NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) March 24, 2008--Standard & Poor's Ratings
Services today placed its ratings on 313 classes from 119 U.S. residential
mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) transactions on CreditWatch with negative
implications due to the recent CreditWatch revision to negative from
developing affecting bond insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. (FGIC).
Concurrently, we lowered our rating on class A from Home Equity Loan Trust
2004-HS3 to 'A' from 'AAA' and kept it on CreditWatch negative. FGIC
guarantees all classes affected by these actions (for more information, see "
Financial Guaranty Insurance Co.'s CreditWatch Revised To Negative From
Developing," published March 21, 2008, on RatingsDirect).
A list of the U.S. RMBS classes affected by the recent CreditWatch
actions on this insurer is available in "U.S. RMBS Classes Affected By March
21, 2008, FGIC CreditWatch Revisions," published earlier today on
RatingsDirect, at www.ratingsdirect.com. The list is also posted on
www.spviews.com; go to the left navigation bar and click on "Deals Affected"
to view or download the list.
On March 21, 2008, Standard & Poor's revised the CreditWatch implications
of its financial enhancement rating on FGIC to negative from developing. The
CreditWatch revision followed the announcement by FGIC's principal owner, the
PMI Group, that it no longer views FGIC as a strategic investment and will not
be contributing capital to FGIC as part of any recapitalization plan. Standard
& Poor's opinion is that this announcement negatively affects the company's
ability to implement plans to raise additional capital and resume writing
business in the future.
The FGIC-related rating actions affected 314 U.S. RMBS ratings, 313 of
which were lowered to 'A' on Feb. 26, 2008, after FGIC was downgraded.
Standard & Poor's will continue to monitor its ratings on all classes linked
to this bond insurer and take appropriate rating actions as necessary.
Analytic services provided by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services (Ratings Services) are the result of separate activities designed to preserve the independence and objectivity of ratings opinions. The credit ratings and observations contained herein are solely statements of opinion and not statements of fact or recommendations to purchase, hold, or sell any securities or make any other investment decisions. Accordingly, any user of the information contained herein should not rely on any credit rating or other opinion contained herein in making any investment decision. Ratings are based on information received by Ratings Services. Other divisions of Standard & Poor's may have information that is not available to Ratings Services. Standard & Poor's has established policies and procedures to maintain the confidentiality of non-public information received during the ratings process.
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