Press Release

March 25, 2008

RAYMOND JAMES PUBLIC FINANCE DEPARTMENT
ANNOUNCES MANAGEMENT APPOINTMENTS

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Van Sayler, senior vice president and head of fixed income for Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC, announced the following appointments in the Public Finance department.

John Forney, CFA, has been named manager of the General Governmental Public Finance Department. In this role he will be responsible for management of the firm’s general public finance practice nationwide, including K-12 education, charter schools, water, sewer, transportation, real estate, economic development and other general governmental transactions.

Prior to his appointment, Forney was manager of the southeast United States business unit and managing director in the Public Finance group where, as financial advisor to Florida’s three quasi-governmental property insurance entities, he developed special expertise in the property insurance arena and served as lead banker on the firm’s engagement as financial advisor for the six largest bond financings ever completed in Florida.

Forney has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a prestigious public policy fellowship. Prior to joining Raymond James in 1996, he served for four years as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, which included completion of combat leadership training in the U.S. Army Ranger School. He left the firm in 1999 to serve as CFO and later president of Rock of Ages, a Vermont-based publicly-traded manufacturing and retailing entity, then rejoined Raymond James Public Finance in 2002.

David Sutton has been named manager of Municipal Structured Finance with oversight of the firm’s 501(c)3 focal areas, including healthcare, housing, senior living, and social services as well as the housing (multi and single family), military housing and higher education practices. Prior to his new appointment, Sutton was director of the firm’s Quantitative Services Group where he specialized in the structuring of municipal bond transactions and implementation of structured financial products such as interest rate swaps, bond options and forward delivery bonds.

A graduate of Indiana University with a bachelor’s degree and MBA in finance, Sutton first joined Raymond James as an investment banker in 1990. From 1998 to 2002 he served as a vice president for U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray/John Nuveen and also director of Quantitative Services for William Blair & Company in their respective investment banking divisions. He returned to Raymond James Public Finance in 2002.

“The appointment of John and David to their respective positions is part of our plan to significantly grow our municipal originations business,” said Sayler. “Their track records combined with their management skills give me great confidence that Raymond James will be able to execute our growth plans.”

Joining the Detroit office of the general governmental Public Finance department is Thomas Enright, who most recently was managing director of the Michigan Public Finance department of Oppenheimer & Co. Enright also has extensive experience in municipal finance, consulting, healthcare management and investment banking in the state of Michigan.

William Reagan recently joined the real estate division of Raymond James’ Public Finance as a managing director in Naples, Fla. Reagan has been an investment banker in the tax-exempt finance field since 1986 with more than three decades of public finance and governmental finance experience. Prior to joining Raymond James he was a principal and managing director with Banc of America Securities and other regional and national investment banking firms. He is considered one of the leading senior investment bankers in the southeastern United States for land based transactions, serving as lead banker for over $1.5 billion.

Also joining Raymond James Public Finance in Texas are Jim Stewart and Jim Buie, CGFM. Stewart joins as a director of Public Finance in the firm’s Austin office focusing on K-12 schools. Most recently he served as vice president with Banc of America Securities LLC in Austin where he was underwriter of more than $7.1 billion in school bonds, while earlier in his career he spent 13 years as Superintendent of schools in four Texas school districts.

Buie joins the Dallas office of Raymond James Public Finance as a director. He has 17 years experience in investment banking and management having spent the last four years with Banc of America Securities LLC in Dallas serving as investment banker on more than $7.28 billion of debt with an emphasis in State agency transactions, municipal government, school district debt, higher education and transportation. Prior to that, Buie spent five years as executive director of the Texas Bond Review Board and before that was vice president of the Oklahoma Finance Authorities.

“The current climate in the public finance arena has presented us with a great opportunity for expansion and hiring of experienced people with established books of business,” stated Sayler. “We are aggressively looking to add to our already top notch pool of bankers, and we plan on taking advantage of some exceptional talent that has become available as a result of the turmoil in our markets.”

Raymond James & Associates
Raymond James & Associates, which has built a national reputation during the past 45 years as a leader in financial planning for individuals, corporations and municipalities, is a

wholly owned subsidiary of Raymond James Financial, Inc. (NYSE-RJF), a financial services holding company. Through its three principal broker/dealer subsidiaries, Raymond James Financial has more than 4,770 financial advisors serving 1.6 million accounts in 2,200 locations throughout the United States, Canada and overseas. In addition, total client assets are approximately $210 billion, of which approximately $35.5 billion are managed by the firm’s asset management subsidiaries.

– 30 –

For more information, contact Anthea Penrose at 727-567-2824

Please visit the Raymond James Press Center at raymondjames.com/media.