Business Description
Historically, we utilized separately chartered community banks, supported by
our lead bank to provide full service banking products and services across our
footprint. On March 5, 2014, we announced the planned consolidation of our six
smaller subsidiary banks into Simmons Bank. The subsidiary consolidation was
completed in August 2014. We made the decision to consolidate in order to effectively
meet the increased regulatory burden facing banks, to reduce certain operating
costs and more efficiently perform operational duties.
Over the past 26 years, as we have expanded our markets and services, our growth
strategy has evolved and diversified. We have used varying acquisition and internal
branching methods to enter key growth markets and increase the size of our footprint.
Since 1990 we have completed 11 whole bank acquisitions, 5 bank branch deals,
1 bankruptcy (363) acquisition, 4 FDIC failed bank acquisitions and 4 Resolution
Trust Corporation failed thrift acquisitions. These acquisitions added a total
of 125 branches.
In December 2009, we completed a secondary stock offering by issuing a total
of 3,047,500 shares of common stock, including the over-allotment, at a price
of $24.50 per share, less underwriting discounts and commissions. The net proceeds
of the offering after deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and offering
expenses were approximately $70.5 million. The additional capital positioned
us to take advantage of unprecedented acquisition opportunities through FDIC-assisted
transactions of failed banks.
Merger and Acquisition activities are an important part of the Company’s
growth strategy. We intend to focus our near term acquisition strategy on traditional
acquisitions. We continue to believe that the challenging economic environment
combined with more restrictive bank regulatory reforms will cause many financial
institutions to seek merger partners in the near to intermediate future. We
also believe our community banking philosophy, access to capital and successful
acquisition history position us as a purchaser of choice for community banks
seeking a strong partner.
We expect that our target areas for acquisitions will continue to be banks operating
in growth markets within the existing footprint of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri
and Tennessee markets as well as banks operating in identified expansion markets
including Oklahoma, Texas and other areas. In addition, we will pursue financial
service companies with specialty lines of business and branch acquisitions within
the existing markets.
As consolidations continue to unfold in the banking industry, the management
of risk is an important consideration in how the Company evaluates and consummates
those transactions. The senior management teams of both our parent company and
lead bank have had extensive experience during the past twenty-six years in
acquiring banks, branches and deposits and post-acquisition integration of operations.
We believe this experience positions us to successfully acquire and integrate
banks.
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