[Federal Register Volume 71, Number 66 (Thursday, April 6, 2006)]
[Notices]
[Pages 17501-17502]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E6-5014]


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SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

[Release No. 34-53581; File No. 81-935]


Order Granting an Application of Peoples Financial Corporation 
Under Section 12(h) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

March 31, 2006.
    Peoples Financial Corporation has filed an application under 
Section 12(h) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, for 
certain relief. Peoples states that its principal executive offices are 
located in Biloxi, Mississippi, which is within one of the 
Presidentially Declared Disaster Areas where Individual Assistance has 
been authorized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a result 
of Hurricane Katrina, and that its sixteen branch facilities are also 
located in the Disaster Areas. In its application, Peoples asserts that 
the relief is necessary due to, among other things, the extraordinary 
impact of Hurricane Katrina on Peoples's facilities, personnel, 
customers, and independent public accountants. For example, the 
application indicates that: (1) Peoples, which is a bank holding 
company, lost six of the sixteen branch locations of its bank 
subsidiary, The Peoples Bank; (2) more than twenty percent of its 
employees lost their homes, another twenty-five percent had serious 
damages to their homes and several of Peoples's branches served as 
temporary housing for employees; and (3) company personnel have had to 
focus on on-going post-Katrina recovery issues such as evaluation of 
the loan portfolio and recovery and decontamination of items from 
vaults and safe deposit boxes. Further, the application states that: 
(1) The Biloxi, Mississippi office of Peoples's independent public 
accountants, which housed all of their hard copy records and computer 
files, was destroyed and more than twenty-five percent of their 
professional and

[[Page 17502]]

support staff have relocated out of the area; and (2) Peoples was the 
only client of its independent public accountants that is subject to 
the reporting requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. 
Accordingly, Peoples has asked the Commission that Peoples be required 
to first include the disclosures specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of 
Item 308 of Regulation S-K and first comply with Exchange Act Rule 13a-
15(c) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006.
    On March 10, 2006, the Commission issued a notice of the filing of 
the application and provided, until March 30, 2006, an opportunity for 
interested persons to request a hearing. In its March 10, 2006 notice, 
the Commission stated that an order disposing of the application might 
be issued upon the basis of the information stated therein unless a 
hearing should be ordered. No request for a hearing has been filed and 
the Commission has not ordered a hearing.
    The matter having been considered, it is found that the requested 
relief is appropriate in the public interest and consistent with the 
protection of investors and the purposes fairly intended by the policy 
and provisions of the Exchange Act.
    It is ordered, pursuant to Section 12(h) of the Exchange Act, that 
the application requesting that Peoples be required to first include 
the disclosures specified in paragraphs (a) and (b) of Item 308 of 
Regulation S-K and first comply with Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(c) for 
the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006, be, and hereby is, granted, 
effective immediately.

    For the Commission, by the Division of Corporation Finance, 
pursuant to delegated authority.
Nancy M. Morris,
Secretary.
[FR Doc. E6-5014 Filed 4-5-06; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8010-01-P