Press Release

March 9, 2010

Eagle Asset Management Introduces the Eagle Investment Grade Bond Fund (EGBAX);
Popular High Quality Taxable Investment Strategy Now Available to Mutual Fund Investors

Eagle Asset Management, provider of equity and fixed-income investment strategies to institutional and individual investors, today announced its Eagle Investment Grade Bond Fund opened to investors March 1, 2010. Modeled on Eagle’s established High Quality Taxable fixed-income separately managed accounts (SMA) portfolio, the Investment Grade Bond Fund seeks the capital preservation and portfolio stability that are fundamental to a conservatively managed fund. The new fund will generally invest in individual intermediate- and short-term securities that the portfolio managers believe offer returns similar to longer duration bonds with considerably less risk.

The fund is co-managed by James Camp, CFA and Joe Jackson, CFA, who have more than 32 years of combined experience as portfolio managers and analysts.

“It has always been Eagle’s strategic goal to align our mutual funds and separately managed accounts to offer a more complete fund family,” said James C. “Cooper” Abbott, Co-Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Investments at Eagle Asset Management. “We believe the fund will be especially attractive to intermediaries and advisors who are seeking an unambiguous, core fixed-income component to anchor their clients’ portfolios, while providing an alternative to riskier investments.”

In commenting on the announcement, co-portfolio manager Camp said, “The fund will focus largely, but not exclusively, on the intermediate, investment-grade bond market, which we believe offers investors a compelling combination of limited risk and attractive returns in today’s volatile investment climate. Our investment objective will be to provide total returns consistent with investments in intermediate, investment-grade bonds while striving to outperform our benchmark and peer groups through active portfolio management.”

The benchmark for the Eagle Investment Grade Bond Fund is Barclays Capital Intermediate Government/Credit Index. A minimum investment of $1,000 is required for Class A shares. The net expense ratio is estimated to be 0.85 percent for Class A shares. Share class pricing options are also available to serve the retirement-plan markets and for individual investors who meet certain eligibility requirements.

Eagle will market the new share classes through financial advisors and planners at broker-dealers, investment consulting firms and defined contribution-investor only specialists. In addition to the Class A share class (EGBAX), the Eagle Investment Grade Bond Fund is available in the following share classes: C (EBBCX), I (EGBLX), R-3 (ECBRX) and R-5 (EGBTX) shares.