On January 25, 2017, United Community Banks, Inc. (the “Registrant”) issued a news release announcing its financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2016 (the “News Release”). The News Release, including financial schedules, is attached as Exhibit 99.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference. In connection with issuing the News Release, on January 25, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. ET, the Registrant intends to hold a conference call/webcast to discuss the News Release. In addition to the News Release, during the conference call the Registrant intends to discuss certain financial information contained in the Fourth Quarter 2016 Investor Presentation (the “Investor Presentation”), which will be posted to the Registrant’s website at www.ucbi.com. The Investor Presentation is attached as Exhibit 99.2 to this Current Report on Form 8-K and is incorporated herein by reference.

The presentation of the Registrant’s financial results includes financial information determined by methods other than in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. This financial information includes certain operating performance measures, which exclude merger-related and other charges that are not considered part of recurring operations, such as “operating net income,” “operating net income per diluted share,” “tangible book value,” “operating return on common equity,” “operating return on tangible common equity,” “operating return on assets,” “operating dividend payout ratio,” “operating efficiency ratio,” “average tangible equity to average assets,” “average tangible common equity to average assets” and “tangible common equity to risk-weighted assets.” In addition, management has included the presentation of “pre-tax, pre-credit earnings”, which excludes the provision for credit losses, income taxes and merger-related charges. Management has included these non-GAAP measures because it believes they may provide useful supplemental information for evaluating the Registrant’s underlying performance trends. Further, management uses these measures in managing and evaluating the Registrant’s business and intends to refer to them in discussions about the Registrant’s operations and performance.

Operating performance measures should be viewed in addition to, and not as an alternative to or substitute for, measures determined in accordance with GAAP, and are not necessarily comparable to non-GAAP measures that may be presented by other companies. To the extent applicable, reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable measures as reported in accordance with GAAP are included in the News Release and the Investor Presentation attached as Exhibit 99.1 and Exhibit 99.2, respectively, to this Current Report on Form 8-K.