company to The Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus, who then sold the company to its current owner, Morningstar Inc. Since those beginnings, DBRS has expanded to become the largest rating agency in Canada, with operations in the U.S. and Europe. It first opened offices in Chicago and New York in 2003; opened its current office in London in 2010; opened in Frankfurt in 2018 and Madrid in 2019. In 2008, the organization changed its name from Dominion Bond Rating Service to DBRS. Today, DBRS Morningstar has about 700 employees worldwide and rates more than 3,000 issuer families and nearly 60,000 securities worldwide. Corporate and Operating Structures DBRS Limited is the operating company in Canada. DBRS, Inc. is the operating company in the United States. DBRS Ratings Limited is the operating entity based in London and is home to the agency's broader European operations. DBRS Ratings GmbH is the German operating unit and DBRS Ratings GmbH, Sucursal en España is the operating company in Spain. Ratings DBRS Morningstar provides independent credit rating services for financial institutions, corporate and sovereign entities and structured finance products and instruments throughout all geographies where it operates. Credit ratings are forward-looking opinions about credit risk that reflect the creditworthiness of an entity or security. The Rating Committee process facilitates rating decisions, which are a collective assessment of DBRS Morningstar's opinion rather than the view of an individual analyst, are based on sufficient information that incorporates both global and local considerations and the use of approved methodologies and are independent of any actual or perceived conflicts of interest. DBRS Viewpoint DBRS Viewpoint is an online platform launched in 2016 (previously known as iReports) that provides interactive access to commercial mortgage-backed securities transaction information, as well as commentaries and work product, for DBRS Morningstar-rated deals. Users receive greater transparency into credit analysis and supporting data through the platform. Regulation In Canada, DBRS Morningstar is regulated through the Canadian Securities Administrators with its principal regulator being the OSC. CRAs in Canada must become a "designated rating organization" in order for their opinions to be eligible for use under securities laws. In the U.S., DBRS Morningstar is regulated by the SEC in accordance with the rules that were prosed as part of the Dodd-Frank Act and provide additional governance, transparency, conflicts of interest and performance measurement requirements on the CRA industry. In Europe, DBRS Morningstar is regulated by ESMA and