Simmons Bank Brings New Deposits to Pine Bluff

Simmons Bank, whose name and logo soar above Little Rock atop the city’s highest skyscraper, reaped about three-quarters of Arkansas’ bank deposit growth from June 30, 2017, to the end of June this year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp’s annual summary of deposits. The bank is based in Pine Bluff.

Arkansas bank deposits grew by almost $2.5 billion to $66.7 billion in the year that ended June 30, on pace with the national growth rate of 3.8 percent.

But in Arkansas’ case, almost three-quarters of the additional deposits — $1.8 billion — flowed into a single institution, Simmons Bank of Pine Bluff, leaving the other 118 banks operating in the state at midyear to divide up the remainder. And many of them, including deposit leader Arvest Bank of Fayetteville, actually recorded small declines in deposits.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s annual summary of deposits, which was released in September, is an accounting taken on June 30 by the government agency that insures bank deposits.

It is not a holistic report card on the health of a bank or of the banking industry. It is, however, the only official report that provides Arkansas-specific trend data for banks that operate in multiple states, like Simmons and Arvest.

It was Simmons’ continued growth through acquisitions that fueled a 44 percent increase in its statewide deposit total. Between June 30, 2017, and June 30 of this year, Simmons nearly doubled in asset size, from $8.57 billion to $16.14 billion, across 207 offices in a seven-state footprint. That included acquiring First South Bank of Jackson, Tennessee, in September 2017; Southwest Bank of Fort Worth, Texas, in February; and Bank SNB of Stillwater, Oklahoma, in May.

The acquisitions made Simmons the third-largest bank chartered in the state as ranked by assets, behind Bank OZK of Little Rock ($22.2 billion) and Arvest ($18.7 billion). All three were ranked among the 100 largest banks in the country as of June 30 — Bank OZK at No. 80, Arvest No. 89 and Simmons at No. 98.

Simmons also emerged from its shopping spree with twice as much in brokered deposits. Those are large deposits aggregated and shopped around by third-party brokers, as opposed to core deposits from individual customers. As of June 30, Simmons’ brokered deposits had grown to almost $1.1 billion from $450 million in mid-2017.

Of the additional $1.8 billion in deposits, $1.5 billion was attributed to Simmons’ main office on Main Street in Pine Bluff. That gave Simmons the second-largest total of Arkansas-specific deposits, up from No. 5 a year earlier, and it nearly doubled the deposit market for Jefferson County. That allowed the countywide total to leapfrog over Sebastian, Craighead, Faulkner and Garland counties.

Marty Casteel, chairman and CEO of Simmons Bank, told Arkansas Business that core deposits in Arkansas grew during the 12-month period. “That said,” Casteel said in an email, “as our corporate headquarters, Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) is the bank location where we house our Corporate Treasury Management functions. With the mergers of Southwest Bank and Bank SNB, additional brokered funds are reported through our Pine Bluff bank location. These brokered funds and certain public funds comprise the balance of the growth reflected in our Jefferson County deposits.”

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Despite a 2.5 percent dip in its deposits and Simmons’ strong growth, Arvest maintains an insurmountable share of the statewide deposit market: 14.25 percent of the $66.7 billion total.

Privately held Arvest also has the most branches in the state — 139 as of June 30. That’s up from 116 a year earlier, thanks to the biggest bank deal in the state in the past year: the acquisition of publicly traded Bear State Bank of Little Rock in April.

Bear State was one of three banks to disappear from the roster of Arkansas banks during the 12 months that ended June 30. The others were Bank of McCrory, which was acquired by First National Bank of Wynne in November, and Heartland Bank of Little Rock, which Simmons Bank acquired in March after Heartland’s holding company defaulted on debts. Heartland’s deposits and three of its branches were subsequently sold to Reylance Bank of Pine Bluff.

Another bank, One Bank & Trust of Little Rock, made its final appearance on the FDIC’s summary of deposits. It was acquired by First National Bank of Paragould on Aug. 1, 2018.

Elsewhere
The biggest players in Arkansas’ bank deposit market are also players in other states.

Arvest maintained its ranking as No. 4 in Oklahoma, with 5.5 percent of that state’s $87 billion in deposits. It is No. 14 in Missouri, with $1.6 billion in deposits — 0.98 percent of the statewide total of $163 billion.

Simmons, with its acquisition of Bank SNB of Stillwater, entered Oklahoma for the first time at No. 11 with 1.5 percent of the statewide market. Simmons is No. 25 in Missouri, with 0.66 percent of the statewide market.

Bank OZK, which was known as Bank of the Ozarks until this year, is No. 10 in Georgia, with $4.4 billion in deposits in a market of more than $250 billion. No other Arkansas bank does business in Georgia.

Publicly traded OZK is No. 31 in Florida, trailing No. 18 Centennial, which has a 1.03 percent share of $586 billion in statewide deposits.

OZK is No. 39 in Texas, where Simmons made its debut at No. 46 after acquiring Southwest Bank of Fort Worth. Both have only a fraction of a percent of the $840 billion statewide market. Bank OZK is also No. 21 in North Carolina, with 0.28 percent of that state’s $366.5 billion market.