NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) March 30, 2009--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its rating on Fifth Third Bancorp (A-/Negative/A-2) remains unchanged with the company's announcement that it has sold a 51% stake of Fifth Third Processing Solutions, its commercial transaction-processing business, into a joint venture with Advent International. Management expects the transaction to close after regulatory review in second-quarter 2009. The sale demonstrates Fifth Third's ability to execute transactions in a soft market to advance its capital plan. If successful, the transaction will boost the company's tangible common equity and Tier 1 capital ratios by about 90 basis points on a pro forma basis as of Dec. 31, 2008, to approximately 5.2% and 11.5%, respectively. In our
