Partners Bank Saddles Up for Springdale

A new player hopes to make the northwest Arkansas banking scene in September. The full-service branch in the works at 3632 Johnson Mill Blvd. in Springdale represents the first beyond the Delta for Partners Bank of Helena-West Helena.

“We’ve been working on it for a while,” said John O. Moore, president and CEO of the $307 million-asset lender. “For the past 12 months, we’ve been trying to find the right location, the right team and right leader to start up an actual physical presence in northwest Arkansas.”

The 1,600-SF leased location in the Johnson Square development is viewed as the first step toward construction of a larger full-service office, perhaps by 2022.

“We hope to quickly outgrow it,” Moore said of the bank’s opening site in Springdale, a $1.7 billion-deposit market currently home to 28 full-service branches scattered among 14 lenders.

At 34.15%, the biggest slice of Springdale’s deposit pie is held by Arvest Bank of Fayetteville, $604 million spread among seven offices (as of June 30, 2019, the most recent deposit data).

Rounding out the top five are Legacy National Bank of Springdale at 21.11% ($373 million) and three locations; First Security Bank of Searcy, at 19.42% ($345 million) and five locations; United Bank of Springdale, at 5.88% ($104 million) and two locations; and Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina, at 4.6% ($81 million) and one location.

Springdale Details
Bank Market Share by Deposits

Source: FDIC

Moore came to Partners Bank in September 2018 via Chambers Bank of Danville, where he was president of the northwest Arkansas region and chief credit officer.

Since then, the loan portfolio of Partners Bank has tripled from $69 million to $209 million as of June 30. Moore, who grew up in Helena, has remained in Fayetteville helping develop loan opportunities.

During the past six months alone, total assets at Partners balloned from $206 million to more than $307 million. The bank is on a pace to register a profit of nearly $1.4 million, a figure that would represent its most profitable year since 2013’s nearly $1.9 million tally.

The Springdale office will be the first expansion of the Partners Bank footprint in more than 12 years. A Wynne branch was opened in June 2008, back when the lender was known as Helena National Bank.

The bank holds the smallest piece of the $298 million-deposit market among six lenders with a Wynne presence: 0.58% ($1.7 million).

That Cross County move followed its first branching reach beyond Phillips County. The Marion office came online in Crittenden County in December 2005.

Partners Bank holds a 2.99% market share of Marion’s $215 million in deposits. That $6.4 million stake is the smallest among five banks in the market.

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Partners Bank^*, Helena-West Helena
Total Assets: $307.9 Million
Net Income: $689,000
Staff: 61
Six full-service locations: Helena-West Helena, 3; and one each in Marion, Marvell and Wynne
(As of June 30)

*Changed name from HNB Bank to Partners Bank on March 8, 2019. Changed name from Helena National Bank to HNB Bank on Oct. 19, 2018

Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.