the ratings
industry. However, the Cypriot economy is
quite small in comparative terms and only a
few institutions have been rated by Capital
Intelligence or another international rating
agency. So the ratings industry does not receive
a great deal of attention locally.
Gold: How did Capital Intelligence come
to start operations in Limassol almost 30
years ago?
Z.D.: We lau