American National Joins Russell 3000 Index


DANVILLE, VA--(Marketwire - Jun 27, 2012) - American National Bankshares Inc. (American National) (NASDAQ: AMNB) joined the broad-market Russell 3000® Index as Russell Investments reconstituted its comprehensive set of U.S. and global equity indexes on June 25, 2012.

Annual reconstitution of Russell's U.S. indexes captures the 4,000 largest U.S. stocks as of the end of May, ranking them by total market capitalization. Membership on the Russell 3000, which remains in place for one year, means automatic inclusion in the large-cap Russell 1000® Index or small-cap Russell 2000® Index as well as the appropriate growth and value style indexes. Russell determines membership for its equity indexes primarily by objective, market-capitalization rankings and style attributes. American National has been included on the Russell 2000® Index.

Headquartered in Danville, Va., American National Bankshares Inc., parent company of American National Bank and Trust Company (American National Bank), is a multi-state bank holding company with total assets of approximately $1.3 billion. American National Bank is a community bank serving southern and central Virginia and north central North Carolina with 25 banking offices. The bank also manages an additional $555 million in trust, investment and brokerage assets through its Trust & Investment Services Division.

The Russell 3000 also serves as the U.S. component to the Russell Global Index, which Russell launched in 2007.

Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. In the institutional marketplace, an industry-leading $3.9 trillion in assets currently are benchmarked to them. Russell calculates more than 80,000 benchmarks daily covering approximately 98 percent of the investable market globally, 83 countries and more than 10,000 securities. These investment tools originated from Russell's multi-manager investment business in the early 1980s when the company saw the need for a more objective, market-driven set of benchmarks in order to evaluate outside investment managers.

Additional information about American National and American National Bank is available on the bank's website at www.amnb.com. Shares of American National Bankshares Inc. are traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "AMNB."