The sale of Jonesboro’s Liberty Bancshares Inc. to Home BancShares Inc. of Conway is expected to be announced at a news conference at 3 p.m. Tuesday at the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce building.
The deal marks the merger of two of the largest banking franchises in Arkansas and would create the second-largest bank headquartered in the state.
It also caps a 31-year run in banking for Wallace Fowler, the chairman, CEO and leading shareholder of Liberty Bancshares.
Below are the highlights from Fowler’s years in banking and the deals that ultimately built Liberty Bancshares.
1982: Wallace Fowler Sr. leads the purchase of Citizens Bank of Bentonville and renames it First National Bank.
1984: Fowler sells the bank to Phillip Lynn Lloyd and his Lynxx Banking Corp.
August 1985: Fowler makes his first stock purchase in Mercantile Bancshares Inc. of
June 1990: Fowler sells North Arkansas Bancshares (the renamed Mercantile Bancshares) with total assets of $422 million, to Union Planters Corp. of
September 1990: Fowler quickly returns to banking with his newly formed Southwest Bancshares Inc. in a $2.1 million acquisition of First National Bank of
January 1992:
November 1992: Fowler formally re-enters the
August 1993:
1995: First Bank of
May 1997: Southwest Bancshares sells to
July 1998: First Commercial sells in a $3 billion stock swap to Regions Financial Corp. of
September 2000: Fowler begins early legwork to buy a bank and return to the