Morgan Keegan Hires Mark Lamarre as Associate Director of Research

Morgan Keegan & Company, Inc. has announced that Mark Lamarre has joined the firm as a managing director and associate director of Equity Research. Lamarre, formerly of Wells Fargo Securities, will be working closely with and reporting to Elkan Scheidt, director of Equity Research at Morgan Keegan. He will be based in the firm’s Memphis headquarters.

"We are pleased to have someone with Mark’s experience join our research team,” said Scheidt. "His expertise in capital markets and knowledge of equity research will be instrumental in our efforts to expand our products and services for our clients.”

Lamarre, 46, has over 21 years of experience as a banker and capital markets professional. Prior to joining Morgan Keegan, Lamarre was a managing director and vice chairman of Investment Banking & Capital Markets at Wells Fargo Securities where he covered companies in the Internet, gaming-software, and hardware/mobile-handset industry sectors. He began his Wall Street career in 1989 at Merrill Lynch & Co. in the Technology/Emerging Growth group in New York. He spent the five years prior to joining Wells Fargo with Credit Suisse First Boston, where he ran a global technology-industry practice and managed the firm’s Boston investment banking offices. Lamarre is a 1986 graduate of Dartmouth College and a 1990 MBA graduate of The University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, where he is a member of the school’s Corporate Advisory Board.

Morgan Keegan’s Equity Capital Markets division encompasses institutional sales, trading and research. The group has approximately 200 employees including sales people, traders and analysts working from institutional offices in Memphis, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Nashville, Houston and San Francisco.

About Morgan Keegan & Company Inc.

Morgan Keegan & Company Inc., one of the nation’s largest regional full-service brokerage and investment banking firms, is the securities brokerage arm of Regions Financial Corporation (NYSE: RF). Headquartered in Memphis, Tenn., Morgan Keegan serves individual and institutional investors in over 300 offices in 20 states. Additional information about Morgan Keegan and Regions — a member of the S&P 500 Index — can be found at www.morgankeegan.com and www.regions.com.