Financial Institutions

As part of its Request for Comment entitled Expanding Recovery Rating Coverage And Enhancing Issue Ratings dated October 4th 2006, Standard & Poor's Rating Services announced its intention, subject to market feedback and sufficient data, to publish recovery ratings on sub-investment grade financial institutions globally. We have already issued recovery ratings on a small number of finance companies in the United States, but this initiative is much broader and would potentially cover licensed banking institutions and other financial institutions globally.

For more information contact:
Scott Bugie: +33 (1) 44 20 66 80