NEW YORK -- KBRA, a global full-service credit rating agency, announced a key milestone in its continuing international expansion: the opening of a new office in Tokyo, Japan.

As the company’s first outpost in the Asia-Pacific region, KBRA’s new base in Tokyo reflects the firm’s exponential growth over the last few years as a global thought leader, innovator, and first mover in the ratings of private credit and fund finance instruments. This, in turn, has led KBRA to strengthen its presence in the region and deepen ties with both our Asia based clients as well as Japan’s sophisticated private credit and capital markets investor base.

Tokyo is the latest addition to KBRA’s growing footprint, which now includes seven offices across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. In addition to four offices in the U.S.—in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and a Chicago office which opened in 2023—KBRA also has an office in Dublin, Ireland, which opened in 2017, and a London headquarters that opened in 2019.

To support its expansion in Japan, KBRA is pleased to welcome several key appointments. Yuuichi Hino joins as Head of Compliance for Japan, bringing extensive experience navigating Japan’s regulatory environment. Miki Monroe-Sheridan also joins as Head of Business Development, where she will lead engagement efforts with local market participants and further strengthen KBRA’s regional partnerships. Additionally, Peter Connolly, Senior Director in the Structured Credit team, will relocate from KBRA’s New York office to Tokyo to help support analytical coverage and client engagement.

“We are thrilled to announce our new office in Tokyo, which marks a significant step forward as KBRA extends its reach globally to provide the APAC region’s expanding group of institutional investors with our best-in-class research and independent, thoughtful insight, as well as our data-driven analysis in private credit, structured finance, and other areas of the capital markets,” said Kate Kennedy, Co-Head of Business Development at KBRA. “We look forward to building bridges with APAC-based market players and bringing our analytical consistency, transparency, and perspective to several rapidly growing and often complex global credit market sectors.”

Across the entire credit market universe—including structured finance, private credit, fund finance, corporates, financial institutions, sovereigns, insurance companies, and other sectors—KBRA rates more than $3.8 trillion in issuance across more than 80,000 ratings on over 6,300 rated entities.