DBRS Rates Malatesta Finance S.r.l. – Series 2012

DBRS Ratings Limited (DBRS) has today assigned a final rating to the following Notes issued by Malatesta Finance S.r.l. – Series 2012.

• ‘A’ (high) (sf) rating to the Class A notes EUR 179,100,000

The Class B1 and the Class B2 notes, which are junior to the above class of note, are not rated.

The Class A and B Notes are backed by floating rate, first lien, fully amortising Italian mortgage loans. The originators of the transaction are Cassa di Risparmio di Cesena S.p.A (CRC) and Banca di Romagna S.p.A.(BdR). Servicing of the mortgages will be managed by CRC.

The ratings are based upon DBRS review of the following analytical considerations:
• Transaction capital structure and form as well as sufficiency of available credit enhancement.
• Credit enhancement is in the form of subordination, and potentially from excess spread.
• The ability of the transaction to withstand stressed cash flow assumptions and repay investors according to their investment terms.
• The transaction parties’ capabilities with respect to originations, underwriting, servicing, and financial strength.
• The credit quality of the collateral and ability of the Servicer to manage collections activities on the collateral.
• The legal structure and presence of legal opinions addressing the assignment of the assets to the issuer and the consistency with the DBRS Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions.

DBRS credit analysis is performed on a loan-level basis and includes a probability of default and loss given default assessment, an originator- and servicer-specific historical performance review, an analysis of loan default data, an Italian housing market and property price trend evaluation, and finally a cash flow simulation based on various stresses to prepayments, timing of defaults and recoveries and interest rates.

DBRS assessed the two year probability of default, utilizing CRC’s and BdR’s definition of defaults (sofferenze) as defined by the Bank of Italy. The two year probability of default also takes into consideration Italian Sovereign risk due to the recent downgrade by DBRS of the Republic of Italy’s sovereign from AA (low) Negative Trend to A (high) Negative Trend. For a more detailed discussion of sovereign risk impact on Structured Finance ratings, please refer to DBRS commentary “The Effect of Sovereign Risk on Securitisations in the Euro Area.”

Note:
All figures are in Euro unless otherwise noted.

The principal methodologies applicable are:
• Master European Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Rating Methodology
• Legal Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions
• Swap Criteria for European Structured Finance Transactions
• Operational Risk Assessment for European RMBS Servicers
• Unified Interest Rate Model Methodology for European Securitisations

These can be found on dbrs.com under Methodologies. For a more detailed discussion of sovereign risk impact on Structured Finance ratings, please refer to DBRS commentary “The Effect of Sovereign Risk on Securitisations in the Euro Area”.

The sources of information used for this rating may include working papers and data on the Italian economy and housing market provided by: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, OECD, ECB, Eurostat, Bank of Italy and Nomisma. DBRS conducted an operational review on the origination and servicing practices of CRC and BdR. CRC and BdR provided loan-level data and historical performance of mortgage portfolio dating back to 1999. DBRS considers the information available to it for the purposes of providing this rating was of satisfactory quality.

This is the first DBRS rating on this financial instrument.

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

Ratings assigned by DBRS Ratings Limited are subject to EU regulations only.

Lead Analyst: Konstantine Pastras
Rating Committee Chair: Claire Mezzanotte
Initial Rating Date: 17th May 2012