Strong franchise in Italy, Austria, Poland, Central and Eastern Europe, and the German State of Bavaria. High business and geographic diversification. Sound and well-balanced funding base. Weaker asset quality than that of peers in Italy. Significant business exposure in Italy, where economic risk is higher than that for the average of international peers. Constrained profitability mainly due to still-modest performance of domestic operations. Standard&Poor's Ratings Services' outlook on Italy-based UniCredit SpA is negative, reflecting the negative outlook on the sovereign credit rating on Italy. The negative outlook also reflects the possibility we could lower the ratings if, all else being equal, we believed that one of the following conditions was likely to occur: The economic conditions in which
