PrivateBancorp, Inc. Makes Inducement Equity Awards to Newly Hired Managing Directors

PrivateBancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:PVTB) today announced that on February 1, 2008, in connection with and pursuant to its previously announced Transformation Equity Award Program, nineteen of its recently hired managing directors received inducement equity awards. The announcement was made to comply with the rules of the NASDAQ Global Select Market on which the Company's stock is traded.
The Transformation Equity Award Program was established by the Company's Board of Directors for making inducement stock option and performance share awards to attract such hires and promote achievement of exceptional performance. The recently hired managing directors received an aggregate of 164,750 time-vested stock options and 164,750 performance-vested stock options, each with an exercise price of $36.75, the closing price for the common stock on February 1, 2008, and 105,100 performance shares. As was the case with the earlier awards under the Transformation Equity Award Program, approximately half of the performance-based awards vest upon achievement of a 20% compound annual growth rate in the Company's stock price above the previously established baseline of $27.91 over a five-year period ending December 31, 2012, and the other half of the awards vest at a rate of between 50% and 100% depending upon achievement of earnings per share growth hurdles of 15% to 20% above the previously-established baseline of $1.65 over the same five-year period. The time-vested options vest over the five-year period as well.


About PrivateBancorp, Inc.
PrivateBancorp, Inc., through its PrivateBank subsidiaries, provides distinctive, highly personalized, premium financial services to a growing array of successful entrepreneurial and middle market privately held and public businesses, affluent individuals, wealthy families, professionals, entrepreneurs and real estate investors. The PrivateBank uses a European tradition of "private banking" as a model to develop lifetime relationships with its clients. Through a team of highly qualified managing directors, The PrivateBank delivers a sophisticated suite of tailored credit, treasury and wealth management solutions to meet its client's personal and commercial financial needs. The Company, which had assets of $5.0 billion as of December 31, 2007, has 20 offices located in the Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Kansas City metropolitan areas.

Additional information can be found in the Investor Relations section of PrivateBancorp, Inc.'s website at http://www.pvtb.com/.

PrivateBancorp, Inc. Announces Closing of $200 Million Private Placement Offering

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rivateBancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ:PVTB) today announced that it has completed its previously announced private placement offering of 5,581,680 shares of common stock, and 1,428.074 shares of a newly created class of Series A Junior Nonvoting Preferred Stock (the "Series A Stock"), which are convertible into 1,428,074 common shares. The aggregate number of common and preferred shares issued represents 23.5% of the Company's common stock outstanding after the offering (assuming conversion of the Series A Stock).

All of the securities sold in the private placement were priced at the equivalent of $28.71 per common share, the official Nasdaq Consolidated Closing Bid Price of PrivateBancorp, Inc.'s common stock as of Friday, November 23, 2007. All securities sold in the transaction are subject to a two-year lock-up agreement, subject to certain exceptions.

Certain funds managed by GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC ("GTCR") acquired approximately 2.06 million shares of common stock for approximately $59 million and 1,428.074 shares of Series A Stock for $41 million, representing an aggregate of approximately 7.2% of the Company's shares of outstanding common stock before conversion of the Series A Stock, and 11.7% after giving effect to the conversion. Mesirow Financial, through its affiliated entities, also purchased $40 million of common stock in the offering, representing approximately 4.9% of the Company's outstanding common stock. The remaining $60 million was purchased by a number of institutional and individual accredited investors. The Company will use the proceeds from the sale of the shares for working capital and general corporate purposes, including to support its growth initiatives.

About PrivateBancorp, Inc.

PrivateBancorp, Inc., through its PrivateBank subsidiaries, provides distinctive, highly personalized, premium financial services to a growing array of successful entrepreneurial small to middle market public and privately held businesses, affluent individuals, wealthy families, professionals, entrepreneurs and real estate investors. The PrivateBank uses a European tradition of "private banking" as a model to develop lifetime relationships with its clients. Through a team of highly qualified managing directors, The PrivateBank delivers a sophisticated suite of tailored credit, treasury and wealth management solutions to meet its client's personal and commercial financial needs. The Company, which had assets of $4.5 billion as of September 30, 2007, has 18 offices located in the Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Kansas City metropolitan areas.