Feb 21 – Fitch Ratings has upgraded Casablanca-based BMCE Capital Gestion’s National Asset Manager Rating to ‘M2+(mar)’ from ‘M2(mar)’. KEY RATING DRIVERS The upgrade reflects BMCE Capital Gestion’s renewed IT infrastructure providing a robust integrated platform for front- and middle-office activities, a greater awareness of potential risks of conflicts of interests and notable enhancements in the area of credit risk management. Furthermore, Fitch considers positively the company’s 16-year history and its strong position in the Moroccan asset management industry. Challenges are for BMCE Capital Gestion to stabilise its equity investment team and process, and develop further risk management practices for market and liquidity risks. The finalisation of the roll-out of its new technological platform could also temporarily lead to higher operational risk, although Fitch believes such initiatives are well integrated into the company’s procedures and control practices. BMCE Capital Gestion’s ‘M2+(mar)’ rating is based on the following category scores, which represents a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 as the highest possible score: Company and Staffing: 2.75 Risk Management and Controls: 2.50 (from 2.75) Portfolio Management: 2.50 Investment Administration: 2.00 (from 2.25) Technology: 2.25 (from 2.50) COMPANY AND STAFFING BMCE Capital Gestion is the third-largest asset manager in Morocco, with a client base of local institutional and retail investors. Its development in the retail and corporate segments has been largely supported by the banking network of its parent BMCE Bank, one of the main banking institutions in Morocco. As a unit of the investment banking division, BMCE Capital, BMCE Capital Gestion shares certain group resources such as risk management and IT development. Fitch notes that the close relationship between the asset manager and its capital market sister company is subject to certain potential conflicts of interest. The implementation of a specific internal policy and escalation procedures have recently contributed to rising awareness of such conflicts. The company benefits from generally stable and experienced staffing resources. RISK MANAGEMENT AND CONTROLS Controls performed by the internal controller for regulatory purposes provide strong mitigants to compliance-related risks and benefit from a growing integration within the group compliance and control framework. Investment risk management has been delegated to BMCE Capital’s risk management team since 2010. A key focus of this team has been on the development of credit risk management practices, which are now well embedded within the credit selection and monitoring process. PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT Investment processes are almost exclusively focused on domestic markets and follow a committee-driven approach. The disciplined fixed income process has been enriched to better account for the relative liquidity of yield curve buckets, while credit investments benefit from the progress that have been made in credit risk management. Equity portfolio management draws on a combination of research capabilities from BMCE Capital and the asset manager and allows greater room for tactical adjustments. INVESTMENT ADMINISTRATION AND TECHNOLOGY Reporting to investors provides regular and appropriate information. The front- and middle-office technological platform has been renewed with the implementation of Sophis Value, allowing streamlining of operational procedures and a good level of internal integration. Order matching and confirmation processes are still largely manual. Logos remains the back-office application. COMPANY PROFILE Created in 1995, BMCE Capital Gestion is a subsidiary of BMCE Bank, the third-largest bank in Morocco, which is 32%-owned by the Moroccan holding company FinanceCom and 25% by the Banque Federative du Credit Mutuel. At end-December 2011, BMCE Capital Gestion was managing MAD32bn worth of assets, on behalf of domestic retail clients, corporates and large institutional investors. In line with the overall local market, most of these assets are concentrated in domestic fixed income and money market assets (91%). At end-2011, BMCE Capital Gestion employed 32 people, including nine portfolio managers and four financial analysts. RATING SENSITIVITY The rating may be sensitive to material adverse changes to any of the aforementioned rating drivers. A material deviation from Fitch guidelines for any key rating driver could cause the rating to be downgraded by Fitch. For additional information about Fitch’s asset manager ratings guidelines, please review the criteria referenced below, which can be found on www.fitchratings.com. Contacts: Primary Analyst Charlotte Quiniou, CFA Director +33 1 44 29 92 81 Fitch France S.A.S. 60 rue de Monceau Paris 75008 Secondary Analyst Francois Vattement Analyst +33 1 44 29 92 75 Committee Chairman Manuel Arrive, CFA Senior Director +33 1 44 29 91 77 Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com. The ratings above were solicited by, or on behalf of, the issuer, and therefore, Fitch has been compensated for the provision of the ratings. Applicable criteria, ‘Reviewing and Rating Asset Managers’, dated 13 August 2010 are available on www.fitchratings.com. Applicable Criteria and Related Research: Reviewing and Rating Asset Managers

TEXT-Fitch raises BMCE Capital Gestion to ‘M2+(mar)’

Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:47pm GMT

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Feb 21 - Fitch Ratings has upgraded Casablanca-based BMCE Capital Gestion's National Asset Manager Rating to 'M2+(mar)' from 'M2(mar)'. KEY RATING DRIVERS The upgrade reflects BMCE Capital Gestion's renewed IT infrastructure providing a robust integrated platform for front- and middle-office activities, a greater awareness of potential risks of conflicts of interests and notable enhancements in the area of credit risk management. Furthermore, Fitch considers positively the company's 16-year history and its strong position in the Moroccan asset management industry. Challenges are for BMCE Capital Gestion to stabilise its equity investment team and process, and develop further risk management practices for market and liquidity risks. The finalisation of the roll-out of its new technological platform could also temporarily lead to higher operational risk, although Fitch believes such initiatives are well integrated into the company's procedures and control practices. BMCE Capital Gestion's 'M2+(mar)' rating is based on the following category scores, which represents a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 as the highest possible score: Company and Staffing: 2.75 Risk Management and Controls: 2.50 (from 2.75) Portfolio Management: 2.50 Investment Administration: 2.00 (from 2.25) Technology: 2.25 (from 2.50) COMPANY AND STAFFING BMCE Capital Gestion is the third-largest asset manager in Morocco, with a client base of local institutional and retail investors. Its development in the retail and corporate segments has been largely supported by the banking network of its parent BMCE Bank, one of the main banking institutions in Morocco. As a unit of the investment banking division, BMCE Capital, BMCE Capital Gestion shares certain group resources such as risk management and IT development. Fitch notes that the close relationship between the asset manager and its capital market sister company is subject to certain potential conflicts of interest. The implementation of a specific internal policy and escalation procedures have recently contributed to rising awareness of such conflicts. The company benefits from generally stable and experienced staffing resources. RISK MANAGEMENT AND CONTROLS Controls performed by the internal controller for regulatory purposes provide strong mitigants to compliance-related risks and benefit from a growing integration within the group compliance and control framework. Investment risk management has been delegated to BMCE Capital's risk management team since 2010. A key focus of this team has been on the development of credit risk management practices, which are now well embedded within the credit selection and monitoring process. PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT Investment processes are almost exclusively focused on domestic markets and follow a committee-driven approach. The disciplined fixed income process has been enriched to better account for the relative liquidity of yield curve buckets, while credit investments benefit from the progress that have been made in credit risk management. Equity portfolio management draws on a combination of research capabilities from BMCE Capital and the asset manager and allows greater room for tactical adjustments. INVESTMENT ADMINISTRATION AND TECHNOLOGY Reporting to investors provides regular and appropriate information. The front- and middle-office technological platform has been renewed with the implementation of Sophis Value, allowing streamlining of operational procedures and a good level of internal integration. Order matching and confirmation processes are still largely manual. Logos remains the back-office application. COMPANY PROFILE Created in 1995, BMCE Capital Gestion is a subsidiary of BMCE Bank, the third-largest bank in Morocco, which is 32%-owned by the Moroccan holding company FinanceCom and 25% by the Banque Federative du Credit Mutuel. At end-December 2011, BMCE Capital Gestion was managing MAD32bn worth of assets, on behalf of domestic retail clients, corporates and large institutional investors. In line with the overall local market, most of these assets are concentrated in domestic fixed income and money market assets (91%). At end-2011, BMCE Capital Gestion employed 32 people, including nine portfolio managers and four financial analysts. RATING SENSITIVITY The rating may be sensitive to material adverse changes to any of the aforementioned rating drivers. A material deviation from Fitch guidelines for any key rating driver could cause the rating to be downgraded by Fitch. For additional information about Fitch's asset manager ratings guidelines, please review the criteria referenced below, which can be found on www.fitchratings.com. Contacts: Primary Analyst Charlotte Quiniou, CFA Director +33 1 44 29 92 81 Fitch France S.A.S. 60 rue de Monceau Paris 75008 Secondary Analyst Francois Vattement Analyst +33 1 44 29 92 75 Committee Chairman Manuel Arrive, CFA Senior Director +33 1 44 29 91 77 Additional information is available at www.fitchratings.com. The ratings above were solicited by, or on behalf of, the issuer, and therefore, Fitch has been compensated for the provision of the ratings. Applicable criteria, 'Reviewing and Rating Asset Managers', dated 13 August 2010 are available on www.fitchratings.com. Applicable Criteria and Related Research: Reviewing and Rating Asset Managers