TYLER, Texas, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Board of Directors of
Southside Bancshares, Inc., (Nasdaq: SBSI), parent company of Southside Bank,
approved a 10% increase in the regular quarterly cash dividend to $0.11 per
share per quarter for 2005. The Board of Directors then declared a regular
quarterly cash dividend of $0.11 per share payable to common stock
shareholders of record March 8, 2005. The cash dividend is scheduled for
payment on March 22, 2005.
In a separate action, the Board of Directors approved a 5% common stock
dividend to common stock shareholders of record March 8, 2005, payable on
March 22, 2005, immediately after the payment of the cash dividend.
The Board of Directors also approved increasing the amount approved for
the Stock Repurchase Program, committing an additional $2,000,000 to
repurchase common shares during 2005, with re-evaluation as warranted. This
increases the total approved year-to-date to $5,000,000 for the stock
repurchase program. During 2005, Southside Bancshares, Inc. has repurchased
78,000 shares at an average price of $21.56, leaving approximately
$3.3 million available, which includes the additional amount approved, to
repurchase stock.
Southside Bancshares, Inc. is a $1.6 billion bank holding company that
owns 100% of Southside Bank. The bank currently has twenty-eight banking
centers in the East Texas area.
To learn more about Southside Bancshares, Inc., please visit our investor
relations website at www.southside.com/investor . The site provides a
detailed overview of activities, financial information, and historical stock
price data. To receive e-mail notification of company news, events, and stock
activity, please register on the e-mail notification portion of the web site.
Questions or comments may be directed to Susan Hill at (903) 531-7220, or
susanh@southside.com .
Certain statements of other than historical fact that are contained in
this document and in written material, press releases and oral statements
issued by or on behalf of Southside Bancshares, Inc., (the "Company") a bank
holding company, may be considered to be "forward-looking statements" as that
term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These statements may include words such as "expect," "estimate," "project,"
"anticipate," "believe," "could," "should," "may," "intend," "probability,"
"risk," "target," "objective" and similar expressions. Forward-looking
statements are subject to significant risks and uncertainties and the
Company's actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in
the forward-looking statements. For example, certain market risk disclosures
are dependent on choices about key model characteristics and assumptions and
are subject to various limitations. By their nature, certain of the market
risk disclosures are only estimates and could be materially different from
what actually occurs in the future. As a result, actual income gains and
losses could materially differ from those that have been estimated. Other
factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-
looking statements include, but are not limited to general economic
conditions, either globally, nationally or in the State of Texas, legislation
or regulatory changes which adversely affect the businesses in which the
Company is engaged, adverse changes in Government Sponsored Enterprises (the
"GSE's") status or financial condition impacting the GSE's guarantees or
ability to pay or issue debt, economic or other disruptions caused by acts of
terrorism or military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan or other areas, changes in
the interest rate yield curve or interest rate environment which reduce
interest margins and may impact prepayments on the mortgage-backed securities
portfolio, changes effecting the leverage strategy, significant increases in
competition in the banking and financial services industry, changes in
consumer spending, borrowing and saving habits, technological changes, the
Company's ability to increase market share and control expenses, the effect of
compliance with legislation or regulatory changes, the effect of changes in
accounting policies and practices and the costs and effects of unanticipated
litigation.
SOURCE Southside Bancshares, Inc.
-0- 02/10/2005
/CONTACT: Lee Gibson of Southside Bancshares, Inc., +1-903-531-7221/
/Web site: http://www.southside.comhttp://www.southside.com/investor /
(SBSI)
CO: Southside Bancshares, Inc.
ST: Texas
IN: FIN
SU: DIV
CT-AP
-- DATH046 --
1213 02/10/200516:13 ESThttp://www.prnewswire.com