Press Releases

Dear Shareholders,

As I near my retirement, I wanted to write you with some thoughts about our bank.

First, I would like to sincerely thank you for the confidence that you showed in me and our staff when you invested in Citizens Bank & Trust fourteen years ago. We had a dream of building a quality community bank in Marshall County that would be an asset to the community and provide a good return on your investment. You had confidence in that dream and took a great leap of faith by investing your money in our bank and I will be eternally grateful for that confidence.

Second, I would like to talk about some of the accomplishments of your bank over the past fourteen years. We have grown from an idea to a healthy and profitable $415 million institution which is the 24" largest bank in Alabama. Of the 115 banks which were chartered in the United States in 2003, only 55 remain and we are the 14" largest of those 55. We now have seven full service offices with two loan production offices and have applied to convert our Cullman loan office to a full service location, hopefully this Spring. Since we began turning a profit in 2005, we have made a profit every year and have made a total of $22,838,000. We have also paid a total of $4,838,000 in dividends to our shareholders. Our compound annual growth rate of your initial investment since 2003 has been 10.36%. We employ 99 people and make a significant economic impact in our area with not only the jobs that we provide, but also with the jobs created by the over $280 million in loans that are currently in our portfolio and the hundreds of millions of loan dollars that have already been paid off. It is a well-documented fact that communities with community banks operating in them do much better economically than those without community banks and I am confident that Citizens Bank & Trust has greatly benefitted the economies of the cities in which we operate.

Thirdly, I would like to tell you what my role at the bank will be after my retirement. I will continue to work three days per week and will remain on the board of directors, moving into the chairman position at retirement. In that role, I expect to perform customary duties of the chairman at board meetings, serve as a member of all board committees and subcommittees, be available to consult on strategic direction and balance sheet management, and provide transition assistance to Charlie Williams, our new CEO. However, this is a non-executive role, and I will not be serving as an officer or member of the day-to-day management team.

Lastly, I want to talk about how well positioned our bank is for the future. Our board has operated from the beginning under the philosophy that we would operate the bank as if we would own it forever and would listen to offers to sell the bank only if they were overwhelmingly good for our shareholders. We felt that this philosophy would keep us focused on long term results as well as short term. One obvious result of our commitment to the future is the imminent completion of our new headquarters building. We had plans almost ready to start construction in 2008, but decided that the environment was not right for that level of expenditure, but we have simply outgrown our current facility and needed to make a move. In addition to our physical facilities, we have a major commitment to human resources. We have many young professionals, primarily locally educated, who are committed to and well capable of taking our company to the next level. We have also successfully undertaken several other initiatives in the past several years:

We have maintained a goal since inception of being technologically competitive with all of our competition and we have accomplished that with many initiatives including internet banking, mobile banking, remote deposit capture and the hiring of a cyber security officer which puts us well ahead of most banks even much larger than we are. We have recently added expertise to our mortgage lending area and have changed our broker dealer to give better services to our wealth management customers. One problem that most community banks have is liquidity for their shareholders. While not completely solving the problem, we certainly alleviated a lot of strain with our buyback program a few years ago and the introduction of Community Banclist last year. We always attempt to be good citizens in our communities as evidenced by our presence in our schools. Last year we opened our first full service school office at Guntersville High School and we hope to duplicate that in more of our high schools in coming years.

From a financial standpoint, we are extremely well positioned for the future. We have the capital to expand and our asset quality is the best that it has been since the beginning of the recession in 2008. With the great facilities, strong balance sheet, excellent market area and most importantly the outstanding staff of employees that we have, I couldn’t be more excited about the future of Citizens Bank & Trust. Like you, I continue to hold a financial stake in Citizens Bank & Trust and am thankful that I will be able to continue to be a part of this great bank of ours. Thanks again for giving me this great opportunity.

With Warmest Regards,

Michael W. Alred