Fitch Ratings, Ltd.

The international credit ratings agency, Fitch Ratings, Ltd. has headquarters in London and in New York City. Fitch is one of "big three" Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSRO). This designation is assigned by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The other two NRSROs are Moody's and Standard & Poor's.

Fitch was founded in 1913 in New York by John Knowles Fitch as a publishing company and merged with IBCA Limited of London in 1997. It is now majority-owned by a French holding company called Fimalac.

Fitch covers a smaller share of the market than the other members of the "big three" and often serves in a tie-breaking capacity when the other two NRSROs issue similar ratings on a security. The Fitch scale runs from AAA to D with intermediate modifiers represented by "+" and "-." This is the same scale used by S&P and similar to that used by Moody's.

More Terms Explained here