New Jersey rating is cut by Standard & Poor’s

Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday cut New Jersey’s credit rating on risks tied to underfunded pensions, while another troubled state, Illinois, was attempting to sell about $4bn of bonds to investors from Hong Kong to New York to meet its annual pension bill.

Illinois hopes to raise the money from a “broad and diverse” range of international and US investors, including sovereign wealth funds, big banks and insurance companies, said John Sinsheimer, the state’s director of capital markets.