MSCI and Moody’s Unveil New Risk Assessment Tool to Bring Transparency to Private Credit Market

In a landmark move aimed at boosting transparency in the rapidly growing private credit sector, MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) and Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO) announced today a strategic partnership to launch an independent risk assessment solution for private credit investments.

The joint initiative will deliver a first-of-its-kind, scalable framework to evaluate credit risk across private credit portfolios, offering investors company- and facility-level risk insights using transparent and quantitative metrics. The tool is designed to help institutional investors assess, benchmark, and monitor the financial strength of their private credit holdings.

MSCI will provide the foundation with its extensive dataset comprising more than 2,800 private credit funds and over 14,000 underlying companies, sourced from original documentation. Moody’s will integrate its EDF-X credit risk modeling platform, which generates early warning signals and credit quality assessments for public and private companies globally.

“As the private credit market evolves, investors are looking for trusted, independent assessments to benchmark credit risk and inform investments,” said Rob Fauber, President and CEO of Moody’s. “This partnership will play a critical role in delivering those insights.”

Henry A. Fernandez, Chairman and CEO of MSCI, emphasized the importance of the collaboration: “Private credit is reshaping the investment landscape, but with that comes the need for consistency and transparency. Our alliance with Moody’s addresses that directly.”

The new risk assessment service is distinct from Moody’s traditional credit ratings and is aimed at enhancing portfolio-level decision-making without serving as a formal issuer rating.