Kamakura Reports Sharpest One Month Decline in Corporate Credit Quality Since 1990: Global Credit Quality at Worst Level Since January 2003

NEW YORK, November 3, 2008:  Kamakura Corporation announced Monday that the Kamakura index of troubled public companies deteriorated in October at the sharpest rate since the index began in January 1990. The Kamakura global index of troubled companies jumped by a record 5.6% from 16.4% of the public company universe to 22.0% of the universe in October.  This is the highest level reached by the index since January 2003, and it comes close to the 28% all time high in the index, recorded in September 2001. The Kamakura index has now shown declines in credit quality in 14 of the last 15 months.  At the 22.0% level, the index shows that credit conditions are better than only 8.1% of the monthly periods since the start of the index in January 1990. The all-time low in the index was 5.4%, recorded in April and May 2006.  Kamakura defines a troubled company as a company whose short term default probability is in excess of 1%. The index covers more than 21,000 public companies in 30 countries using the fourth generation version of Kamakura's advanced credit models.

"The wide-spread recognition that a severe recession is underway affected the corporate universe across the board,” said Warren Sherman, Kamakura President and Chief Operating Officer. "Among rated public companies, Anglo Irish Bank Corporation, Bank of Ireland, Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, and Thomson (of France) showed the greatest rise in short term default probabilities during October. In October, the percentage of the global corporate universe with default probabilities between 1% and 5% increased very dramatically by 2.3% to 13.2%. The percentage of companies with default probabilities between 5% and 10% was up 1.6% to 4.2% of the universe in October.  The percentage of the universe with default probabilities between 10 and 20% rose sharply by 1.2% to 2.8% of the universe.  The percentage of companies with default probabilities over 20% was up 0.8% to 2.0% of the total universe in October."

The Kamakura troubled company index is a global index covering 30 countries. The index uses the annualized one month default probability produced by the best performing credit model of the Kamakura Risk Information Services default and correlation service. The model used is the fourth generation Jarrow-Chava reduced form default probability, a formula that bases default predictions on a sophisticated combination of financial ratios, stock price history, and macro-economic factors. The countries currently covered by the index include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States.


About Kamakura Corporation

Founded in 1990, Honolulu-based Kamakura Corporation is a leading provider of risk management information, processing and software. Kamakura has been a provider of daily default probabilities and default correlations for listed companies since November 2002. Kamakura announced the KRIS Sovereign Default Probability Service on May 19, 2008. Kamakura launched its collateralized debt obligation (CDO) pricing service KRIS-CDO in April 2007. Kamakura is also the first company in the world to develop and install a fully integrated enterprise risk management system that analyzes credit risk, market risk, asset and liability management, transfer pricing, and capital allocation. The Kamakura Risk Manager system, now in version 7.0, was first offered commercially in 1993 and has been continually enhanced since then. Kamakura has served more than 185 clients ranging in size from $3 billion in assets to $1.6 trillion in assets. Kamakura’s risk management products are currently used in 27 countries, including the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, Japan, China, Korea and many other countries in Asia.

Kamakura has world-wide distribution alliances with Fiserv, Unisys, and Zylog Systems making Kamakura products available in almost every major city around the globe.

For more information contact

Kamakura Corporation
2222 Kalakaua Avenue, 14th Floor
Honolulu, Hawaii 96815
Telephone: 1-808-791-9888
Facsimile: 1-808-791-9898
Information: info@kamakuraco.com
Web site: www.kamakuraco.com