OVERVIEW On March 26, 2012, Spain's CaixaBank announced it has reached a preliminary merger agreement with Spanish bank Banca Civica. Consequently, on March 30, we affirmed our long-term 'BBB+' counterparty rating on CaixaBank. Under our approach for rating covered bonds, CaixaBank's mortgage covered bond ratings currently benefit from the maximum elevation possible above our long-term rating on the issuer. Any further rating action on CaixaBank would therefore directly affect the ratings on the mortgage covered bonds issued by the bank, all else being equal. Given the affirmation of the bank's rating and our latest credit and cash flow analysis, we have therefore affirmed our ratings on CaixaBank's mortgage covered bonds. The outlook is stable. MADRID (Standard&Poor's) April 3,
