Given the majority of major players in US stock market dicked about and inflated ratings of mortgage-backed securities the answer is yes, them and a host of others.

What they do as finnancial players in the stock market, though, is largely orthogonal to the market reports from independent experts that they commission or purchase.

The entire S&P global mineral intelligence wing was aquired from a third party and was built up to reflect the ground truth of lease acquisition, exploration, capital development, etc in the mineral resources domain.