Bruised Lender Makes Showing Atop Best ROAs

An eclectic group emerged from the first quarter as top-performing lenders based in Arkansas.

Measured by return on assets, the group of 10 represented large and small banks sprinkled around the state and a credit union. Two of the lenders are led by women.

Ozark Heritage Bank of Mountain View topped the quarterly performance list with a 2.73 percent return on assets.

“We’ve been fortunate of late,” said Marnie Oldner, president and CEO of Ozark Heritage. “Poultry lending has been a real big part of what we do.”

Though outwardly divergent, eight of the 10 shared common ground: a presence in the Little Rock market. And Ozark Heritage could make that nine out of 10.

The $85.4 million-asset lender, now in the process of changing its name to Stone Bank, intends to open a loan production office in the Little Rock area during the coming months.

“Little Rock is such an obvious choice to connect the dots between here in Mountain View and our office in White Hall,” Oldner said.

“We’d love to do it with an emphasis on commercial lending, especially medical-related lending.”

Oldner hopes to improve and expand Ozark Heritage’s footprint elsewhere, too. The bank bought property for a future Harrison branch and plans to develop a new facility to replace its current White Hall office.

Ozark Heritage finished 2014 with an ROA of 2.04 percent but only recently came out from under 57 months of supervision by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency brought about by previous leadership.

Of the top 10 ROA performers in the first quarter, the only other lender that doesn’t operate an office in the Little Rock market is Citizens Bank & Trust of Van Buren (No. 10 with an ROA of 1.54 percent).

The $368.9 million-asset lender has confined its six-branch network to the Crawford County market. Beyond its home county, the bank operates three mortgage loan production offices across the Arkansas River in Fort Smith and one in Rogers.

First Financial Bank of El Dorado (No. 9 with an ROA of 1.61 percent) doesn’t have any full-service branches in Little Rock either. But the $912 million-asset lender does operate mortgage loan production offices in Little Rock and North Little Rock as well as Fort Smith and Jonesboro.

Sarah Mosley, president of Little Rock’s Telcoe Federal Credit Union, attributed a strong first-quarter showing to maintaining a keen eye on the bottom line and closely watching expenses.

“We’re all having to spend more on security and compliance these days,” Mosley said.

The $326.3 million-asset credit union ranked No. 8 with an ROA of 1.64 during the first quarter.

Lending giants were well represented among the top 10: First Security Bank of Searcy, No. 4 with an ROA of 2.27 percent; Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks, No. 5 with an ROA of 2.22 percent; and Centennial Bank of Conway, No. 7 with an ROA of 1.7 percent.

Lowest ROA for the quarter? Little Rock’s One Bank & Trust lost nearly $1.5 million, which produced an ROA of -1.74 percent.

Top First Quarter Lenders
Ranked by Return On Assets
All dollars in millions.

*In the process of changing name to Stone Bank.
Source: Call reports for the quarter ending March 31.