ECB Bancorp, Inc. CEO Interview: Dwight Utz

• On 12:30 pm EDT, Tuesday October 6, 2009

67 WALL STREET, New York - October 6, 2009 - The Wall Street Transcript has just published its Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Banks Report offering a timely review of the sector to serious investors and industry executives. This 130 page feature contains expert industry commentary through in-depth interviews with public company CEOs, Equity Analysts and Money Managers. The full issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online.

Topics covered: Residential Mortgage Situation -- Regional Banks Mergers and Acquisitions Timing Strategy -- Commercial Mortgage Portfolio Decay -- Timing Of Commercial Mortgage Portfolio Bad Debt Write Offs-- FDIC Hit List For Bank Closings -- Mutual Holding Company Structure -- Interest Rate Scenarios -- Banking Pricing Power -- Expensive Bank Valuations -- Tangible Book As Guide For Bank Stock Pricing -- Distressed Sales Of Community and Regional Banks -- TARP Program -- Attitude Of Institutional Investors Towards Resurgence in Community Banking -- Unique Business Models -- Regional Bank Boards Looking For Exit

Companies include: BB and T (BBT); Colonial (CNB); First Niagara (FNFG); PNC (PNC); National City (NCC-PA); Harleysville National (HNBC); Citizens First Bancorp (CTZN); Regions Financial (RF); Bank of America (BAC); SunTrust Banks (STI); Pinnacle Financial (PNFP); Northwest Bancorp Inc. (NWSB); Beneficial (BNCL); Investor Savings Bancorp (ISBC); Territorial Bancorp (TBNK); FNB Bancorp (FNBG.OB); National Penn (NPBC); Trustco Bank (TRST); KeyBank (KEY); M and T Bank (MTB); New York Community Bancorp (NYB); Bank of New York Mellon (BK); Wells Fargo and Company (WFC); JPMorgan Chase and Co. (JPM); Wachovia (WB); Harleysville Savings Bank (HARL); SVB Financial (SIVB); Signature Bank (SBNY); Provident Bank (PBKS); Valley National Bank (VLY); Community Bank System (CBU); NBT Bankcorp (NBTB); Fulton (FULT); Citibank ©; Allied Irish (AIB); Bank of Hawaii (BOH); First Horizon Bank (FHN); Comerica (CMA); Synovus (SNV); Zions (ZION); South Financial Group (TSFG); Bancorp (TBBK); Legg Mason (LM); IBERIABANK Corp. (IBKC); Wilmington Trust (WL); S and T Bancorp (STBA); PHH (PHH); Goldman Sachs (GS); Citigroup ©; U.S. Bancorp (USB); Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB); KeyCorp (KEY); Lehman Brothers; Colonial; Washington Mutual; TD Banknorth (TD), Lakeland (LBAI), Westfield Financial, Inc. (WFD), United Financial Bancorp, Inc. (UBNK), Chicopee Bancorp, Inc. (CBNK)

In the following brief excerpt from the 130 page , Dwight Utz, CEO of East Carolina Bank, discusses the outlook for the sector and for investors.

TWST: Would you start us off with a general overview and a summary of East Carolina Bank?

Mr. Utz: The East Carolina Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of ECB Bancorp, Inc., an $877 million company headquartered in Engelhard, N.C., traded on the NASDAQ Global Market, symbol ECBE. The East Carolina Bank is a 90-year-old company with 24 full-service banking locations and one loan production office serving 13 counties along the east coast of North Carolina. We provide our client base, which is predominantly small to mid-size businesses as well as individual consumers, with an array of traditional suite products but also supplement those with ancillary services, such as our wealth management, mortgage, treasury management and our agricultural lending.

TWST: What are the key factors that differentiate East Carolina Bank from its competition? Is it your business focus, your geography, the quality of your assets?

Mr. Utz: What I believe differentiates ECB is probably three key factors: one is our geographical footprint, two is our diversification of our economic drivers and third is our corporate culture. We service the entire east coast of North Carolina, going from the southern border of Virginia along the estuaries, all the way down to Ocean Isle, which is right above the South Carolina border. So if you put the pins on the map, you will see that we are primarily located along the coastal communities with the exception of our four locations in our Greenville market. The economic drivers in our markets include tourism, real estate and construction, military and defense, manufacturing and the agriculture- and seafood-related industries. Our corporate culture can best be described as a mix of teamwork, talent, technology and a significant focus on the communities that we are serving. When you look to a successful community bank, this is what you should see.

TWST: What do you see as the key issues facing North Carolina community banks today? How are you adapting your strategies and goals over the next year or so based on those issues?

Mr. Utz: In the 90 days that I have been CEO and had the opportunity to review the internal workings of ECB, it has certainly become evident to me that our greatest opportunity will continue to be internal organic growth. It just seems to me that of the households that we have, our penetration rates are not where I think they should be. And as we continue to build our service culture, we will be able to penetrate the households in a more robust way to deepen and embed what I'd like to refer to as the holistic relationship, not just a singular DDA account. This will certainly be a key factor in strengthening our retail distribution channel. You will also see over time where we will take advantage of some additional technology solutions to identify and understand our customer demographics and to identify growth markets as we continue to develop a diversification of our market footprint. Another initiative that we are contemplating is the creation of a customer care center - call center. We have a very large footprint, and it would be in our clients' and potential clients' best interest to provide them with another distribution channel that they can utilize besides the physical branch and ATMs. This will provide us with an opportunity to expand our customer households without the need to use capital to expand the retail store channel. The other critical enhancement you will see in the short term will be our ECB Web site. Our Web site will become much more robust with the ability to open accounts, where today it's more of a static information page. Those are things that I see on the horizon over the next 12 to 18 months. Lastly, you will see more emphasis placed on delivering a suite of products that will be more consumer focused.

The Wall Street Transcript is a unique service for investors and industry researchers - providing fresh commentary and insight through verbatim interviews with CEOs and research analysts. This 130 page special issue is available by calling (212) 952-7433 or via The Wall Street Transcript Online .

The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse the views of any interviewees nor does it make stock recommendations.

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