Article: Rating agencies reexamine the issue of interest shortfalls.

In light of several non credit-related downgrades of CMBS classes - all involving interest shortfalls - the rating agencies are considering whether to incorporate the risk of a temporary interest shortfall from the risk of non-credit issues, such as litigation, servicer advancing and others.

"There's concern that a small dollar impairment may be reflected in an outsized rating downgrade," said Mary Stuart Freydberg, an analyst at Merrill Lynch.

Researchers at Merrill said that the issue of missing an interest payment might mean serious credit issues in the corporate bond-rating world, but the same might not hold true for structured finance. They added ...

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