Fitch Launches IDR & Recovery Ratings for Latin America Corporates.

CHICAGO -- Fitch Ratings has assigned Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) and Recovery Ratings (RR) for its Latin America Corporate coverage. In addition, Fitch has made rating changes on a number of Latin America debt issuances. Fitch began to roll out IDRs and RRs in the second half of 2005 to enhance the informational value of our ratings for investors worldwide. Within the framework developed by Fitch, the ratings of corporate debt issuances now reflect both the probability of default, as measured by a company's IDR, and recovery.

An IDR reflects the ability of an issuer to meet all of its financial obligations on a timely basis, effectively becoming the benchmark probability of default. For most Latin American corporates, Fitch assigns both a local currency IDR (LC IDR) and a foreign currency IDR (FC IDR). The former rating addresses the default probability of a company's debt obligations that are denominated in its local currency. This rating captures the idiosyncratic default risk, or underlying credit risk of a company, which is closely linked to its capital structure and business position. The latter rating, the FC IDR, indicates the default probability of a corporate on the debt that it has issued in a hard currency. The FC IDR reflects the higher of two risks: either the risk of idiosyncratic default by the issuer or the risk that an issuer will default on foreign currency obligations due to sovereign-imposed currency controls.

Securities in a Latin American issuer's capital structure will be rated higher, lower, or the same as the IDR on the basis of their relative recovery prospects. Debt issuances by Latin American companies whose FC IDRs and LC IDRs were equal (unconstrained by the country ceiling) were notched from the FC IDR based upon aggregate market information for recovery levels associated with debt instruments of different priority and security, as well as by overlaying jurisdictional recovery rating limits (see Fitch publication 'Country-Specific Treatment of Recovery Ratings,' dated Dec. 12, 2005 and available on the Fitch Ratings web site at 'www.fitchratings.com'.

For select 'top-tier' Latin America companies which had significantly higher LC IDRs than their country ceiling constrained FC IDRs, the application of Fitch's recovery criteria resulted in assigning issue ratings above the related corporate FC IDR to reflect higher levels of expected recovery on average given the lower risk of idiosyncratic default.

A full list of 'Latin America IDR, Recovery and Issue Ratings' is also available at 'www.fitchratings.com' by clicking on the 'Corporate Finance' sector page. Then, proceed to 'Corporates', followed by 'Criteria Reports'. You can also click on 'Recovery Ratings' then jump to 'Latin America Corporates'.

Fitch is hosting a Latin America conference on Tuesday, April 25 in New York. This conference will include a detailed session and discussion on the assignment of Latin America Corporate IDRs and RRs. This session will be broadcasted via a Fitch Ratings webcast at 1:30 p.m. EST . To register for the conference or webcast, please see the Fitch web site for detatils.

In conjunction with assigning IDR, RR and revising issue ratings for Fitch's Latin American Corporates, Fitch has simultaneously released five special reports today entitled:

'Brazil Corporate Recovery Rating and IDR Guidelines';

'Argentina Corporate Recovery Rating and IDR Guidelines';

'Chile Corporate Recovery Rating and IDR Guidelines';

'Mexico and Central America Corporate Recovery Rating and IDR Guidelines';

'Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Peru and Venezuela Corporate Recovery Rating and IDR Guidelines'.

Fitch's rating definitions and the terms of use of such ratings are available on the agency's public site, 'www.fitchratings.com'. Published ratings, criteria, and methodologies are available from this site, at all times. Fitch's code of conduct, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, affiliate firewall, compliance, and other relevant policies and procedures are also available from the 'Code of Conduct' section of this site.