Standard & Poor's - Federated 'AAAm' Rating Affirmed After Putnam Fund's Asset Transfer; Putnam Rating Withdrawn

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	Federated 'AAAm' Rating Affirmed After Putnam Fund's Asset Transfer; Putnam Rating Withdrawn

Primary Credit Analyst:
	Ruth Shaw, New York (1) 212-438-1410; ruth_shaw@standardandpoors.com

Secondary Credit Analysts:
	Joel C Friedman, New York (1) 212-438-5043; joel_friedman@standardandpoors.com
	Guyna Johnson, Chicago (1) 312-233-7008; guyna_johnson@standardandpoors.com

Publication date: 25-Sep-08, 10:21:04 EST

Reprinted from RatingsDirect

• Current Ratings

NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Sept. 25, 2008--Standard & Poor's Rating Services 
said today that it affirmed its 'AAAm' principal stability fund rating (PSFR) 
on the Putnam Prime Money Market Fund (the Fund) and removed the Fund from 
CreditWatch with negative implications, where it was placed on Sept. 18, 2008. 
We subsequently withdrew the rating on the Fund. At the same time, we affirmed 
the 'AAAm' rating on Federated Investors Inc.'s (Federated) Prime Obligations 
Fund.
     The rating--the highest assigned to money-market funds--is based on our 
analysis of the Fund's credit quality, market price exposure, and management.
     On Sept. 17, 2008, the Board of Trustees of the Putnam Funds voted to 
close the institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund and announced last 
night that the $12.3 billion in frozen assets were transferred into the 'AAAm' 
rated Prime Obligations Fund, managed by Federated, at a price of $1 per 
share. With the addition of the Fund's assets, the total size of the Prime 
Obligations Fund will increase to approximately $34.4 billion.
     Federated handles all the day-to-day portfolio management duties for the 
Prime Obligations Fund, which we have rated 'AAAm' since 1995. We currently 
rate 21 principal stability funds advised by Federated. Federated is one of 
the nation's largest investment managers with assets under management of 
approximately $333.5 billion as of June 30, 2008. Federated has 147 domestic 
and international equity, fixed-income, and money-market mutual funds, as well 
as a variety of separately managed accounts.
     Our PSFRs, also called money-market fund ratings, are generally assigned 
to SEC-registered (2a-7) money-market funds, government investment pools, 
separate accounts, and other managed pools of fixed-income assets whose 
objective and investment policies are intended to provide a stable (that is, 
$1.00 per share) net asset value. PSFRs may also be assigned to 
non-U.S.-domiciled funds with an accumulating share value. PSFRs range from 
'AAAm' (extremely strong capacity to maintain principal stability and to limit 
exposure to principal losses due to credit, market, and/or liquidity risks) to 
'Dm' (failure to maintain principal stability resulting in a realized or 
unrealized loss of principal). The 'm' distinguishes the PSFR from our 
traditional debt ratings, which are usually not subscripted and indicate our 
opinion of a borrower's ability to repay principal and interest on a timely 
basis. As part of our fund-rating process, we review holdings and summary 
information of principal stability-rated funds weekly.

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