Fulton Financial Corporation Completes Acquisition of First Washington FinancialCorp

Fulton Financial Corporation Completes Acquisition of First
Washington FinancialCorp 


LANCASTER, Pa., Jan. 3  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Fulton Financial Corporation
(NASDAQ:FULT) completed its acquisition of First Washington FinancialCorp
(NASDAQ:FWFC), based in Windsor, New Jersey, on December 31, 2004.  First
Washington FinancialCorp's sole banking subsidiary, First Washington State
Bank, also based in Windsor, will now operate as a separate subsidiary of
Fulton Financial Corporation.

First Washington shareholders approved the merger at a special meeting on
November 5.  Final regulatory approvals were received in November.  Under the
terms of the definitive merger agreement, First Washington shareholders will
receive 1.35 shares of Fulton Financial common stock for each share of First
Washington FinancialCorp common stock.  Based on the $23.31 per share closing
price of Fulton Financial stock on December 31, 2004, the transaction is valued
at approximately $148 million.

First Washington State Bank, with approximately $486 million in assets,
operates sixteen community banking offices in Mercer, Monmouth and Ocean
Counties in New Jersey.

Fulton Financial Corporation now has assets of approximately $11.1 billion and
operates 224 banking offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey
and Virginia.

In addition to First Washington State Bank, Fulton Financial operates twelve
other banking affiliates: Fulton Bank, Lancaster, PA; Lebanon Valley Farmers
Bank, Lebanon, PA; Swineford National Bank, Middleburg, PA; Lafayette
Ambassador Bank, Easton, PA; FNB Bank, N.A., Danville, PA; Hagerstown Trust,
Hagerstown, MD; Delaware National Bank, Georgetown, DE; The Bank, Woodbury, NJ;
The Peoples Bank of Elkton, Elkton, MD; Skylands Community Bank, Hackettstown,
NJ, Premier Bank, Doylestown, PA and Resource Bank, Virginia Beach, VA.

The Corporation's financial services affiliates include Fulton Financial
Advisors, N.A., Lancaster, PA; Dearden, Maguire, Weaver and Barrett, LLC, West
Conshohocken, PA, and Fulton Insurance Services Group Inc., Lancaster, PA.
Residential mortgage lending is offered through Fulton Mortgage Company and
through Resource Mortgage.

Additional information on Fulton Financial Corporation is available on the
Internet at http://www.fult.com/. 

DATASOURCE: Fulton Financial Corporation



CONTACT:  Laura J. Wakeley of Fulton Financial Corporation,

[phone]



Web site:  http://www.fult.com/ 

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