DBRS Assigns Provisional Ratings to Foncaixa Empresas 2, F.T.A.

DBRS Ratings Limited (“DBRS”) has assigned the provisional ratings of AAA (sf) to the €416.30 million Series A1 Notes and AAA (sf) to the €1,063.70 million Series A2 Notes issued by Foncaixa Empresas 2, F.T.A., (the “Issuer”). The transaction is a cashflow securitisation collateralized primarily by a portfolio of bank loans originated by Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona (“la Caixa”) to Spanish enterprises and small-and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”). The transaction has a portfolio notional amount of €[1.85] billion. As of 27th of October 2010, the transaction included 9,610 loans with a weighted average seasoning of 1.8 years and a weighted average time to maturity of 9.3 years.

The above ratings are provisional. Final ratings will be issued upon receipt of executed versions of the governing transaction documents. To the extent that the documents and information provided by Foncaixa Empresas 2, F.T.A. and/or its agents to DBRS as of this date differ from the executed versions of the governing transaction documents, DBRS may assign lower final ratings to the Notes, or may avoid assigning final ratings to the Notes altogether.

These ratings are based upon DBRS’ review of the following analytical considerations:
• Transaction structure, the form and sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
--- Credit enhancement is in the form of subordination, a reserve funded through a subordinated loan and excess spread. A current credit enhancement level of 33.75% is sufficient to support a AAA (sf) rating of the Series A1 and Series A2 Notes.
--- Funded at the beginning of the transaction through the issuance of a subordinated loan granted by la Caixa, the cash reserve, initially at 13.75% of the deal balance, is available to pay shortfalls in the senior expenses and interest throughout the life of the notes, and interest and principal at maturity on the rated Class A Notes. The reserve cannot be reduced until it is 27.50% of the notes outstanding balance, which includes the Class A Notes, Class B and Class C Notes and cannot be reduced to less than €127,187,500 other than to pay interest or principal as specified.

• The ability of the transaction to withstand stressed cash flow assumptions and repay investors according to the terms in which they have invested. For this transaction, the provisional ratings of the Series A1 and Series A2 Notes address the timely payments of interest, as defined in the transaction documents, and the timely payments of principal on each Payment Date during the transaction and, in any case, at their Legal Final Maturities on the 1st of August 2044. Interest and principal payments on the notes will be made quarterly, generally on the 15th of each month, with the first payment date on the 15th of April 2011.

• The transaction parties’ financial strength and capabilities to perform their respective duties, and the quality of origination, underwriting and servicing practices.

• Soundness of the legal structure and presence of legal opinions which address the true sale of the assets to the trust and the non-consolidation of the special purpose vehicle, as well as the consistency with the DBRS Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions.

DBRS made appropriate adjustments to our model parameters based on the analysis of historical performance data provided by the originator and servicer and incorporated the assessment of the current economic environment in Spain.

The full report providing additional analytical details is available by clicking on the link below or by contacting us at info@dbrs.com.

The principal methodology applicable is Master European Granular Corporate Securitisations (SME CLOs) which can be found on our website under Methodologies or by clicking on the following link http://www.dbrs.com/research/235001.

DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality due to our review of this data at the time of its use.

Note:
All figures are in Euro unless otherwise noted.

For additional information on this rating, please see European Disclosure Requirements.