We Remain Focused on Growth and Profitability During 2001 we completed 26 mergers and/or acquisitions, and also purchased several books of business, as we were able to use the consolidation of the insurance industry as a vehicle to bring strong new leaders into Brown & Brown. At the same time our annual internal growth rate increased to 11.3% from less than 1% in 1999. We now have 115 Retail offices, six Services division locations, 10 Brokerage offices, and nine National Program offices. In order to allow us to continue to take full advantage of such acquisition and merger opportunities, on February 14, 2002, we initiated a secondary stock offering to sell 5,000,000 shares of our company’s common stock. This was done to ensure that we can continue to achieve our “Built to Last” goal by having the cash on hand to respond to those opportunities that present themselves, while maintaining our internal growth. Our company is categorically focused on constantly increasing pre-tax margins. Any office that has been in the Brown & Brown system for more than two years is considered an “old” Brown & Brown office. For year 2001 the pre-tax margin for these offices was 34.9%, up from 27.7% in ’00. The 2001 pre-tax margin for all of our offices was 24.8%, as a result of assimilation charges to earnings for newly acquired offices as well as pooling-of-interests accounting. We will bring the “new” offices’ margins up to Brown & Brown standards shortly, as we have consistently demonstrated in the past. Our proven ability to acculturate acquired agencies fully and quickly remains a signal strength of our company.