NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fortress Investment Group's (Fortress) announcement yesterday that its Chief Executive Officer, Daniel Mudd, would take an immediate leave of absence following a civil-securities lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not warrant any rating action by Fitch at this time.

The suit against Mr. Mudd is related to his role as CEO of Fannie Mae; Fortress is not involved in any way with the SEC's action. Equally important, Mr. Mudd is not a designated key man in any investment or funding agreements, so any impact on investment activity or funding capacity is highly remote.

On an interim basis, the CEO position has been assumed by Randal Nardone, a co-founder and principal of Fortress. The appointment of Mr. Nardone should be relatively seamless, given his longstanding tenure at Fortress and his experience as the firm's Chief Operating Officer.

Fitch will continue to monitor developments with respect to the future leadership of the firm, and any impact it may have on the company's business. Fitch will also monitor any change in capital raising efforts, investor sentiment or corporate governance in the context of ratings implications.

Fortress is a global asset manager with $43.6 billion of fee-paying assets under management at Sept. 30, 2011, consisting of private equity funds, liquid hedge funds, and credit funds. The company was founded in June 1998 and went public in February 2007 after selling a 15% indirect stake in the company to Nomura for $888m. The company's stock is listed on the NYSE under the ticker 'FIG'.

Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'.

Applicable Criteria and Related Research:

--'Global Financial Institutions Criteria' (Aug. 16, 2011);

--'Investment Manager and Alternative Funds Criteria (Dec. 23, 2010)

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