UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 8-K

CURRENT REPORT

Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)

of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

Date of Report (Date of earliest event reported): December 18, 2015

HANCOCK HOLDING COMPANY

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

(228) 868-4000

(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Not Applicable

(Former name or former address, if changed since last report)

Check the appropriate box below if the Form 8-K filing is intended to simultaneously satisfy the filing obligation of the registrant under any of the following provisions:

On December 18, 2015, Hancock Holding Company (“Hancock”) entered into a Credit Agreement (the “Credit Agreement”), with U.S. Bank National Association (“U.S. Bank”), as lender and administrative agent. The Credit Agreement provides for a $125.0 million term loan (the “Term Loan”).

The Term Loan is in the principal amount of $125.0 million, the net proceeds of which were used primarily to refinance $123.8 million in aggregate principal amount of indebtedness under a term note scheduled to mature on December 21, 2015, with a residual amount of approximately $400,000 being added to company cash for general corporate purposes.

Under the Credit Agreement, interest will be assessed using either the Eurocurrency Base Rate (as defined in the Credit Agreement) or the Base Rate (as defined in the Credit Agreement) plus an applicable margin of 1.50% for Eurocurrency Base Rate loans and 0.50% per annum for Base Rate loans.

The events of default under the Credit Agreement include failure to timely pay amounts due, non-compliance with covenants, material breaches of representations, insolvency, a change of control of Hancock, certain adverse regulatory events and other events of default customary for this type of indebtedness. During an event of default, the Term Loan will become immediately due either automatically or at the option of the administrative agent or any lender.

The full text of the Credit Agreement is filed as Exhibit 10.1 to this Current Report, and is incorporated into this Item 1.01 by reference. The foregoing description of the Credit Agreement does not purport to be complete and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full text of Exhibit 10.1.

The information set forth in Item 1.01 above is hereby incorporated by reference into this Item 2.03.

The exhibit to this current report on Form 8-K is provided in the Exhibit Index, which appears at the end of this report, and is incorporated by reference herein.

SIGNATURE

Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

Exhibit Index