DBRS Rates Goldman Sachs Group’s New Issuance AAA, Based on FDIC Guarantee

DBRS has today assigned a AAA rating to the $500 million floating-rate senior notes due December 5, 2011, (the Notes) issued by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (Goldman). The Notes are issued pursuant to the Prospectus, dated October 10, 2008; the Senior Debt Indenture, dated July 16, 2008; and the Prospectus Supplement, dated December 1, 2008. The AAA ratings are based on the explicit guarantee provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP), which is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Under the TLGP, the FDIC guarantees payment of qualifying debt issued by eligible U.S. bank holding companies, such as The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

The AAA rating reflects DBRS’s opinion as to the guarantor’s ability to honor the guarantee as determined by DBRS’s internal assessment of the sovereign. All other debt ratings, including Goldman’s AA (low) Issuer & Senior Debt rating, remain at their current levels. The trend on all long-term non-guaranteed ratings remains Negative; the trend was changed to Negative on September 17, 2008.

Notes:
All figures are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted.

The applicable methodology is Rating Banks and Bank Holding Companies Operating in the United States, which can be found on our website under Methodologies.

This is a Corporate (Financial Institutions) rating.