HispanicBusiness

Mr. Kennedy noted, "Given our plans to grow our core businesses, we expect higher operating expenses in 2013 as compared to prior periods. We expect revenue and related profitability associated with these plans to lag expenses by several quarters."

Provision for Loan Losses / Asset Quality
The Company's provision for loan losses for the quarter ended December 31, 2012 was $4.53 million compared to $750 thousand recorded in the immediately preceding September 2012 quarter and the $1.75 million provision recorded in the December 2011 quarter. Charge-offs, net of recoveries, for the fourth quarter of 2012 were $5.68 million compared to $543 thousand for the immediately preceding September 2012 quarter and $2.37 million for the December 2011 quarter.

The higher provisioning and net charge-off levels in the December 2012 quarter were due to one of the strategic initiatives discussed earlier - moving approximately $19 million of classified loans to loans held for sale, which resulted in an additional provision for loan losses of $4.0 million and charge-offs of $5.4 million.

At December 31, 2012, nonperforming assets totaled $15.2 million or just 0.91 percent of total assets compared to $26.3 million or 1.65 percent of assets at December 31, 2011.

Capital / Dividends
As noted in prior quarters, the preferred stock issued in January 2009 under Treasury's Capital Purchase Program (CPP) was fully redeemed early in the first quarter of 2012. At December 31, 2012, including the effect from this redemption, the Company's leverage ratio, tier 1 and total risk based capital ratios were 7.27 percent, 11.83 percent and 13.08 percent, respectively. The Company's ratios are all above the levels necessary to be considered well-capitalized under regulatory guidelines applicable to banks. Additionally, the Company's common equity ratio (common equity to total assets) at December 31, 2012 was 7.32 percent of total assets, reflecting growth from 6.81 percent of total assets at December 31, 2011.

As previously announced, on January 17, 2013, the Board of Directors declared a regular cash dividend of $0.05 per share payable on February 15, 2013 to shareholders of record on February 1, 2013.

In accordance with its By-Laws, the Company's Annual Meeting will be held on the fourth Tuesday of April (April 23, 2013) at 2:00 p.m. on the first floor of our headquarters building at 500 Hills Drive, Bedminster, New Jersey. Earnings for the first quarter of 2013 will also be announced that day.

ABOUT THE COMPANY
Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corporation is a bank holding company with total assets of $1.67 billion as of December 31, 2012. Peapack-Gladstone Bank, its wholly owned community bank, was established in 1921, and has 23 branches in Somerset, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Morris and Union Counties. The Bank's wealth management division, PGB Trust & Investments, operates at the Bank's corporate offices located at 500 Hills Drive in Bedminster and at five other locations in Clinton, Morristown and Summit, New Jersey, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Greenville, Delaware. To learn more about Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corporation and Peapack-Gladstone Bank's products and services please visit our website at www.pgbank.com or call 908-234-0700.

The foregoing contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are not historical facts and include expressions about management's confidence and strategies and management's expectations about new and existing programs and products, investments, relationships, opportunities and market conditions. These statements may be identified by such forward-looking terminology as "expect", "look", "believe", "anticipate", "may", or similar statements or variations of such terms. Actual results may differ materially from such forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to

•a continued or unexpected decline in the economy, in particular in our New Jersey market area; •declines in value in our investment portfolio; •higher than expected increases in our allowance for loan losses; •higher than expected increases in loan losses or in the level of nonperforming loans; •unexpected changes in interest rates; •inability to successfully grow our business; •inability to manage our growth; •a continued or unexpected decline in real estate values within our market areas; •legislative and regulatory actions (including the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and related regulations) subject us to additional regulatory oversight which may result in increased compliance costs; •successful cyber attacks against our IT infrastructure and that of our IT providers; •higher than expected FDIC insurance premiums; •lack of liquidity to fund our various cash obligations; •reduction in our lower-cost funding sources; •our inability to adapt to technological changes; •claims and litigation pertaining to fiduciary responsibility, environmental laws and other matters; and •other unexpected material adverse changes in our operations or earnings.