Hancock Holding Company announces quarterly dividend

     GULFPORT, MS (November 14, 2006) - Hancock Holding Company (NASDAQ: HBHC) today announced that the company's board of directors approved a regular fourth quarter 2006 common stock cash dividend of $0.24 per share.

Approved during the company's November board of directors meeting, the regular fourth quarter common stock cash dividend is payable December 15, 2006, to shareholders of record as of December 5, 2006.

Hancock Holding Company - parent company of Hancock Bank (Mississippi), Hancock Bank of Louisiana, Hancock Bank of Florida, and Magna Insurance Company - has assets of $6.1 billion. Founded in 1899, Hancock Bank stands among the strongest, safest financial institutions in the United States and is the only financial services company headquartered in the Gulf South to rate among the top 20 percent of America's top-performing banks. Hancock offers comprehensive financial solutions through more than 140 banking and financial services offices and more than 130 automated teller machines across South Mississippi, Louisiana, southern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. Additional corporate information and on-line banking and bill pay services are available online.

"SAFE HARBOR" STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995: Congress passed the Private Securities Litigation Act of 1995 in an effort to encourage corporations to provide information about companies' anticipated future financial performance. This act provides a safe harbor for such disclosure, which protects the companies from unwarranted litigation if actual results are different from management expectations. This release contains forward-looking statements and reflects management's current views and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, Company performance, and financial results. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties which could cause the Company's actual results and experience to differ from the anticipated results and expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements

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