Whispers typically doesn’t report on divorces, but this one involves the chairman and CEO of Bank OZK of Little Rock, George Gleason.
George and Linda Gleason were divorced in 2020, a bank spokeswoman told Whispers. “This was purely a personal matter, and there were no required filings by the bank,” spokeswoman Susan Blair wrote via email.
We’re not sure what the divorce settlement was. But in the bank’s March 2020 proxy, George Gleason owned 6,214,919 shares, 4.8% of the shares outstanding. That total included “158,686 shares held by Mr. Gleason’s spouse” and “180,124 shares representing shares held in a trust of which Mr. Gleason, his spouse and their descendants are beneficiaries.”
The March 2021 proxy reported George Gleason owned 5,699,032 shares, 4.4% of the shares outstanding. There was no mention of a spouse or descendants in that proxy filing. As of March 8, he owned 901,645 shares directly and 4,544,073 indirectly, according to a U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filing.
The difference between George Gleason’s shares in the 2020 and 2021 proxy filings is 515,887 shares. But we can’t be sure if all those shares went to Linda Gleason, whom George married in 1986. Together, those shares would be worth $22 million, based on an opening stock price of $42.82 on Thursday.
She also had served on the bank’s board from 1987 to 2019. The $26.61 billion-asset bank is the largest in Arkansas.
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