Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 2,0, Reutlingen University (Business Adminstration), language: English, abstract: The global financial and economic crises resulted for many corporations in a downgraded credit rating within the last 2 to 3 years. Even a large percentage of them defaulted on their credit obligations due to inherent operational factors. The importance of credit ratings will play an even more central role under the currently discussed New Basel Capital Accord (Basel III) (Standard & Poors 2010; Basel III For...