A.M. Best Assigns Ratings to MetLife's Common Equity Units Offering; Places New Ratings Under Review.

OLDWICK, N.J. -- A.M. Best Co. has assigned debt ratings of "a-" to MetLife, Inc.'s (MetLife) (NYSE:MET) (New York, NY) newly issued common equity units (Units), Series A and B, and placed them under review with negative implications.

The existing debt ratings of MetLife, its issuer credit rating (ICR) of "a" and the ICR of "aa" of MetLife's lead life insurance subsidiary, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (New York, NY) all remain under review with negative implications. The ratings were placed under review following MetLife's January 2005 announcement of its plan to acquire Travelers Life & Annuity (TL&A) from Citigroup for approximately $11.5 billion.

The Units are part of a series of securities offerings to be completed by MetLife over the next several weeks. While this offering is expected to raise about $1.8 billion in gross proceeds (in two equal tranches), A.M. Best expects MetLife to issue between $7 billion and $8 billion in debt securities overall to fund the purchase of TL&A. These offerings will increase MetLife's proforma financial leverage (excluding non-recourse debt) to roughly 30%, incorporating some equity credit for certain securities per A.M. Best's hybrid methodology. The current ratings take into account A.M. Best's expectation that MetLife's debt-to-capital ratio will return to its historical range of approximately 25% by late 2006 or early 2007. Additionally, A.M. Best believes that post-acquisition, MetLife's future earnings will provide strong debt service coverage of roughly seven times.

Each Unit consists of a fractional interest in trust preferred securities issued by subsidiary trusts of MetLife--MetLife Capital Trust II and MetLife Capital Trust III--as well as a stock purchase contract under which investors agree to purchase MetLife's common stock in August 2008 (Series A) and February 2009 (Series B). The interest in the trust preferred securities and the purchase contract will be separable at the option of the holder in accordance with specified procedures. If the investor accomplishes this separation by creating a stripped Unit, the investor will be entitled to receive quarterly contract payments on the stock purchase contracts. However, if the investor continues to hold the trust preferred securities, the trusts will make quarterly cash distributions based on the terms of the junior subordinated debentures, which are the trusts' only assets and mirror the terms of the trust preferred securities. All contract payments and distributions may be deferred by MetLife, though interest will accrue.

For additional detail, see A.M. Best's MetLife press release of June 8 at http://www.ambest.com.

For Best's Debt Ratings, all other Best's Ratings, an overview of the rating process and rating methodologies, please visit http://www.ambest.com/ratings.

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A.M. Best Co., established in 1899, is the world's oldest and most authoritative insurance rating and information source. For more information, visit A.M. Best's Web site at http://www.ambest.com.