MILAN (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 1, 2006—Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it assigned its preliminary credit ratings to the €641.7 million asset-backed floating-rate notes (series 4) to be issued by Sestante Finance S.r.l., an SPE (see list below). This is the fourth transaction to be 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. The main notable differences between this transaction and Sestante Finance series 3 are the following: — Instead of having a single tranche of 'AAA' rated class A notes, Sestante Finance series 4 has a short (A1)
