Bank of Rison Sees Assets Rising

Troy Duke

The Bank of Rison is no longer the smallest bank in Arkansas, and CEO Troy Duke is celebrating with two major developments: a new headquarters building on Main Street and the bank’s first branch.

The Bank of Rison, you may recall, had assets of $23.9 million when Duke and Hot Springs businessman LR Gardner bought it in late 2013. Last week, its asset total had grown to $33.5 million, Duke said, an increase of 40 percent in a bit more than a year.

The bank, at 200 Main St. in Rison since 1932, has torn down three buildings directly across Second Street and begun construction on a new bank of about 2,600 SF at 112 Main.

Duke said that building, the first new construction on Rison’s Main Street in a couple of decades, should be ready for occupancy in May.

The new building is expected to be so much more efficient that the Bank of Rison can open a branch in a storefront of Darrell Teeter’s strip center at 901 Martin Luther King in Malvern by hiring only one or possibly two new employees, Duke said.

The Arkansas State Bank Department approved that branch last week. Duke intends to have his personal office in Malvern when that branch opens sometime in March.

As of Dec. 31, the Bank of Rison had eight full-time employees. It earned $392,000 in 2014, up from $307,000 in 2013 and a loss of $1.27 million in 2012.

And the smallest bank in Arkansas?

That distinction belongs to Community State Bank at Bradley (Lafayette County), which ended the year with assets of $19.3 million, down from $29.3 million two years ago. It earned $323,000 in 2014.