Rodney West has been named Fort Smith community president for Simmons First National Bank, the bank announced Thursday.

West will replace Mike Flynn when Flynn retires at the end of the year.

Flynn was president of American State Bank of Charleston when it bank merged with Simmons in 1998, and Flynn has been the community president since then.

West began his banking career with American State Bank in 1994 and served as vice president of finance for General Pallets Inc. of Fort Smith from 2010-12 between stints in the banking industry, according to a news release.

West is a 2003 graduate of Leadership Fort Smith and a past treasurer of the Fort Smith Southside Rotary Club.

"Mike has had a wonderful career in banking, and we're fortunate he spent much of it at Simmons," said Freddie Black, the Arkansas regional chairman for Simmons. "With his deep connections in that part of our state, Rodney is ready to fill the role of president for us and continue to grow our market share in that region of our state."

Simmons also announced the addition of Trey Gage of Charleston as a loan officer specializing in agricultural lending. 

Arkansas Capital Corp. of Little Rock will no longer work with state government to provide small-business loans. For the first time in the organization’s almost 60-year history, its funding model is changing.

ACC, created in 1957, is a private, nonprofit “credit agency” disbursing much-needed capital to the state’s small businesses that otherwise can’t get financing from local banks. (See sidebar.)

The group has become one of the largest U.S. Small Business Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture lenders in the state with more than 1,200 direct loans totaling $583.7 million to Arkansas businesses, $470.6 million of it since 1990. Partnering with more than 100 local banks, that figure grows to more than $1.5 billion.

While the group’s mission hasn’t changed, it will no longer use the state as a source for funding. ACC President and COO Sam Walls III said the group will go through private sources to raise its funding capital in the future, though he prefers not to divulge who they are until deals are finalized.

“We used the money borrowed from the state as our capital base to make loans to small businesses in Arkansas that had difficulty getting capital from traditional capital sources,” Walls said.

“In recent years, SBA lending has been a big part of our operation, but we have also utilized the USDA guarantee program at times. We also have some loans that do not have any federal guarantee programs involved in them.”

Arkansas Capital Corp. owes the state $41.5 million spread across four loans. One $4 million note will be paid off in December, a $26.8 million note comes due in 2018, and notes for $7.7 million and $3 million are up in 2022, according to the state treasurer’s office.

In the meantime, ACC will continue to pay off the loans and move forward, business as usual, Walls said.

“ACC will pay off all four notes and use other sources of capital to continue our small-business lending in Arkansas,” Walls said. “Our 58-year mission has not changed. We will still be partnering with banks in Arkansas to provide capital to Arkansas small businesses and will continue to work with public- and private-sector entities to advance economic development in Arkansas.”

And despite well-sourced rumors to the contrary, Walls said ACC made a unilateral decision to cut ties with the state.

The tedium of having to visit the governor’s office with each change of administration and explain the organization’s mission plus the restrictions placed on what could be done with state loans led the ACC board to consider using a private funding model instead. Walls said the move has contributed to a perception that Gov. Asa Hutchinson wasn’t satisfied with ACC.

Hutchinson, a Republican, succeeded Democrat Mike Beebe in January.

“Representatives of the governor’s office reached out to us looking to clarify some questions about ACC, which typically occurs at the beginning of a new administration,” Walls said.

“We were able to meet with the governor’s office and provide them with correct information, which resolved any questions. We’re good with the state. We’ll continue to work with the state in other ways.”

Walls said the idea of using a different source of capital for ACC lending had been discussed for several years.

“I would say that a number of things contributed to the transition, not the least of which was the fact we recently were given the designation as a community development finance institution by the federal CDFI Fund,” he said. “This opened up other sources that we could explore.”

J.R. Davis, a Hutchinson spokesman, confirmed ACC’s good standing and that the decision to move on originated with ACC. “They expressed a desire to pursue other opportunities not possible under state finance laws,” he said. Such opportunities could include the flexibility to take on more risk.

“Because the loans came from the state, they came with restrictions,” Walls said.

ACC Affiliates

The Arkansas Capital Corp. Group includes several affiliates providing a wide range of small-business lending.

Those affiliates include the Arkansas Capital Relending Corp. (USDA Intermediary Relending Program), the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation (entrepreneurial resources and programs), Diamond State Ventures (venture capital), Heartland Renaissance Fund (federal New Market Tax Credit program) and Pine State Capital (federal EB-5 foreign investment program), and it manages Six Bridges Capital Corp. (SBA 504 loans), an independent company.

Services include small-business loans; permanent, long-term financing for startups, expansions and acquisitions; risk mitigation for businesses and financial partners; and entrepreneurial resources and support.

Through the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation, it runs the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup collegiate business plan competition and the Youth Entrepreneur Showcase, business plan contests for students in grades 5-12.

Walls said other sources of income for ACC come from New Market Tax Credit allocations, consulting work and venture capital. Plus, Walls sees ACC’s work with the EB-5 foreign investor program, which seeks to attract foreign investment, as a potential revenue source in the future.

History of Arkansas Capital Corp.

Arkansas Capital Corp. was launched in 1958 as First Arkansas Development Finance Corp. Excerpted below is an article that co-founder Herbert L. Thomas Sr. wrote for Arkansas Economist, a publication of the University of Arkansas:

One of the most unique agencies which this nation has seen arise from the post-World War interstate competition for industrial development is the First Arkansas Development Finance Corporation. This organization, which in the field of industrial development is limited in purpose to the problems of financing, is patterned after, but is significantly different from the pioneering development credit corporation of the New England states which were born in the past decade. It is unique in its organization, in its potential size and effectiveness.

One of the most unusual and outstanding features of this corporation is that it is a potential $10 million (or more) credit agency which is privately owned but which will not provide its owners with any profit on their investment. It is an example of cooperation among private citizens and business and government institutions which is unprecedented in the history of Arkansas and unparalleled in other states. This nonprofit lending agency is one answer which Arkansas has found to the question of how to finance an aggressive industrial expansion program.

Within a short time after Arkansas began its active program of industrial development, with the creation of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission [which later became the Arkansas Economic Development Commission] in 1955, it became evident that the existing methods of industrial financing were not sufficient to keep Arkansas in a competitive position with other states in the bidding for outside industries. It had been further evident for some time before that too frequently, the birth of or expansion of an Arkansas-owned industry was thwarted by lack of credit or capital funds. Various people throughout the state began discussing the possibility of creating a state-wide development credit agency similar to those in some Eastern and New England states. After being sold on this idea, a group of businessmen, lawyers and members of the state legislature began what turned out to be a long and difficult task of creating FADFC …

… While FADFC will never reach the point of being able to fill all the financing needs of Arkansas’ industrial development, it is an important and effective addition to the program. It is the answer to many problems and has great potentialities for contributing to the growth of Arkansas.

Arkansas Capital Corp. Group Board and Executive Staff

Board of Directors
Dennis Cooper, CPA, Frost PLLC
Brad Chambless, SVP, Farmers & Merchants Bank
Orville Abrams, CPA, Abram’s CPA Services
Kevin Burns, SVP, Stephens Inc.
Charles Cervantes, independent businessman
Rush Deacon, CEO, Safe Foods Corp. and acting CEO of ACC
Bill Holmes, president/CEO, Arkansas Bankers Association
Virgil Miller Jr., group CRA director, Arvest Bank Operations Inc.
Mike Malone, president/CEO, Northwest Arkansas Council
Sandra Massey, chancellor, Arkansas State University-Newport
Martha Moore, president, McCormick Works
Frank D. Scott Jr., business development officer, First Security Bank
David H. Shindler, EVP, Iberia Bank
William Staed, retired banker
Mike Preston, executive director, Arkansas Economic Development Commission (ex-officio)
Aaron Burkes, president, Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ex-officio)

Executive Staff
Rush Deacon, acting CEO
Sam Walls III, president/COO
Les Lane, senior vice president
Al Hodge, executive vice president
Sandra Hairston, EVP and secretary-treasurer
Bert King, SVP

Greg Martin, a senior vice president at Arvest Bank in Fayetteville, has been hired to succeed James Stobaugh as Simmons First National Bank's top executive in northwest Arkansas.

Martin's title will be community president for Simmons First National Bank. That title has been held by Dennis Ferguson, but the fast-growing bank is restructuring and titles have been changed, spokesman Rex Nelson said. Ferguson's new title is community executive.

Stobaugh, a veteran of the Arkansas banking industry, will remain in an advisory role until he retires at the end of 2016, according to the announcement.

Stobaugh was chairman of Simmons' northwest Arkansas region, but all three Arkansas regions were combined into a single region earlier this year.

Freddie Black, who was chairman of the south Arkansas region and is now regional chairman for the entire state, called Martin "a star in banking" who "will now help us grow Simmons’ market share in northwest Arkansas."

Martin is a 2001 graduate of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville whose banking career in northwest Arkansas started in 2002.

As community executive, Ferguson will retain "extensive lending and operational responsibilities in northwest Arkansas," according to the announcement.

Tanya Bonham Scott, a branch manager for Regions Bank in Little Rock, has received the bank’s Better Life Award for October 2015. The award is given to an employee who displays dedication and job performance as well as exemplary involvement and commitment to the community. Regions, based in Birmingham, Alabama, will donate $1,000 to the nonprofit organization of Scott’s choice, which is Lessons for Life.

Donna Neville has been promoted to vice president of mortgage operations in Citizens Bank of Batesville’s Hot Springs market. Neville has had a 30-year career in mortgage lending, including underwriting, processing, closing, post-closing and insuring loans.

Aubrey Nixon has joined Enterprise Financial Group, a leasing and financing organization in Little Rock. Nixon has more than 20 years of banking experience, having worked with Bank of the Ozarks, One Bank & Trust and First Commercial Bank (now Regions Bank).

See more of this week's Movers & Shakers, and submit your own announcement at ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers.

A Hot Springs developer filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection last week and listed $2.46 million in debt and just $100 in assets.

SJT Properties LLC also is being sued by Evelin Hampton of Hot Springs in a case that alleges fraud, misconduct, breach of fiduciary duties and breach of other obligations tied to real estate developments. That lawsuit in Garland County Circuit Court will be put on hold as a result of the bankruptcy.

SJT, which was led by its managing member, Mike Tankersley of Pearcy in Garland County, listed debts of $1.6 million owed to Hot Springs Bank & Trust, which is now part of Relyance Bank of Pine Bluff. It also owes $860,000 to Summit Bank of Hot Springs, which is now part of Bank of the Ozarks.

SJT showed making no income since at least 2013.

SJT’s bankruptcy attorney, Stephen Westerfield of Hot Springs, said he didn’t have too many details about what factors led to the bankruptcy.

“All I know is the corporation is without funds, and it has debts,” he said. “There are one or more entities that owe it money. … If those people would pay, SJT could pay its bills.”

He declined to say how much was owed to SJT.

Three of the four central characters in the international investment scam that sent Joyce Judy, former president of a Little Rock credit union, to federal prison are now convicted felons.

Charles L. “Chuck” Walker, a resident of North Carolina at last report, pleaded guilty last month to one charge, wire fraud conspiracy, leveled against him in June 2014 by a federal grand jury in South Carolina.

He and two co-conspirators were originally charged with five counts of using a company, Global Holdings Groups LLC, to lure “wealthy individuals” into “a high-yield, unregulated, transnational investment opportunity” that was really a personal enrichment scheme that lasted from September 2006 to July 2009.

It wasn’t the same scheme that ensnared Judy, then president of the Arkansas Employees Federal Credit Union. That scam didn’t start until a few months later, when Walker persuaded her and a retired Nascar driver that his “very honorable” friend in London, Emlyn Mousley, had an investment opportunity that would create the millions they needed in order to buy the Iowa Speedway.

As you may recall, Judy scraped together $1 million, half of it borrowed and half stolen from a credit union customer who believed it was being placed in a super-safe CD. That money was wired to Mousley, never to be seen again. Judy, after pleading guilty to bank fraud, spent most of 2012 and 2013 in federal prison.

Mousley entered a negotiated plea to one count of wire fraud early this year, also in South Carolina. His conviction was not related to Judy’s million bucks, but he admitted attempting to “induce potential investors … to invest funds in bogus investment programs.”

Mousley was sentenced to three years of probation and allowed to return to the U.K. Walker may wish for such luck when he is sentenced.

His Global Holdings Group co-defendants pleaded guilty months ago. One was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison, while the other got a year of probation.

Both have been ordered to pay $3.3 million in restitution to the victims of their scam.

The only player in Joyce Judy’s investment adventure who hasn’t been convicted of a crime is Bob Schacht of Mooresville, North Carolina, the former racecar driver who wanted to own his own track.

“He was a patsy if you think of a patsy as someone who doesn’t know what’s being done to them,” Schacht’s lawyer, Bill Morgan of Hickory, North Carolina, told Arkansas Business earlier this year.

Did you know Johnelle Hunt opened a second front in her effort to collect on a judgment against OneFinancial Corp. and debts amassed by its former owner, the late Layton “Scooter” Stuart?

Hunt, through her BHL Financing LLC, filed a lien claim on the Parker Building in Maumelle in connection with a Sept. 18 default judgment of $14.7 million against OneFinancial, the holding company of Little Rock’s One Bank & Trust.

A year ago, you might recall, the 7,200-SF office building at 4 Country Club Circle was a point of controversy between Dick Torti, executor of the Stuart estate, and Jerry Pavlas, Stuart’s successor at One Bank.

Torti claimed the Parker Building was listed as an asset of OneFinancial, which was reflected on its balance sheet until the second half of 2012.

During that six-month window, Stuart was removed from his leadership positions as chairman, president and CEO at One Bank under order of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Pavlas was installed as his replacement.

Pavlas said the property is an asset of One Bank. He doesn’t hold any position with OneFinancial.

The BHL lawsuit claims One Bank holds legal title to the property for the benefit of OneFinancial, which owns equitable title to the Parker Building.

Real estate records indicate One Bank took ownership of the property through a deed in lieu of foreclosure back in June 2009. The bank recovered the 0.82-acre development from Parker Rental Properties LLC, led by Toby Parker.

The Parker Building, which secured an April 2006 loan of $790,500 from the bank, was valued on the OneFinancial books at $700,000.

Two weeks ago, we told you about BHL suing One Bank for fraud allegedly committed by its officers during the Stuart regime. According to the complaint, Hunt was deceived into subordinating her secured priority creditor claim to Stuart’s ownership of OneFinancial, which owns One Bank.

Simmons First National Corp. is leading a coalition of civic, business and government leaders in Pine Bluff in an initiative called "Go Forward Pine Bluff" designed to invigorate the city and grow its tax base.

Simmons will fund the effort through its Simmons First Foundation. The bank, based in Pine Bluff, made the announcement Monday.

Through the 1980s, Pine Bluff was considered the state's No. 3 city in prominence behind Little Rock and Fort Smith and its Pine Bluff Convention Center was the state's premier entertainment and concert venue, hosting the likes of Elvis Presley and Bob Hope. But the last 20-30 years have seen a decline in population and economic development. Its population, peaking at about 60,000, currently sits at roughly 49,000.

Simmons Chairman and CEO George Makris told Arkansas Business that the bank holding company wants to lead a communitywide effort to get Pine Bluff back on track and noted the city's three public school districts as a possible starting point.

"We have three public school districts, one without a permanent superintendent and all three struggling financially and academically," he said. "We have a whole generation of students underserved by our public schools and we've got to put that on the table."

Makris said fixing the city's schools is a priority but road maps to solutions are available. "But like an alcoholic, first you have to admit there's a problem," he said. "We have to make tough choices."

Makris didn't want to speculate on the feasibility of consolidating the districts, but said it's an option.

"I wouldn't want to say it's a probability, but it's a possibility," he said. "Especially in Arkansas, we know that trying to consolidate school districts is as touchy as any subject can be."

Makris said if the Pine Bluff, Dollarway and Watson Chapel districts ultimately are not consolidated, he hopes a degree of student accountability is introduced into the city's schools.

"They haven't been doing that very well," he said. 

The Go Forward Pine Bluff group will utilize the work of the 20/20 Commission as a baseline for its work to develop a strategic plan for the city, according to a Simmons press release.

Makris said the initiative will help pinpoint how to direct the city's efforts most effectively. If successful, he said the bank could use its foundation to replicate the program in other cities within the Simmons footprint.

According to the news release, execution of the plan's objectives is scheduled to begin in January 2017 with a planned completion date of Dec. 31, 2018.

"It’s time for a comprehensive strategic plan that will guide this city into the next decade," said Mary Pringos, who will serve as the chairman of the Go Forward Pine Bluff task force, in the release. "For the plan to be successful, all sectors of the community must be involved in the planning process. What we don’t want is a report that will sit on a shelf and gather dust. The objective is to produce a plan that the community buys into, one that establishes clear, measurable goals and has concrete steps for achieving those goals."

Pringos is the president of Pinellas LLC and a member of the Simmons First Foundation board.

Tommy May, former Simmons chief and CEO of the Simmons First Foundation, will join her on the task force. He listed four ways the group can achieve success:

• Recruit a fully inclusive planning team that has the capacity and the desire to spend many hours during the next 12 months making recommendations that likely will result in significant change.
• Embrace the successes that came from the 20/20 effort and then focus full attention on the difficult tasks that must be done to attract and retain jobs and families in Pine Bluff.
• Ability to pass the torch from the planning group to the appropriate organizations that will implement the plan in 2017 and 2018.
• Ability to identify resources that will fund the execution of the plan.

Other task force members include Irene Holcomb, George Stepps, Byron Tate, Laurence Alexander, the Rev. Glenn Barnes, Chuck Morgan, Lou Ann Nesbitt and Catherine Smart.

Carla Martin will chair four pillar steering committees:

• Economic development, chaired by Nick Makris
• Education, Scott Pittillo
• Infrastructure and government, Rosalind Mouser
• Quality of life, Kaleybra Morehead.

The task force will select five core members for each pillar group with one task force member serving on each pillar group.

Applications to serve on the steering committees are available through the Simmons First Foundation through Dec. 15. The steering committees will begin meeting in January and present a final plan by the end of November 2016.

The process will be facilitated by Jim Youngquist of the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

"By growing the tax base, we will ensure that we can better fund city services and put an end to population loss," Pringos said in the release. "We’re at a turning point in this city, and development of the plan will get us moving in the right direction. We hope to be able to point to visible results. The bottom line is that the city must decide where it wants to go and then start down that path. The plan will be our road map for the future. Our ultimate goal is to make Pine Bluff a city that people want to call home."

Arkansans remain optimistic, slightly less so than in March, about their personal financial situations, according to the second phase of the Fall 2015 Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey released Tuesday.

This phase includes a study of consumer outlooks on personal finances and buying conditions over the next six months and business conditions over the next one- and five-year periods.

According to the survey conducted in September, 56 percent of Arkansas consumers expect their personal financial situation to remain the same over the next 12 months, while 28 percent expect improvement over that same period. In March’s survey, 55 percent expected their situation to remain the same and 30 percent expected improvement.

The other areas surveyed were Missouri, including Greater Kansas City, and Oklahoma. Across the three-state area, 54 percent expect their personal financial situation to stay the same, while 33 percent expect it to improve.

Concerning buying conditions, 51 percent of Arkansans believe the next six months will be a good time to buy items like furniture, televisions and refrigerators. That’s down from the 56 percent who thought so in March.

"Over the next year in Arkansas, there are expectations of an improving national economy, while consumers were less optimistic about their own prospects than they were in March," said Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas and lead economist for the survey. 

"This mixed outlook is likely the result of the ongoing lack of an increase in personal wages," she said. "In other words, while consumers are generally positive, the ongoing lack of increases in their wages seems to be dampening their positive outlook."

Expectations for the region as a whole are mixed. While 32 percent of regional respondents expected good times for businesses over the next year, 43 percent expected good times over the next five years. That compares to 34 percent (one year) and 42 percent (five years) in March.

The Current Conditions Sub-Index for Arkansas in September is 85.5, down from March’s 89.6, while the regional index is 90.3 for September. The Current Conditions Sub-Index is tabulated from the answers to two questions on the survey: "How is your current financial situation compared with a year ago?" and "What do you think of buying conditions over the next six months?"

Arkansas’ Consumer Expectations Sub-Index in September is 72.8, up from March’s 72.4, while the regional index is 77.5 for September. The Consumer Expectations Sub-Index is tabulated from the answers to three survey questions: "How do you expect your financial situation to change in the next year?", "How do you think business conditions will be in a year?" and "How do you expect business conditions will be in five years?"

Higher numbers indicate some combination of consumer satisfaction with their current and expected personal finances, current and expected economic performance, and the purchasing environment. 

The Arvest Consumer Sentiment Survey is conducted by the CBER, with the University of Oklahoma’s Public Opinion Learning Laboratory conducting 1,200 phone surveys.

The survey will be conducted twice a year, with the next survey expected to be completed in May 2016. 

Gary Rickenbach, the former senior executive vice president of One Bank & Trust of Little Rock, on Monday offered a conditional guilty plea in federal court provided the judge agrees to sentence him to two years of probation.

Federal prosecutors agreed to replace a seven-count indictment against Rickenbach with a single charge of misprision of a felony — essentially failure to report a crime.

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker has not decided whether to go along with the plea deal.

Rickenbach had been under indictment since April 2014. The original two-count indictment was replaced by seven counts in March, when three more former One Bank executives were added to the indictment: Michael Heald, Tom Whitehead and Bradley Paul.

In his plea deal, he admits that he failed to tell bank regulators that his former boss, the late Layton "Scooter" Stuart, falsified call reports in 2009 and 2010 in order to hide the default on a $1.5 million line of credit that Rickenbach recommended for an acquaintance in Florida. Court documents identify the borrower only as A.S., even though Albert Solaroli has already pleaded guilty to money laundering. Solaroli was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, but that hearing was canceled and has not been reset.

Heald, Whitehead and Paul are currently scheduled for trial beginning Dec. 14.

Rickenbach is represented by Little Rock attorney William O. James Jr.

Ty Warren has been promoted to president of BancorpSouth Bank’s northwest region, headquartered in Little Rock, which includes the states of Arkansas and Missouri. Warren previously served as president of BancorpSouth’s north-central Arkansas division and as president of the Little Rock market. In his new role, Warren has regional management responsibilities for 45 bank branches in 30 Arkansas cities and communities and for seven Missouri locations in the Springfield and St. Louis metropolitan areas.

Joe Williams has been promoted to president of BancorpSouth’s northeast Arkansas division. A 40-year veteran of the banking industry, Williams previously served as president of BancorpSouth’s Jonesboro market. He is now responsible for 17 branches in Jonesboro, Pocahontas, Melbourne, Paragould, Osceola and Stuttgart.

Chris Locke has been promoted to resident of BancorpSouth’s Little Rock market, where he had been executive vice president and head of lending. He is now managing five branch locations.

Robert “Robi” McDonald, formerly a market president for Centennial Bank, has joined Bank of the Ozarks’ commercial lending team in Little Rock as a senior vice president.

Natalie Hairston, formerly with Arvest Bank, has been hired as a vice president, and Eric Merriman has been promoted to vice president. Merriman joined Bank of the Ozarks in 2005 and has served in loan administration, special assets and loan collections.

Tom Nelson recently joined One Bank & Trust of Little Rock as senior vice president and commercial lending officer. Nelson, who has more than 25 years of banking experience, works at the bank’s Rodney Parham location.

Vickie Crisenbery has been promoted to consumer and mortgage lender at Arvest Bank in Flippin. Crisenbery, a native of Flippin, began her career with Arvest as a loan assistant in 2003.

See more of this week's Movers & Shakers, and submit your own announcement at ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers.

Barbara Hambrick earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in accounting from Oklahoma State University and joined the Fort Smith accounting firm of Beall Barclay & Co. PLC in 1994. She’s involved in the firm’s audit and accounting, consulting and tax groups, and much of her work focuses on the oil and gas, construction contracting, nonprofit and government industries. Hambrick also has a strong focus in retirement and pension plan auditing.

Hambrick is a managing member of Beall Barclay, the state’s third-largest accounting firm, and also serves as its personnel director.

Every once in a while we hear about “accounting disputes.” What are the most common accounting disputes you encounter with business clients?

Our most common accounting disputes revolve around the valuation of inventory. Accounting standards require inventory to be valued using specific approaches, and clients don’t always understand these. Most “disputes” are resolved with client communication and education.

Do you think the accounting reforms in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 are still necessary?

While our firm does not do any public company work, I do think some of the reforms from Sarbanes-Oxley are good practices and are necessary. Many of the events that led to the accounting scandals that were the catalyst for the act may be repeated by those who are determined to manipulate financial information, but finding the evidence to bring those people to justice should be easier because of the act. One of the largest improvements was the requirement to archive and retain electronic files for a specific period of time.

How has technology changed the way you do your job?

Our methods in public accounting have changed dramatically in the last 15 years due to technology. Instead of working through large binders of paper, we are now exchanging electronic files with clients. This “paperless” environment has allowed our accountants to work remotely and with much more flexibility in their scheduling.

Technology has also changed the way we communicate with our clients. We send many more items via email or secured portals instead of by mail, and clients expect us to be accessible by email almost 24/7.

You’ve mentioned the importance of mentors to your success. Can you explain how a mentor or mentors helped you?

I have had a couple of great mentors who have helped me to be successful in public accounting. One of them was very influential in showing me that this business is not all about the numbers, but more about the relationships with the clients and helping them to find solutions to problems. Some of these solutions involve numbers, but many times, the solution means connecting the client with someone else who has the skills and ability to help him or her in areas that aren’t accounting. The other mentor showed me how the culture of a firm can make or break that firm. This has influenced what I do to lead our people at Beall Barclay & Co. PLC.

What was your worst career or business decision? Your best?

While not a bad decision, the biggest challenge in my career has been the balance of work and family life over the years. Public accounting can be very demanding, and there is no end to the number of hours one could work. Making sure I allot appropriate time for my family has been difficult at times. My best career decision was to get my certified public accountant designation. This shows my dedication to the profession and my clients. Those with the CPA designation are valued advisers to their clients and strive to stay updated and knowledgeable as our world changes.

Aaron Gamewell, executive vice president and chief operating officer for the Arkansas Bankers Association for the past three and a half years, gave notice last week.

On Jan. 1, he’ll become president and COO of Secure Banking Solutions of Madison, South Dakota, a provider of cybersecurity and other IT products for the banking industry.

Gamewell says he’ll split time between Arkansas and South Dakota. Whispers can offer some suggestions on which months he should spend in each place.

LITTLE ROCK - Finance officials say larger than expected corporate tax refunds in November pushed Arkansas' revenue below expectations and below the same month last year.

The Department of Finance and Administration said Wednesday net available revenue last month totaled $374.6 million. That's $16.5 million below November 2014 revenue and $4.3 million below forecast.

The full report is available here. 

The state's gross revenue was $462.9 million. That's $1.7 million below November 2014 but $7.4 million above forecast. It was boosted by $4.45 million from a one-time court settlement and deposit from the attorney general's office.

The state's net available revenue for the fiscal year that began July 1 is $59.1 million above forecast.

The state paid out $20.5 million in corporate tax refunds, which was $13.7 million above the same month last year and $12.5 million above forecast.

(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

WASHINGTON — American businesses stepped up hiring last month, led by strong gains in retail, finance and other service industries, a private survey found.

Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that companies added 217,000 jobs last month, the most in five months. Service sector firms added 204,000, while manufacturers hired just 6,000.

The figures come just two days before the government issues its official jobs report for November. Economists forecast that it will show employers added 200,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate remained 5 percent.

A robust jobs report at the end of this week would make it very likely that the Federal Reserve would raise short-term interest rates later this month for the first time in nine years.

Steady consumer spending is supporting greater hiring in services, which includes higher-paying professional positions such as information technology and engineering jobs. That is helping to offset weak job gains in sectors like manufacturing, which is struggling with faltering economies overseas and the strong dollar.

The ADP survey covers only private businesses and frequently diverges from the official figures. ADP's hiring tallies were much higher than the government's in August and September, and then were far below the government's estimate last month.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, which compiles the ADP data, said that hiring was strong in nearly all industries outside the oil and gas sector, which has been battered by low oil prices, and factories that compete with overseas producers. The dollar has jumped about 13 percent in value this year, which makes U.S. goods more expensive overseas.

"It's very hard now to make any kind of argument that the Fed shouldn't begin the process of normalizing interest rates," Zandi said.

(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen told Congress Thursday that economic conditions are falling into place for policymakers to raise interest rates when they meet in two weeks — as long as there are no major shocks that undermine confidence.

(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy generated another month of solid hiring in November, making it highly likely that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates from record lows this month.

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Chris Davis, Nathan Elliott, Jim Homan, Lance Nutt and Scott Smith have been promoted to certified bank senior examiner by the Arkansas State Bank Department.

All five are commercial examiners. Davis is assigned to the department’s northwest Arkansas field office, and Elliott and Smith work out of the Jonesboro field office.

Homan and Nutt are assigned to one of two commercial examination groups based in Little Rock.

See more of this week's Movers & Shakers, and submit your own announcement at ArkansasBusiness.com/Movers.

First National Bank of McGehee is seeking regulatory approval to change its name to First NaturalState Bank.

The move by First National also entails converting to a state-chartered bank.

The Desha County lender ranks among the smallest banks in Arkansas. First National operates two full-service locations in McGehee with a staff of 19.

The $53.9 million-asset concern was founded in 1974.

That was 21 years before the official Arkansas nickname was changed by legislative decree from “Land of Opportunity” to “The Natural State.”

With the Bear State moniker taken, will there be a Bank of Opportunity or WonderState Bank somewhere down the road?

The decision to make its first out-of-state acquisition by entering southwest Missouri made for a logical geographic progression at Little Rock’s Bear State Financial Inc.

The $70 million cash-stock swap purchase of $454.9 million-asset Metropolitan National Bank of Springfield, Missouri, didn’t just give access to the Springfield market. For Bear State, the combination was as much about deepening its pool of talent as it was about expanding its footprint and growing its $1.4 billion asset base.

That was underscored once the deal closed Oct. 1, and the titles of president and CEO of Bear State Financial and Bear State Bank were bestowed on Mark McFatridge, president and CEO of Metropolitan.

“Once you get behind my resume, you see my big bank experience,” the 48-year-old executive said. “It’s something I’ve been working for my entire career.

“I’ve been exposed to a lot of really good leaders, and I learned a ton from those great leaders.” (See his bio at the end of this article.)

Bear State hadn’t just found a merger partner. It found a new leader for its management team.

Rick Massey, who retained his role as the founding chairman of Bear State Financial, said the timing of the courtship made for a providential merger. McFatridge was three years into lining out Metropolitan’s post-2008 operational shortcomings and reinvigorating its staff.

“He was building something for the long term, and we hit it nicely,” Massey said. “McFatridge was brought in to fix Metropolitan. He built a lending team that was fully capable of doing larger loans in the market.

“The problem you have with doing these community bank deals is the loan team doesn’t usually have the sophistication, experience or Rolodex [of contacts] to do big deals.

“Their loan size was about $9 million; ours was about $28 million. The hard part is do you have a lending team to now do $35 million loans?

“Usually, you don’t see that scalability in your loan team,” Massey said. “We think those guys are going to immediately walk in and do big loans, and in their case, even bigger loans than they could do before the merger. That’s uncommon in these community bank deals.”

‘A Good Banker’

Little Rock bank consultant Randy Dennis applauded the decision to put McFatridge at the operational helm of Bear State.

“Mark is a great addition to their team,” said Dennis, president of DD&F Consulting Group. “He is a good banker. I’ve known him for a number of years. I’ve known him since he worked for Union Planters up in Indianapolis.”

McFatridge grew up in Indiana and went to college and spent the first 16 years of his professional life working in the Indianapolis area.

He joined Union Planters Corp. of Memphis in March 2002, less than two years ahead of its massive merger with Regions Financial Corp. of Birmingham, Alabama.

On the backside of that $5.9 billion deal in January 2004, McFatridge served on the 17-member integration team composed of Union Planters and Regions executives.

Beyond the experience of helping meld two large banking organizations, McFatridge also met fellow team member Tom Fritsche of Regions. The two became friends and stayed in touch after their career paths parted.

It was Fritsche, now senior EVP and COO at Bear State, who made the initial contact in July 2014 with McFatridge that got the ball rolling and culminated in the purchase of Springfield’s Metropolitan National Bank.

“That started the courtship,” McFatridge said. “We were positioning to be an acquirer.”

He had joined Metropolitan in February 2012 and received accolades on the local and national level for his leadership. Metropolitan was named among the “Best Banks to Work For” in 2013 and 2015 by American Banker.

“We took a lot of pride in that,” McFatridge said.

While restoring the financial fortunes of Metropolitan, he rebuilt the corporate culture through employee-driven initiatives such as the Pride, Pas-sion and Culture program.

A group of 20 staffers representing operations across the bank were charged with enhancing the customer-employee dynamics at Metro-politan by examining two questions: How do we deliver an excellent customer experience, and how do we deliver an excellent employee experience?

“We had a lot of great people who had a lot of passion, but they were just beaten down,” said McFatridge, who came to Springfield in 2006 via Regions.

The community banks in Missouri were struggling as poor performers among the 32 groups at Regions. Steve Schenck, head of the Midwest Banking Group for Regions, mentioned the possibility of forming a new group to focus attention on the banks and revamp their operations.

“I told him ‘That’s a good idea,’” McFatridge said. “And he said, ‘Good, you’re moving to Springfield.’

“We fell in love with Springfield. It will be hard to leave. We were there nine years. That’s where our kids grew up.”

Warm memories aside, he is already counting down the end of his weekly commute between Little Rock and Springfield.

“If we didn’t have a senior in high school, my wife and I would be down here now,” McFatridge said. “We’re going to build a home and be moving here in late summer.”

Although the Bear State moniker has strong historic ties to Arkansas, there are no plans for a corporate name change as the bank ventures into new states.

“It’s such a cool name and logo, and it just sticks,” said McFatridge. “I can see us going wherever. It’s going to be opportunistic, but it’s where the relationships lead us. Relationship is very important to us. We know people all across the U.S.”

Future deals may not necessarily dovetail with the company’s existing footprint but could as Bear State grows toward the $4 billion-$6 billion range in total assets, he said.

“We think we have the team in place to do that,” McFatridge said. “It’s set up to be a really nice run for us.”

Mark McFatridge Bio

October 2015-present:
President, CEO and Director
Bear State Financial and Bear State Bank, Little Rock

February 2012-September 2015:
President, CEO and Director
Metropolitan National Bank, Springfield

April 2010-February 2012:
Chief Operating Officer
$647.7 million-asset Guaranty Bank, Springfield

July 2008-March 2009:
President and COO
$130 million-asset OakStar Bank, a 3.5-year-old de novo lender in Springfield

September 2006-July 2008:
Market President of the Community Banks of Missouri and Western Kentucky for Regions Financial Corp. of Birmingham, Alabama, overseeing 49 retail branches, more than 300 staffers and $1.5 billion in deposits and $750 million in loans

March 2003-September 2006:
Chief Administrative Officer and Regional Financial Officer of Midwest Banking Group for Union Planters Corp. of Memphis/Regions Financial

March 2002-February 2003:
Group Project Officer of Midwest Banking Group for Union Planters

1998-2002:
Chief Operating Officer
Pleasant Run Inc., an Indianapolis nonprofit providing services for abused and neglected children

1991-1998:
Commercial Relationship Manager
Fifth Third Bank of Central Indiana

1990-1991:
Staff Accountant
Kimmerling, Myers & Co., Indianapolis

Education:

Butler University, Indianapolis
Master’s in finance, 2000

Bachelor’s in accounting, 1990