DBRS Confirms SAGRES – Sociedade de Titularização de Créditos, S.A. Douro Mortgages No. 4

DBRS, Inc. (DBRS) has today confirmed the Class A notes issued by SAGRES – Sociedade de Titularização de Créditos, S.A. Douro Mortgages No. 4 (Douro 4) at AA (sf).
The rating action reflects the following analytical considerations:

•Incorporation of a sovereign related stress component in our stress scenario due to the recent downgrade by DBRS of the Republic of Portugal’s sovereign from BBB (high) Negative Trend to BBB Negative Trend.
•Increased uncertainty surrounding the impact of macroeconomic variables on collateral performance due to austerity measures taken by the Republic of Portugal.
•Heightened concern with respect to the stress certain transaction parties may come under to perform transaction obligations (servicers and collection account banks domiciled in Portugal).

Please refer to the DBRS Commentary entitled The Effect of Sovereign Risk on Securitisations in the Euro Area.

The applicable methodologies are Master European Structured Finance Surveillance Methodology, Master European Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Rating Methodology, and Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions, with adjustments made for the Portuguese mortgages and the originator- and servicer specific historical performance data.

The sources of information used for this rating include investor remittance reports, issuer data, working papers and data on the Portuguese economy provided by: Bank of Portugal, Instituto Nacional de Estatistica (INE) and European Mortgage Federation (EMF).

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

For additional information on this rating, please refer to the linking document located below.

Lead Analyst: Keith Gorman
Rating Committee Chair: Claire Mezzanotte
Initial Rating Date: 8 December 2010