A short history of Scope: from rating funds to rating credit
Our history goes back more than 20 years to 2002 when Florian Schoeller founded Scope in Berlin as a firm specialising in the analysis of alternative investments. Ten years later, we decided to expand into credit rating with the goal of establishing the European alternative to the dominant US rating agencies. The controversy surrounding the US agencies during the global financial crisis and the euro area debt crisis demonstrated the urgency of creating a European rating agency.
Today, Scope Group is the leading European provider of independent credit ratings, fund research and ESG analysis. Scope is the only European credit rating agency accepted by the European Central Bank (ECB) in the Eurosystem credit assessment framework (ECAF).
Pioneering fund analysis
Scope Group is founded by Florian Schoeller as a Berlin-based firm specialising in analysis of alternative investments. Scope steadily expands its services, becoming an industry reference for asset managers.
Expansion into credit rating
After the global financial and euro-area debt crises expose Europe’s reliance on a North American oligopoly of credit rating firms, Scope broadens its activities into credit ratings.
Organic growth; innovative methodologies
To challenge the ratings oligopoly, Scope starts to expand its credit rating activities across Europe, hiring seasoned professionals to build a reputation based on forward-looking, through-the-cycle rating methodologies.
Scope acquires FERI EuroRating Services
With FERI, Scope expands its credit ratings activities. Scope becomes a fully-fledged rating agency covering all issuer classes – sovereign & public sector, financial institutions, corporates, structured and project finance.
Institutional investors back the European rating agency
Scope concludes a multi-tranche financing round in which institutional investors made up mostly of insurance companies from Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland become shareholders. German foundation RAG-Stiftung also invests.
Presence grows across Europe
Scope reinforces its Paris office which becomes the largest outside Germany with an expanded team of credit analysts across multiple sectors. In total, Scope has eight offices across Europe.
Scope Foundation created to guarantee independence
New governance structure is set up under the Scope Foundation to safeguard the group's long-term independence and European identity. Early patrons include Jean-Claude Trichet, Horst Köhler, Pier Carlo Padoan and Leszek Balcerowicz.
Acquisition of Euler Hermes Rating
Scope’s consolidation of Europe’s fragmented credit-rating sector continues with the acquisition of Euler Hermes Rating. The deal expands Scope's ratings of mid-caps and project finance, two increasingly important capital-market segments.
AXA invests
AXA, one of the world’s leading insurers, becomes a strategic shareholder, broadening the base of institutional investors backing the European rating agency. Groupe BPCE and Crédit Agricole Assurances, two other leading French institutions, follow in 2023 and 2024.
Scope secures EU rating mandate
Scope is mandated by the European Commission to rate EU debt instruments as Europe’s response to the pandemic and environmental challenges turns the EU into one of the world’s largest issuers of euro-denominated debt.
ECB acceptance
The European Central Bank (ECB) accepts Scope Ratings as a new external credit assessment institution, making Scope’s credit ratings eligible under the Eurosystem credit assessment framework (ECAF), the first and only European agency with this recognition.
Issuer, investor recognition accelerates
Issuer and investor recognition follows Scope Ratings’ ECAF status, with new mandates from sub-sovereign entities and government agencies while Deka, the securities services provider of the German Savings Banks Finance Group, starts using Scope’s ratings.
European institutions mandate Scope
Scope becomes the first European credit rating agency mandated by the European Investment Bank and European Stability Mechanism, demonstrating how integral a part of Europe’s capital markets the credit rating agency has become.
DekaBank, Vienna Insurance Group and ABN AMRO become shareholders
The addition of two new shareholders from Germany and Austria and a first institutional investor from the Netherlands expands Scope’s shareholder base, reinforcing its independence and enhancing its market position at a pivotal moment for Europe’s economic and financial sovereignty.
Shareholders
Scope SE & Co. KGaA is the holding company of the Scope Group, the leading EU-based provider of independent ratings, research and risk analysis solutions across asset classes.
The agency’s legal structure includes the separation of shareholders’ interests from strategic management. The Scope Foundation, one of three shareholders of the general partner Scope Management SE, ensures that, in the long term, no single shareholder can influence the corporate strategy and orientation of Scope and that the rating agency will always remain in the hands of European guardian shareholders.
Next to anchor investors Florian Schoeller and BMW major shareholder Stefan Quandt, Scope has a broad investor base of leading institutions from the financial, insurance and industrial sectors in Austria, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
European and national regulators
Scope Ratings is registered with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) as an external credit assessment institution (ECAI). Scope is also registered with Switzerland's Eidgenössische Finanzmarktaufsicht (FINMA) and with the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
European Central Bank
The ECB has accepted Scope Ratings as an external credit assessment institution (ECAI), making Scope’s credit ratings eligible under the Eurosystem Credit Assessment Framework (ECAF). Scope is the only European rating agency whose ratings are used by the ECB and the national central banks of the euro area.
Supranational, GRE mandates
Scope is the first and only European credit rating agency mandated by the European Union (EU), the European Investment Bank (EIB), and European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Scope also has mandates from leading government-related entities (GREs), including CADES, CDP, ICO, KfW, NRW.Bank, Unédic.
Ethics, Compliance & Sustainability
Scope operates to the highest standards of ethics, embodied in our Code of Ethics. We expect our suppliers to have the same high standards as our own. Compliance is equally a cornerstone of our activities as a regulator-approved provider of credit opinions.
Sustainability is at the heart of our business. It is crucial for our long-term mission of building Europe's top rating agency. Environmental, social and governance factors are integrated in our rating methodologies and analysis.
Our presence in Europe
Headquarters EU
Central & Eastern Europe
Western Europe
Headquarters UK
Southern Europe
Nordics & Baltics
