COLONIAL TRUST VP TO ADDRESS NATIONAL CONFERENCE ABOUT INDUSTRY CHANGES

(September 26, 2005 / Spartanburg, SC) Camp R. Wynn, CFA^® and Vice President of Colonial Group – parent company of Colonial Trust Company and Colonial Asset Management – will address the National Center for Due Diligence (CFDD) at its national conference.

Held this year in Chicago, on October 5, Wynn will serve as an expert panel member for the seminar “How to Price Services when Transitioning from Commissions to Fee-Based Business.”

According to the CFDD, its 2005 advisor conference is an “all business conference dedicated solely to helping retirement advisors grow their business. The CFDD’s conferences have become ‘advisor-centric’ forums” and “more than 500 retirement advisors” will attend the conference.

Wynn said, “Scalable technology has brought powerful and efficient solutions to small and mid-sized companies and changed advisors’ roles to become trusted consultants rather than salespeople. Clients benefit from this change through factors including more transparent cost structures, access to more investment options, and more flexibility in design.”

The conference will be October 4-6 at the Fairmont Chicago Hotel in Chicago, Illinois.

About the Center for Due Diligence

The Center for Due Diligence (CFDD) is an independent consulting/research firm specializing exclusively in full service 401(k) program competitive analysis for the trade. The CFDD has been providing competitive analysis for more than a decade and our business model has been centered around advisors since inception. As a networking organization, most of our analysis is based on advisor feedback and clients include most of the advisor-sold providers, wirehouses, regional b-ds and elite retirement specialists. The CFDD has also become a forum for the top advisors specializing in retirement plans. Unlike other infomediaries, survey takers, news wires and proposal exchanges, the CFDD actually analyzes 401(k) programs. The CFDD is not a “pay-to-play” model. Its analysis is not tied to vendor revenue and providers and is 100% product neutral. For more information about CFDD, visit the website at http://www.401kduediligence.com. For information regarding this year’s CFDD advisor conference, visit http://www.401kduediligence.com/CFDDconference2005.asp.

About Colonial Group, Inc.

Colonial Group, is the parent company of Colonial Trust Company (South Carolina’s oldest private trust company established in 1913), and Colonial Asset Management. The company provides investment management, trust and estate services to its clients and manages assets under management totaling approximately $450 million at the end of 2004.

For more information about Colonial, visit the website at http://www.colonialgroup.com.

To make inquiries regarding this release, please contact Taft Matney by phone (864/505-8866), by fax (864/297-3871), or by e-mail (taft@taftmatney.com).

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