On Oct. 2, 2008, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services revised the outlook on Landesbank Hessen-Thueringen Girozentrale (Helaba) and 50 savings banks in the German states of Hessen and Thuringia—-collectively named Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe Hessen-Thueringen (SFHT)--to stable from positive. This reflects growing uncertainties from the deteriorating global credit environment as well as continued margin erosion at the savings banks. At the same time, we affirmed the 'A/A-1' long- and short-term counterparty credit ratings on SFHT. Although we expect Helaba to continue to display much better resilience than its Landesbank peers, it might not remain permanently insulated from adverse knock-on effects of current market dislocations on global credit quality, which reduces the likelihood of an upgrade over the outlook horizon. In addition, we expect
