From today's AJC:

Walter G. Moeling IV, an Atlanta banking attorney who has followed the industry for 37 years, says that since January 2003 at least 41 banks across the country, including four in Georgia, have gone private or are in the process of doing so.

"They're going to their shareholders and saying, 'Look, our rules have changed, our costs have changed, and it's getting too expensive to stay public,' " said Moeling, who heads the financial institutions practice of Powell Goldstein LLP. "It's a great example of the unintended consequences."