Standard & Poor's released its 2009 Australia and New Zealand corporate default and ratings transition study last week. As with the previous three years, there was one default recorded. In past years the defaulters were Babcock & Brown International Pty Ltd., in 2008, and New Zealand companies Geneva Finance Ltd., in 2007 and Linsa Insurance Ltd., in 2006. The defaulter for 2009 is not disclosed as it had a confidential rating.However, we last wrote about this default in October when it was first reported by S&P. At that time it was disclosed that the default occurred in mid-January and the defaulter was classified as being in the home building and real estate sector - that narrows it down a bit.Confidential ratings generally arise when a company requests a rating but then subsequently decides it does not want the rating publicly disclosed. Usually, this means the rating did not meet the company's own expectations of its credit quality. As a result, the rating may be a once-only exercise or it can be maintained with the aim of publicly releasing it, once the rating and the company's expectations align. Either way, the rating is still counted for data collection purposes. Globally, S&P counted a record 264 defaults, which amounts to 3.99 per cent of all companies rated. The default rate for Australia and New Zealand was a very modest 0.58 per cent. However, this will not continue into 2010 with two defaults in New Zealand already recorded. We reported two weeks ago the default of Geneva Finance Ltd. (again) and Vision Securities Ltd.