B-1 STATEMENT OF ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Dated May 1 ...

. Moody’s Commercial Paper (short-term)Moody’s short-term ratings are opinions of the ability of issuers to honor short-term financial obligations.Ratings may be assigned to issuers, short-term programs or to individual short-term debt instruments.Such obligations generally have an original maturity not exceeding thirteen months, unless explicitlynoted.Moody’s employs the following designations to indicate the relative repayment ability of rated issuers:P-1Issuers (or supporting institutions) rated Prime-1 have a superior ability to repay short-term debtobligations.P-2Issuers (or supporting institutions) rated Prime-2 have a strong ability to repay short-term debtobligations.P-3Issuers (or supporting institutions) rated Prime-3 have an acceptable ability to repay short-termobligations.N PIssuers (or supporting institutions) rated Not Prime do not fall within any of the Prime rating categories.Note: Canadian issuers rated P-1 or P-2 have their short-term ratings enhanced by the senior-most longtermrating of the issuer, its guarantor or support-provider.III. STANDARD & POOR’Sa. Standard & Poor’s Corporate Bonds and Preferred Stock (long-term)Issue credit ratings are based in varying degrees, on the following considerations:• Likelihood of payment—capacity and willingness of the obligor to meet its financial commitmenton an obligation in accordance with the terms of the obligation;• Nature of and provisions of the obligation; and• Protection afforded by, and relative position of, the obligation in the event of bankruptcy,reorganization, or other arrangement under the laws of bankruptcy and other laws affectingcreditors’ rights.The issue ratings definitions are expressed in terms of default risk. As such, they pertain to seniorobligations of an entity. Junior obligations are typically rated lower than senior obligations, to reflect thelower priority in bankruptcy, as noted above. (Such differentiation applies when an entity has both seniorand subordinated obligations, secured and unsecured obligations, or operating company and holdingcompany obligations.) Accordingly, in the case of junior debt, the rating may not conform exactly withthe category definition.AAAAn obligation rated ‘AAA’ has the highest rating assigned by Standard &Poor’s. The obligor’s capacityto meet its financial commitment on the obligation is extremely strong.B-70