Atlantic Coast Financial Corporation Names G. Thomas Frankland President and Chief Executive Officer

Atlantic Coast Financial Corporation ACFC, the holding company for Atlantic Coast Bank (the "Bank"), today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed G. Thomas Frankland as permanent President and Chief Executive Officer. Frankland was named Interim President and Chief Executive Officer by the Board in October 2010. In conjunction with Frankland's appointment, the Board of Directors of the Company also announced that Jay S. Sidhu has assumed the role of non-executive Chairman of the Board of the Company. Concurrently, the Company and Sidhu entered into a three-year consulting arrangement and simultaneously entered into a general release of all obligations under his employment contract. Sidhu played a key role in the completion of the Company's February 2011 second-step conversion from a mutual holding company structure to a stock holding company and related $17.1 million capital raise.