"Norway's Eksportfinans Cut to Junk by Moody's Amid Wind Down" says a piece from Bloomberg earlier this week. It states, "Norway's Eksportfinans ASA was cut to junk by Moody's Investors Service after the lender failed to meet European Union regulatory requirements, prompting the government to wind it down and create a new loan program. The issuer and senior-debt ratings of Eksportfinans, which helps foreign investors buy Norwegian goods and services, were cut to Ba1 from Aa3, the rating company said today. The subordinated debt and hybrid ratings were lowered to Ba2 from A1 and B1(hyb) from A2(hyb), respectively. The short-term ratings were cut to Not Prime from Prime-1 and all long-term ratings remain on review for downgrade, Moody's said." A check of Crane Data's latest set of Money Fund Portfolio Holdings shows that money market mutual funds do have some minor exposures to Eksportfinans Notes and Financial Company Commercial Paper. Our Money Fund Wisdom product shows the name held by 5 funds from 3 managers with a total of $252 million in exposure as of Oct. 31, 2011. All but $22.5 million matured prior to November 23 and the debt is expected to remain out of default, so we don't expect this to be a big problem for those few funds with small pieces. Note that Crane Data currently tracks monthly holdings for about 90% of all taxable money funds, so there could be some additional exposure outside of our collections. See also, "Eksportfinans Holdings in First American Prime Obligations Fund". In other news, ICI reported its "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets, which said, "Total money market mutual fund assets increased by $1.01 billion to $2.646 trillion for the week ended Tuesday, November 22."
