DekaBank continues to pursue its strategy of integrating more deeply into the securities advisory and processing operations of its 100% owners, the German savings banks. We believe that the strengthened mutual dependencies between DekaBank and the German savings banks mean it would be highly improbable that DekaBank would be severed from the savings banks. We are raising our long-term counterparty credit rating on DekaBank to 'A+' from 'A' and affirming the 'A-1' short-term counterparty credit rating. The stable outlook reflects our expectation of stable financial profiles of the German savings banks. As previously announced on Feb. 9, 2017, S&P Global Ratings raised its long-term counterparty credit rating (CCR) on DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale (DekaBank) to 'A+' from 'A', and affirmed the
