Standard&Poor's Ratings Services has assigned credit ratings to the €641.7 million asset-backed floating-rate notes (series 4) issued by Sestante Finance S.r.l. This is the fourth transaction backed by a pool of residential mortgage loans originated by Meliorbanca SpA and secured over residential properties in Italy. The first closed in December 2003, the second in December 2004, and the third in December 2005. Sestante Finance series 4 is not a standalone transaction. As with Sestante Finance series 2 and Sestante Finance series 3, it has been designed in two stages: The first is a warehousing phase from December 2005 to November 2006, during which the originator entered into a master receivable purchase agreement with the warehousing issuer. Under this
