MILAN (Standard&Poor's) June 16, 2008—Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that it has assigned its credit ratings to the €309.2 million asset-backed floating-rate notes series 5 issued by Sestante Finance S.r.l., a mortgage transaction backed by a pool of mortgage loans secured over residential properties located in Italy. At the same time, Sestante Finance issued €16.28 million unrated notes (see list below). This is the fifth securitization carried out by the issuer and backed by a pool of performing residential mortgages granted to individuals in Italy originated by Meliorbanca SpA. The originator was involved in the previous four securitizations carried out by Sestante Finance. The first one closed in December 2003, the second in December 2004, the
