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Southern Bancorp’s Mississippi Acquisition Tops $1M

3 min read

What is the smallest bank in Mississippi worth? $1.15 million.

That’s how much Southern Bancorp Inc. of Arkadelphia is paying for the $15.9 million-asset Bank of Bolivar County.

The Magnolia State lender, which operates with a staff of seven, tallied net income of $16,000 through the first nine months of 2014.

Its last recorded six-digit annual profit was back in 2004: $111,000. Its least profitable year since then was 2012: a loss of $82,000.

Bank of Bolivar County has one full-service office in Shelby and a limited service branch in Mound Bayou. Southern Bancorp’s namesake bank has one branch in Bolivar County.

The $1.1 billion-asset Southern Bancorp Bank has the smallest market share of deposits in the county at nearly $5.2 million. But when the deposits of Southern and Bank of Bolivar County are combined, it will represent the eighth-largest total in a market served by nine lenders.

The three biggest shareholders in the Mississippi bank are Hiram Lee Roberts Burke, chairman and president, 59.39 percent worth $682,985; H.L. Roberts Jr., 13.41 percent worth $154,215; and Anita Burke, 9.65 percent worth $110,975.

Southern Bancorp Bank operates 16 branches in nine counties in Mississippi as part of its rural development efforts in the Delta. The biggest shareholder of Southern Bancorp are:

  • Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation; Little Rock — 13.58 percent
  • Kellog Foundation; Battle Creek, Michigan — 8.68 percent
  • National Community Investment Foundation; Chicago — 8.46 percent
  • Arkansas Capital Corp.; Little Rock — 6.17 percent
  • Dominican Sisters; Springfield, Illinois — 6.17 percent
  • Metropolitan Life Foundation; New York — 6.17 percent
  • Walton Family Foundation; Bentonville — 6.17 percent

Bank Branch News

First Security Bank of Searcy is in the process of entering the Hot Springs market with its first branch.

The new office at 4129 Central Ave. coincides with the Spa City market flux left in the wake of the Summit Bancorp acquisition by Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks Inc.

Summit Bank operated five branches in Hot Springs and one in Hot Springs Village. The Arkadelphia-based lender held a 21.2 percent share ($361 million) of Garland County deposits, second only to Regions Bank’s 24.3 percent stake.

After buying Summit this year, Bank of the Ozarks moved to No. 1 with a deposit market share of 28.4 percent ($484 million).

Southern Bancorp is in the process of adding a third branch in Hot Springs at 2212 Malvern Ave., a former Summit Bank location.

Citizens Bank of Batesville will be opening a loan production office in Hot Springs to start the new year, and it will be staffed by a cadre of 10 former Southern Bancorp personnel.

Citizens intends to open several Hot Springs branches during 2015-16, part of an expansion plan by the $535 million-asset lender that also includes Little Rock and northwest Arkansas.

In Pulaski County, Central Bank of Little Rock closed on its branch acquisition deal with Simmons First National Bank of Pine Bluff mentioned in last month’s column.

The purchase price of the 2,647-SF facility at 5000 W. Markham St. in midtown Little Rock: $1.18 million.

Extinct & Endangered

The status of state-chartered thrift is poised to go the way of the dinosaur in Arkansas.

RiverBank Savings & Loan Association of Corning (Clay County) will convert to a state-chartered bank and become simply RiverBank.

The $45.6 million-asset lender also plans to move its headquarters to neighboring Randolph County, where it operates a branch in Pocahontas.

Both changes are subject to regulatory approval.

The proposed conversion will leave two federally chartered thrifts headquartered in Arkansas: Priority Bank of Ozark and First Federal Bank of Harrison, which retains its thrift charter even as parent Bear State Financial Holdings has ac-quired two commercial bank charters. ν 

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