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NATIONAL COMMERCE FINANCIAL CORPORATION (NYSE:NCF);

Five analysts and top management from ten sector firms examine the banking sector in this special 71-page South & SouthEastern Regional Banks issue from The Wall Street Transcript, available at (212/952-7433) or http://www.twst.com/info/info449.htm

“They had a credibility issue earlier this year when they announced that they were having to restate all their acquisitions from 1997 forward from pooling acquisitions to purchase accounting acquisitions. While it had no impact economically on National Commerce, the financial statements did undergo a pretty substantial change in the restatements. This coupled with an accounting issue on what I believe were some hedges that they had that were off-balance sheet, came about at the same time. All of a sudden, what used to be an impeccable management team that could do no wrong — when they promised you something they delivered that or better — now had a credibility issue. National Commerce’s stock got clobbered. The stock has since come back and Ernest Roessler, CEO, has been very focused on a few things. One would be running a very sound financial institution on the bank side of the business, which is what they’ve always done. Now National Commerce has integrated the CCB acquisition, which was, at the time, reported as a merger of equals, and I guess it probably still is, although the accounting changed on it. But National Commerce has integrated it and gone through what they call Phase I, which was to eliminate duplicate operations like the back office stuff, consolidating all that stuff, getting all the expense eggs out. Phase II, which they’re focused on now, is the revenue enhancement part of the story. National Commerce is taking best practices from the old institutions and overlaying them on their opposites. CCB was traditionally a stronger commercial operation than National Commercial, and National Commerce was a strong retail-oriented bank than CCB was. So what they’re doing is looking at the areas where they were extremely strong and trying to take those processes and put them into the other bank, so they can get the best earnings momentum out of both of them. National Commerce is making progress there as well.

This special issue includes:

1) South & SouthEastern Regional Banks - In an in-depth (14,000 words) Analyst Roundtable, Jeff Davis, Analyst covering regional banks at Midwest Research, Inc., Charles N. Ernst, Vice President at Putnam Lovell Securities, Inc., Jefferson L. Harralson, Vice President at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Capital Markets and Christopher M. Mutascio, Principal at Legg Mason Wood Walker, Inc., examine the outlook for the sector including investment approach, credit quality and share specific stock recommendations.

2) Regional Bank Stocks - In an in-depth (3,300 words) Analyst Interview, Gary B. Townsend, Senior Analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., examines the outlook for the sector and shares specific stock recommendations.

3) The TWST confidential Off-The-Record survey of management performance at thirteen sector firms asked market insiders about the ability of management teams to create shareholder value.

4) CEO interviews (average 2,500 words). Top management of nine sector firms examine the outlook for their firm and the sector.