Regions Unit Posts Top 2004 Stock List Returns

    Business Editors

    BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 9, 2005--Stocks on the Focus List of Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., a division of Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE:RF), posted top returns for 2004, besting the performance of those on the recommended lists of 13 other leading national and regional brokerage firms.
    Morgan Keegan's Focus List posted a 27.8 percent gain for the year ended Dec. 31, 2004, outperforming both of the other brokerage firms surveyed by Zacks Investment Research and the Standard & Poor 500 Composite index for the same period. Others on the list included Bear Stearns, Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch and Raymond James.
    "Morgan Keegan clients have long benefited from the expertise of our research analysts," said firm CEO G. Douglas Edwards. "We appreciate being recognized for this achievement.
    "David Guthrie and his team are to be congratulated for a job well-done," Edwards said.
    Guthrie, director of equity research for Morgan Keegan, is also head of the firm's Focus Group.
    "The Morgan Keegan team responsible for the Focus List, called the Focus Group, benefits from the experience provided by the firm's talented equity research analysts," Guthrie said. "Their in-depth knowledge of the industry sectors and companies they cover certainly gives us a competitive edge."
    Morgan Keegan created the Focus Group and its Focus List in 1998 to make the firm's equity research more accessible for the individual investor. The Focus Group, which includes representatives from equity research, institutional sales, equity strategy and retail sales, reviews the firm's coverage universe of stocks and selects the ones they like best. To determine the stocks on the Focus List, the Focus Group selects only those stocks that demonstrate the potential for maximum investment return.
    For more information on the Morgan Keegan Focus List, please visit www.morgankeegan.com on the Web to locate the nearest office of the firm, or call 1-800-482-9340.
    The Focus List's top results for 2004 were first featured in "Winning Hands," an article published in the Jan. 24, 2005, edition of Barron's. Zacks Investment Research Inc., an independent research source for Barron's, tracks the stock recommendations of 14 major brokerage firms in a monthly survey. The Zacks survey is intended to give investors an indication how their portfolio would perform if investment professionals selected their stocks. Calculations done for the survey take into account gains or losses, dividends and theoretical commissions of 1 percent on each trade. Beginning and end prices used are the official exchange closing prices on the date any change is made to a given firm's focus list. Zacks calculates the time-weighted monthly performance of the various firms' focus lists on an equal-weighted basis. Monthly returns are then linked geometrically to produce quarterly and annual total return performance figures.

    About Regions and Morgan Keegan

    Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc., one of the largest full-service brokerage and investment banking firms in the South, is the securities brokerage arm of Regions Financial Corporation.(NYSE:RF). Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., Morgan Keegan has more than 200 offices and more than $480 million in equity capital. Regions, one of the nation's Top 15 financial services providers had assets of $84.1 billion as of Dec. 31, 2004. Regions' banking subsidiaries, Regions Bank and Union Planters Bank, operate some 1,400 offices and a 1,700-ATM network across a 15-state geographic footprint in the South, Midwest and Texas. Additional information about Morgan Keegan and Regions, a member of both the Forbes and Fortune 500, can be found at www.morgankeegan.com and www.regions.com.

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CONTACT: Investor Relations Contact: Regions Financial Corporation Jenifer M. Goforth, 205-244-2823 jenifer.goforth@regions.com or Media Relations Contacts: Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc. Gail Rimer, 901-524-4183 gail.rimer@morgankeegan.com or Regions Financial Corporation Kristi Lamont Ellis, 205-326-7179 kristi.ellis@regions.com

KEYWORD: ALABAMA TENNESSEE INDUSTRY KEYWORD: BANKING SOURCE: Regions Financial Corporation

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