Moody's:Unibanco elevado para Baa1


MOODY'S ASSIGNS Baa1 RATING TO UNIBANCO'S ELECTRONIC REMITTANCE BACKED NOTES



New York, January 20, 2006 -- Moody's Investors Service has assigned a Baa1 rating to the recently amended and restated Series 2002-1 notes issued by UBB Diversified Payment Rights Finance Company, a Cayman
Islands special purpose corporation (SPC). The SPC was established by the Brazilian bank Unibanco-União de Bancos Brasileiros S.A, which is the originator of and acts as servicer for the electronic remittances.

The SPC had issued the original Series 2002-1 notes in 2002 for an amount of $400 million. Moody's had assigned a Aaa rating to the notes based on the financial guarantee provided by MBIA. The notes were paid off completely and as a result Moody's has withdrawn the Aaa rating.

Subsequently, the SPC issued the Series 2002-1 notes, amended and restated, for an amount of $105 million. Moody's has assigned a rating of Baa1 to the amended and restated notes, based on the following factors:

- The financial and operational strength of Unibanco, and its importance in the Brazilian banking system.

- The historical volume of electronic remittances generated by Unibanco.

- The low likelihood of sovereign interference in the flows.

- The adequate ratio of minimum historical remittance cash flows to maximum scheduled debt service, which is around 53 times if calculated based on average cashflows from the last 4 quarters --from the quarter that ended on January 15, 2005 to the one that ended on October 15, 2005.

- Structural and legal protections incorporated into the transaction, including required minimum debt service coverage ratios, which, if not met, may trigger an early amortization of the notes.

- The credit quality of the correspondent banks which have agreed to deposit all remittance-related cash flows from Unibanco's concentration account to a collection account maintained by the trustee for the SPC.

The notes are backed by future U.S. dollar cash flows generated through diversified payment rights sold pursuant to this transaction by Unibanco. The diversified payment rights include all existing and future rights to U.S. dollar payments related to payment orders to be received by Unibanco from its correspondent banks for the benefit of recipients in Brazil. The payment order can be transmitted via an MT 100, MT 202 or similar message delivered by the SWIFT system, the Fedwire, or CHIPS system to Unibanco.

Proceeds in excess of scheduled quarterly debt service on the notes will be released to Unibanco as long as there is no early amortization event in place.

Unibanco is the third- largest private bank within the Brazilian banking system, with US$39.7 billion in assets and US$4.0 billion in equity, as of the end of September 2005. Unibanco has a long-term, senior unsecured foreign currency debt rating of Ba1, a long-term local currency deposit rating of A3 and a financial strength rating of D+ (on review for a possible upgrade).

The complete rating action is as follows:

$105,000,000 UBB Diversified Payment Rights Finance Company Series 2002-1 Notes Due 2016 (Amended and Restated as of January 17, 2005), rated Baa1

Additional research is available on Moody's website, http://www.moodys.com.



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