John Allison Merge Quotations

We're pretty much on schedule, ... We are talking to some people right now, but mergers are unpredictable. ... We'd like to see a transaction in the early part of 2006, but whether we will or not, frankly, depends on the sellers.

This merger accelerates our long-term earnings growth potential by expanding our Tennessee market. It will allow us to extend our growing Knoxville-based presence toward Chattanooga and on to our existing north Georgia franchise.

BB&T over the years largely has grown through the merger-and- acquisition process, acquiring community banks and thrifts, and that's been successful on our part. Over the last year we've had a little of this indigestion from a lot of mergers over a short period. We needed to take a little breather to refocus on organic revenue growth, and we think we're near that period of time where our internal operations are where we want, so we're looking at getting back into the (M&A) business.