A- On Sept. 6, 2006, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services assigned its preliminary 'A-' rating to the proposed Australian-dollar-denominated National Capital Instruments (NCIs), to be issued in Australia by National Australia Trustees Ltd. as trustee of National Capital Trust III (the trust), a special purpose entity established solely for the purpose of issuing the proposed NCIs and undertaking the associated activities related to this issue. Distributions on the NCIs will depend mainly on the distributions made by National Australia Bank Ltd. (NAB) on subordinated debentures, which are being issued by NAB's New York branch concurrently with the NCI issue. The subordinated debentures will be "stapled" to NAB's convertible debentures, which will facilitate conversion of NCIs into NAB's preference shares, if
