Rating as a Useful Tool for Credit Risk Measurement

The present contribution deals with the issue of credit risk and rating, which is one of the useful tools for measuring to credit risk. Rating and credit risk are closely linked. In general, we can define credit risk as the probability of loss from a debtor's default. While rating is like a meter, by which it should be possible to compare two borrowers and determine, which of them has more likely, that in the end he pays for his obligation. In the rating process are systematic processed information about enterprise's developments from its past and the future outlook. The rating of the enterprise is carried out by taking into account quality criteria (“soft facts”) and quantitative criteria (“hard facts”). Hard facts are calculated from the financial statements of the company through the implementation of financial-economic analysis. So, hard facts provide a reliable statement about of the financial stability of the company and its financial health. The values of indicators which are achieved are combined according to their significance and then they are transferred to the internal rating scale. Then this value is used to express quantitative rating of enterprise. Present contribution is going to deal with calculation of hard facts and quantitative criteria for rating measurement. Rating assignment is going to be carried out on a model example. Hard facts are going to be determined based on the financial statements of the selected company and the rating is going to be assigned according to the rating scale which is going to be established for model example.