Following a review of our ratings on the grandfathered debt obligations of Germany-based Landesbank Hessen (Helaba), DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale, and Westdeutsche Immobilienbank (WIB), and Austria-based Hypo NOE Gruppe, Oberoesterreichische Landesbank, and Unicredit Bank Austria, we are now applying our criteria on rating government-related entities (GREs) to these obligations. We believe that these obligations benefit from an extremely high likelihood of extraordinary government support as our criteria define it. We are therefore lowering our debt ratings by one notch on grandfathered obligations issued by Helaba, Hypo NOE, Oberoesterreichische Landesbank, and Unicredit Bank Austria, and affirming the ratings on the grandfathered obligations issued by DekaBank and WIB. At the same time, we are removing the outlooks from our issue ratings on these
