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NEW YORK, May 29 (Reuters) - Regions Financial Corp (RF.N), a large U.S. southeast regional bank, canceled a Friday appearance at an industry conference, citing a "last-minute scheduling conflict."

Executives from the Birmingham, Alabama-based lender were scheduled to speak at 8 a.m. (12 noon GMT) at the Sanford C Bernstein & Co Strategic Decisions Conference.

The bank announced the cancellation on its website. Regions did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Shares of the bank closed Thursday at $4.02 on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Derek Caney)

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May 29, 2009, 10:00 am
Regions Fi Sparks Anxiety With Conference Cancellation
Posted by Bob O'Brien

Regions Financial (RF) unexpectedly canceled an appearance at an investment conference at the last minute, provoking an immediate chorus of speculation that ‘’something’s wrong” at the regional banking concern.

The bank’s chief executive, Dowd Ritter, had been scheduled to make a presentation at a Bernstein-sponsored conference in New York Friday. According to media reports, it put a note on its website saying that Ritter had an ”unavoidable conflict” come up as recently as yesterday. The bank declined to answer media inquiries about the nature of the scheduling conflict.

The lateness of the cancellation, coupled with the lack of concrete information about the cause of the scheduling conflict, fed into the kind of anxieties that usually accompany these kinds of episodes. Investors naturally conclude that the bank has backed out of its appearance because of some new development that it doesn’t want to disclose.

There’s every chance it could be a good development - a takeover offer came in over the transom? - but the suspicion is that it’s a less-than-constructive development.

Regions recently issued common equity to help close the $2.5 billion capital shortfall the government ordered as the result of its findings following the stress test of the banking system. It successfully executed on the issuance - a positive - but ended up issuing more stock than expected, meaning an even-heftier dilution to common shareholders, and at a steeper discount to where it was trading - 18% below its previous price - than analysts had anticipated.

The stock has not closed significantly above the $4 price at which it issued the common equity since the stock offering. Shares declined 3% Friday in the wake of the conference cancellation.

Last modified: 2009-05-29 10:23:51 by lplate

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., May 25, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Regions Financial Corp.'s (NYSE:RF) Morgan Keegan unit was recently hit with more bad

verdicts in FINRA arbitration cases, including an award of $285,000 to a Jackson, Mississippi Vietnam Veteran for losses relating to RMK Select

Intermediate Bond Fund (MKIBX), and $75,000 to a doctor in Little Rock, Arkansas, $950,000 for an NFL star and nearly $700,000 for a Regions bank

president. Morgan Keegan is the subject of numerous arbitration cases relating to over $2 billion of losses in RMK proprietary bond mutual funds

managed by James Kelsoe, which funds were decimated due to risky investments in lower tranches of asset backed securities, commonly known as "toxic

waste."

Last modified: 2009-05-29 17:56:19 by narcissist