Press Releases

Bestbank Announces Atlanta Expansion

August 18, 2005

BestBank, a division of Guaranty Bank, a federal savings bank headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, announces its intention to expand its convenient supermarket based retail banking network to the Atlanta, Georgia market.

BestBank has entered into an agreement with The Kroger Company to operate retail bank branches in a number of Kroger's Atlanta area stores. The first Atlanta area branch is scheduled to open before November with ten more scheduled to open by the end of the year.

Gerald J. Levy, Executive Chairman, stated, "The expansion to Georgia is an excellent fit with our long established Fairfield Mortgage, Guaranty Mortgage and GB Home Equity offices. Many Georgia consumers are already familiar with us through the mortgage loans they have obtained from those companies over the past 12 years. As a growing and innovative bank, we are an exciting place to work and bank, so we are looking forward to bringing our unique services to the Atlanta area. We are pleased that BestBanks demonstrated success with Kroger in other markets has resulted in this retail banking opportunity being made available to us in Georgia."

BestBank is a family managed and customer/employee owned bank that has been in business since 1923 and currently has over 130 retail banking offices located in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota as well as three nationwide mortgage lending subsidiaries. The Bank is proud to have recently received an award by Milwaukee Magazine for being one of the Best Places to Work for Women. As of June 30, 2005, the Bank had assets of approximately $2 billion.