OK, I admit it. I am a TED junkie. I try to set some time aside each day to find content on the web that is challenging, enriching, novel and even controversial. The site that will most often suck me in — to discover I have spent an hour listening to people I do not know — is TED.

The idea of TED talks has gone way beyond the original concept of technology, education and design. And while there are fascinating and well-constructed talks on the main TED stage, I am often more taken with speakers at local TEDx events. TED superstars like Simon Sinek and Brene Brown have nothing to fear from what are often quirky, homegrown topics ranging from “How to Travel the World With No Money” to “The Mathematics of Weight Loss.”

To understand the brilliance of TEDx you have to understand what it is. TEDx is a day of TED talks, organized and produced locally. No one makes a profit or gets paid for producing or working on a TEDx conference (except contracted vendors who provide services). No one can buy his way onto the stage, and no one can be paid to speak. There are many more criteria, but suffice it to say that TED protects its brand.

So it was not a small undertaking when a small band led by someone new to Little Rock managed to produce the first TEDx conference in Little Rock: TEDx Markham Street, branded by TED as TEDxMarkhamSt. (Disclosure: I spoke at the conference last year, and I will function as emcee on the stage this year.)

So why did more than 300 people take a workday out of their lives to fill Ron Robinson Theater last year? There was no one on the stage whom they could not hear in another venue, except perhaps Minnijean Brown-Trickey, who was given a place of honor as the last speaker of the day.

I think I know why, and it has a lot to do with leadership. You may not agree with what you hear at a TEDx conference, but you will learn something new. You may not get the full picture — since speakers are given 18 minutes — but you will be escorted into territory occupied by that speaker that is likely to be new, controversial and challenging. You may not be blown away by brilliant oratory, but you will be clear about why that speaker takes the stage.

Trust me when I tell you that it takes a lot of courage to walk onto a stage in a community where you do not have the safety of anonymity and advocate for something you believe in, introduce a concept or way of viewing the world that may not be mainstream or simply bare your soul about something you believe matters — with no confidence that the rest of the room will understand or care.

In fact, the entire story of the local event is an act of leadership behind the scenes. Salil Joshi is a master of public service/master of public health student at the Clinton School of Public Service and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He moved here two years ago and knew not a soul. And yet he has pulled together a band of volunteers, sponsors, vendors and speakers who have, largely under his leadership, made the event a reality in 2015 and are ready to repeat that effort in 2016.

No one in the enterprise gets paid for his or her time, talent or energy. TEDxMarkhamSt was born of vision, engagement, coordination and no small amount of sweat.

On Sept. 30, TEDxMarkhamSt will again take the stage at the Ron Robinson Theater behind the Arkansas Studies Institute building downtown. Once again, 15 or so speakers with something to say will take the stage for 18 minutes and give it their all. None is a nationally known speaker, but having interviewed all of them in preparation for the conference, I can tell you that they all have something to say.

Stephen Covey would call TED a day for “sharpening your saw” before you go back to work and start cutting down trees. More information is at TEDxMarkhamSt.org.

I. Barry Goldberg of Little Rock, an executive coach with a global client base, is a Vistage Peer Advisory Group chair. Email him at Barry.Goldberg@EntelechyPartners.com.

As Arkansas Business writers were preparing last month’s well-received Business Icons features, we specifically asked some of the 10 to talk about what they were doing when they were in their 20s.

I want to use some of them to introduce this week’s eighth annual The New Influentials: 20 in Their 20s feature, because their answers were instructive — and not just because most of those business legends had found their life’s work before they were 30. Some of their stories seem like products of an earlier time that would be hard to replicate in the 21st century, but they also delivered reminders of the timeless qualities that propel a young adult toward success.

Bob Shell was already on his third career when he joined the Little Rock construction company that would eventually be renamed Baldwin & Shell — and he wasn’t yet 20. He had been fired from a job driving an ambulance. He had been denied a promotion from mail clerk to furniture salesman at Fones Hardware.

He was, in his words, “pretty disgusted” by the setbacks when he hired on with the 4-year-old Baldwin Co., and he was determined to make himself valuable to the company’s three founders, who had taken a chance on a 19-year-old who, by his own account, “didn’t know anything about construction.”

Six and a half decades later, Shell spoke of P.W. Baldwin, Werner Knoop and especially Olen Cates with an admiration and appreciation that reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge’s memories of his first boss, old Mr. Fezziwig.

“They were all very good to me,” Shell said. And his job at Baldwin Co. became more than just a job. “I’ve really loved it.”

The morals of Bob Shell’s story, then, are to shake off failure and to make the most of opportunities. (And for those of us who are no longer young, Shell serves as a great reminder that eager beginners deserve the opportunity to show what they can do.)

Johnelle Hunt, widely considered the operational talent that turned her husband’s dream into the reality that is J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. of Lowell, also found her life’s work before she was 30 — just barely and involuntarily.

She was 29 and happy as a housewife and mother when Johnnie Bryan Hunt started his trucking company. But someone had to make those collection calls, and her fierce dedication to her family was all the impetus she needed.

“In collections you have to have someone really strong who doesn’t take no for an answer,” said Hunt, now widowed and in her mid-80s. “I knew for every dollar I didn’t collect, we lost 50 cents, so I couldn’t feed my children. I was a nice person until I started collecting money.”

A lesson from Johnelle Hunt, then, is this: One may find professional satisfaction — what is too often referred to as “passion” — in unexpected places and even in responsibilities that we didn’t seek out.

Jim Lindsey spent most of his 20s on the gridiron — he turned 20 the year he was part of the Arkansas Razorbacks national championship football team in 1964 and spent seven years in the NFL.

Then, at 29 in 1973, he founded Lindsey & Associates, the foundation of his real estate empire.

But he had a plan even while he was playing football, the game that he says taught him to understand a big picture. When he was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings at 22, he invested his $75,000 signing bonus in real estate — including the future site of the Northwest Arkansas Mall in Fayetteville.

The lessons from Jim Lindsey: When you get your hands on some money, don’t blow it. And if you know that what you are doing right now is not going to last forever, start preparing Plan B.

When George Gleason was 25, he bought the Bank of Ozark, with assets of $28 million. The next day, he gathered his 30 employees and gave them a pep talk:

“The theme of the speech was we may never be the biggest bank in Arkansas, but if we work really hard and every one of us does the very best we can, … we can be the best bank in Arkansas,” Gleason said.

Thirty-seven years later, the renamed Bank of the Ozarks has assets of more than $18 billion. It is the largest bank headquartered in Arkansas and one of the 100 largest in the United States.

Gleason said he set his goals too low in that first staff meeting, but I think the moral of his story is to under-promise and over-deliver.

I personally interviewed Johnny Allison, chairman of Home BancShares Inc. of Conway. He was a millionaire (“on paper,” he said) by the time he was 30, as had been his goal. But he had done it the hardest way possible: by accidentally investing in two money-losing mobile home manufacturers that he had no choice but to fix. He was barely in his 30s when he became the largest shareholder of a bank that, unbeknownst to him, had regulatory problems.

Allison’s business career would make a great management textbook, but I think the biggest life lesson he can teach all of us, young or old, is this: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

The New Influentials

A long-scheduled vacation kept me from participating in the committee that selected this year’s 20 in Their 20s, so I learned about most of these young leaders the same way you will: by reading the short profiles spread over the next 10 pages.

I have no way of knowing whether there’s another Bob Shell or Johnelle Hunt or George Gleason in this year’s crop. Some may have already gotten rich quick, like Johnny Allison. One of them, D.J. Williams, is following the Jim Lindsey path: Razorbacks to NFL to real estate, with on-air TV work thrown in for good measure. A couple of them, Jonathan Crossley and Eric Dailey, have chosen the get-rich-never field of education, but I suspect their stories will be as inspirational to you as they are to their students.

I do see in all of them the energy and ambition and adventurous spirit that is obvious in our state’s business legends, even decades after they were in their 20s. We’re proud to introduce these New Influentials and to consider all the potential they offer our state in the decades to come.

WASHINGTON — Americans finally got a raise last year after eight years of stagnating incomes.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Walmart Canada will stop accepting Visa Inc. cards at its 16 stores in the province of Manitoba starting on Oct. 24, a spokesman said on Wednesday, raising the stakes in a high-profile fee dispute.

Manitoba was "most ready" for not accepting Visa cards, he said, without elaborating on why the province was chosen.

In a rare example of talks between a major retailer and credit card company spilling out in public, Walmart said in June it had been unable to agree with Visa on an "acceptable fee" and would no longer accept the company's credit cards unless it got a better deal.

Visa cards may be banned in more stores if the companies cannot reach an agreement, the Walmart spokesman said, though he did not say which ones.

"We're committed to continuing negotiations with Visa, and we are still hopeful to reach an agreement‎."

The rejection of Visa in Manitoba would follow the retailer's decision in July to stop accepting Visa cards in three Ontario stores - a step that would be mirrored across the country, Walmart had said at the time.

Walmart has more than 400 stores in Canada.

The negotiations do not affect the U.S. stores of parent Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville.

That rumble you felt on Sept. 8 was not another earthquake in Oklahoma. It was the heads of thousands of community bankers hitting their desks as soon as they heard that Wells Fargo had been fined $185 million for creating some 1.5 million unauthorized retail accounts.

The biggest piece of the penalty, $100 million, will be paid to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, and that’s significant only in that it is the largest fine the CFPB has levied since it began operations a year after it was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act of 2010. It certainly isn’t a significant blow to the second-largest U.S. bank by assets ($1.7 trillion); the full $185 million represents less than 1 percent of its $20.7 billion in net income last year.

What’s far more significant, as bankers and critics alike quickly acknowledged, is that Wells Fargo’s shenanigans are an impediment to rebuilding trust in the banking industry.

“Wells Fargo just proved, again, that no scam is beneath America’s financial institutions. And no institution is above being watched by a federal agency,” Huffington Post business writers Emily Peck and Ben Walsh wrote in an analysis titled “Wells Fargo Just Made The Case For Elizabeth Warren’s Bank Agency.”

That’s the kind of language that makes bankers throw up in their mouths. But, really, is the message very far from the Independent Community Bankers of America’s condemnation of Wells Fargo?

“Not only is this conduct appalling and harmful to American consumers and communities, it also contributes to the growth of excessive regulation that needlessly burdens the local community banks that do right by their customers,” ICBA CEO Camden R. Fine said in a written statement. “While Wells Fargo has the luxury of throwing money at the problem to make it go away without its board or senior management being held accountable, the individuals and local institutions affected by its actions will continue to suffer for years to come.”

That talk of suffering isn’t hyperbole. Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported in July that smaller banks really are hit much harder by the cost of regulatory compliance.

Economists Drew Dahl, Andrew P. Meyer and Michelle Clark Neely analyzed data on compliance costs from a survey of 469 banks. “We found that, in 2014, the ratio of compliance costs to total noninterest expense increased substantially as the size of the bank decreased. For example, banks with assets of $1 billion to $10 billion reported total compliance costs averaging 2.9 percent of their noninterest expenses, while banks with less than $100 million in assets reported costs averaging 8.7 percent of their noninterest expenses,” they wrote in the July issue of The Regional Economist.

The survey didn’t look at banks with more than $10 billion in assets, much less truly enormous ones like Wells Fargo, and they do have regulatory burdens that smaller banks do not. (The 2011 Durbin Amendment caps debit card swipe fees that banks with more than $10 billion in assets can charge to merchants, reducing revenue by millions as soon as a bank crosses that threshold.)

But it is undeniably the smaller banks — the ones that don’t have 1.5 million real customers, much less that many phony accounts — who have paid and are paying and will continue to pay the most for the bad acts of the banks that are too big to fail. And years of lobbying for relief can be wiped away by a screaming headline like this from The Wall Street Journal: “Wells Fargo Fined for Sales Scam.”

The fines imposed, while a mere pinprick, are far more than Wells Fargo benefited from the fake accounts, which were apparently created by low-level customer service employees under pressure to meet sales quotas. The total collected in bogus fees was only about $2.6 million; firing and replacing the 5,300 employees involved in the scam (which continued for at least five years) undoubtedly cost more than that.

For Wells Fargo to keep discovering phony accounts and keep firing people for the same violations for half a decade suggests that the management didn’t understand that (in the words of Olivia Farrell, our CEO at Arkansas Business Publishing Group) you get the behavior you incentivize. (The executive who oversaw the consumer banking unit, Carrie Tolstedt, is retiring at age 56 with a $124.5 million golden parachute.)

Full disclosure: My husband and I were satisfied Wells Fargo mortgage customers until May, when we paid off our house. (Mainly I just love saying that we paid off our house.)

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.

The sale of two Little Rock apartment projects weighed in at $10.08 million.

Andmark Towne Oaks Apartments LLC, an affiliate of the AndMark real estate investment firm of Los Angeles, bought the 152-unit Towne Oaks Apartments at 9300 Treasure Hill Road and the 64-unit Towne Oaks Village Apartments at 9600 Southedge Drive.

The seller is CGCMT 2006-C5 Treasure Hill LLC, an affiliate of LNR Partners LLC of Miami Beach, Florida.

The deal is backed with a 10-year loan of $8 million from Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC of Ambler, Pennsylvania.

CGCMT recovered the combined 12.45-acre developments from Arkansas Bay Town Oaks LLC of San Francisco in March 2013 at a $5.8 million foreclosure sale.

Access Acquisition

A Little Rock church property tipped the scales at $2.62 million.

Access Group Inc., led by Tammy Simmons, purchased the 10.31-acre complex at 1500 N. Mississippi St. from First Christian Church Inc.

The deal is financed with a 10-year loan of $2.2 million from Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks.

The property previously was tied to a June 2000 mortgage of $120,000 held by Citizens Fidelity Insurance Co. of Little Rock.

The location was bought for $60,000 in April 1959 from Rowley United Theaters Inc. of Dallas.

Office Purchase

A 3,224-SF office building in Jacksonville sold for $490,000.

1813 TP White-Jacksonville LLC of Nashville, Tennessee, acquired the 1813 T.P. White Drive project from Marck and Alma Gibson.

The deal is funded with a seven-year loan of $528,000 from InsBank of Nashville.

The 0.37-acre development previously was linked with a November 2012 mortgage of $369,750 held by Summit Bank of Arkadelphia. The Gibsons purchased the property for $400,000 in May 2004 from the Smith Living Trust, led by William and Jo Ann Smith.

Industrial Deal

A 33,620-SF office-warehouse in the Little Rock Port Industrial Park changed hands in a $450,000 deal.

Ben Davis Properties Management LLC, led by Ben and Diane Davis, bought the 6208 Lindsey Road project from Ralph Brockman Jr.

The deal is backed with a five-year loan of $382,500 from Community First Bank of Pea Ridge. The 4-acre site was acquired for $32,000 in August 1972 from the city of Little Rock.

Land Buy I

A 0.97-acre commercial site in North Little Rock rang up a $355,000 sale.

Horton’s Orthotic Lab Inc., led by Gary Horton, purchased the land at 4200 Smokey Lane. The seller is The Woodcrest Co. LLP, led by James P. Matthews.

The deal is financed with a one-year loan of $301,750 from IberiaBank of Lafayette, Louisiana.

The property previously helped secure an August 2007 mortgage of $4.1 million and July 2014 mortgages of $3.2 million and $252,485 held by Centennial Bank of Conway.

The land was part of the 400-acre Springhill Farm the Matthews family acquired in August 1959. John and Martha Matthews bought it from Fred and Katherine Watkins for $250,000.

Land Buy II

A 0.66-acre commercial site in North Little Rock shifted ownership in a deal valued at $315,000.

Arkansas Specialty Partners LLC, led by James Tucker, acquired the land near the southwest corner of Stockton Drive and Smokey Lane. The seller is Freeway Park Properties LLC, led by Dr. Tim Langford.

The deal is funded with a six-month loan of $236,250 from Arvest Bank of Fayetteville.

The property was purchased for $297,000 in May 2010 from The Woodcrest Co. LLP, led by James P. Matthews.

Cliffewood Manor

A 4,608-SF home in Little Rock’s Cliffewood neighborhood drew a $1.1 million transaction.

Herbert Price III and his wife, Cynthia, bought the house from Ned and Laura Rawlings.

The deal is backed with a 30-year loan of $940,865 from Centennial Bank.

The residence previously was tied to a February 2013 mortgage of $380,000 held by IberiaBank Mortgage Co. of Little Rock

The Rawlings family acquired the property for $1.03 million in August 2009 from Michael and Larita Berg.

Deauville House

A 5,267-SF home in the Deauville Place neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development sold for $875,000.

Eric and Mandy Wright purchased the house from Mary Ellen Irons.

The residence previously was linked with May 2013 mortgages of $417,000 held by Bank of the Ozarks and $213,000 held by Malvern National Bank.

The property was bought for $830,000 more than three years ago from Randy James Construction Co.

High-Rise Homes

Condos in downtown Little Rock’s River Market Tower formed a tandem transaction.

The namesake trust of Brad and Katherine Workman acquired a 3,217-SF unit on the 18th floor at 315 Rock St. for $836,000 from RMT II LLC, led by Jimmy Moses and Rett Tucker.

On the flip side, the Workman trust sold a 2,379-SF ninth-floor residence for $742,248 to Bradford Square of Arkansas LLC, led by Mark Dake.

The deal is financed with a seven-year loan of $548,000 from Missouri’s Springfield First Community Bank.

The Workmans purchased the ninth-floor space for $660,000 in September 2014 from RMT II.

The RMT II space on the 18th floor helped secure a June 2015 mortgage of $132,817 held by First Security Bank of Searcy and April 2014 mortgages of $18.6 million held by the bank and $3.3 million held by Citizens Bank of Batesville.

Heights Abode

A 2,807-SF home in the Heights area of Little Rock changed hands in a $709,900 sale.

David Snowden III bought the house from Daniel and Stephanie Brown.

The residence previously was tied to a May 2015 mortgage of $557,480 held by NBKC Bank of Overland Park, Kansas.

The Browns acquired the property for $599,000 in July 2014 from Timothy and Brooke Hicks.

Witry Dwelling

A 4,194-SF home in the Witry Court neighborhood of west Little Rock’s Chenal Valley development rang up a $519,000 transaction.

The namesake trusts of Anthony and Kyla Aycock purchased the house from Walter Mehalko and Rachida Parks.

The residence previously was linked with a January 2013 mortgage of $412,000 from Arvest Mortgage Co. of Lowell.

The Parks family bought the property for $515,000 more than three years ago from Daniel and Ellen Williams.

Estates Residence

A 3,881-SF home in the Ridgefield Estates neighborhood of west Pulaski County is under new ownership after a $510,000 deal.

Merlin and Rita Hagan acquired the house from Robert and Lisa Evans.

The residence previously was tied to a December 2010 mortgage of $390,000 held by U.S. Bank of Cincinnati.

The Evans family purchased the property for $488,000 more than five years ago from Michael and Linnette Pryor.

Seven-Digit Construction

Concourse Renovation    $6,200,157
Clinton National Airport
1 Airport Drive, Little Rock
Flynco Inc., Little Rock

Case Dock Addition    $1,760,000
Hiland Dairy    
6901 Interstate 30 Little Rock
CBM Construction Co., Little Rock

Phil Baldwin moved back to Arkansas from Atlanta in 2013, and he settled about 15 miles outside Batesville.

Every morning as he drives to work as CEO of Citizens Bank, the teenagers, mainly girls, he sees waiting for the school bus remind him that Independence County — while not nearly the poorest in the state — has persistent poverty.

“The girls look like they will fit in at school, but the houses they come out of are just in terrible shape,” he said. “One of them has a tarp for a roof.”

Per-capita income in Independence County in 2014 was $32,403, 14 percent below the statewide average, and unemployment in the county was 5.4 percent in July, well above the 3.9 percent rate statewide.

Three of the four public school districts in the county have higher concentrations of students whose family income makes them eligible for free and reduced-price lunches than the state’s 61 percent rate: Southside (63.5 percent), Midland (67 percent) and Cedar Ridge (68 percent).

In the Batesville School District, the largest with almost 3,000 students, a bit over 55 percent are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. But the Batesville district, where fewer than 20 percent of students were non-white just 10 years ago, is now approaching 30 percent minority, and the number of students for whom English is a second language is growing with the local poultry industry.

Making sure the children of Independence County have the educational opportunities necessary to escape poverty is a cornerstone of the Impact strategic plan that Baldwin worked on when he was chairman of the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce.

(Also see Batesville Impact Plan Living Up to Its Name.)

Those opportunities include a direct pipeline to a bachelor’s degree that passes from the four public school districts in the county through the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville to private Lyon College.

Up to half of the transfer students who enter Lyon, enrollment about 700, come from UACCB, Lyon President Don Weatherman said. Lyon has long offered reduced tuition to students who complete associate degrees at UACCB.

That’s the path taken by Kyle Christopher, the chamber’s first tourism director: from Cave City (which straddles the Independence-Sharp county line) to UACCB to Lyon.

But college isn’t for everyone, and UACCB President Deborah Frazier praised the efforts of the 1,700-student Southside School District to introduce students to college-level classes at UACCB even before they finish high school.

“One of the unintended consequences is some students are learning that they don’t want to do the work they thought they wanted to do,” Frazier said.

When Californian Don Weatherman arrived at Lyon College for the first time in 1983, he was told that Batesville had a population of about 10,000. More than three decades later, it still does.

The population may be the only thing stagnant in the seat of Independence County. Fresh eyes, strategic planning, youthful energy and cold, hard cash are shaking up a college town on the jagged edge of the Ozarks that is burdened with many of the same challenges as the Delta that’s just minutes away.

“We know what a diamond in the rough we are,” Robb Roberts, executive vice president of locally owned First Community Bank and chairman of the Batesville Area Chamber of Commerce, said last week.

There are signs of change all over town. In the historic downtown of the state’s oldest city:

• The historic Melba Theater reopened last month in the 100 block of West Main Street;
• A block to the east, build-out is in full swing on an honest-to-goodness bar and lounge called 109 Main — a private club that will remain so since a dry-to-wet initiative failed to get on the November ballot;
• The first new building on Main Street in decades, The Pinto restaurant, opened for coffee last week and will start serving full meals this week; and
• The Batesville Public Library is preparing to quadruple its size by moving from a 112-year-old building on Main Street to a building a couple of blocks west that is a year older.

On the south side of town, near the White River that first brought settlers to the area, a state-of-the-art treatment facility that was dedicated in June doubled the city's maxed-out wastewater capacity, creating the opportunity to expand the poultry industry that has been an industrial mainstay.

And a sprawling $28 million community center and water park — what Mayor Rick Elumbaugh called the "sexy" project — should be complete by year's end.

Some of these projects were well underway by the time the Batesville Chamber rolled out a strategic plan called "Impact Independence County," a 40-page wish list (PDF) that was the result of blanketing the county with surveys. The strategic plan for economic development, tourism, educational excellence and healthy living was the brainchild of last year's chamber chairman, Phil Baldwin.

Baldwin moved to Independence County at the end of 2013 to execute growth plans for Citizens Bank, the smaller of the two Batesville-chartered banks. The former CEO of Southern Bancorp of Arkadelphia, a rural development bank with nonprofit affiliates, had used similar tools to create a strategic plan for Clark County and the Delta Bridge Project for Phillips and Mississippi counties in Arkansas and Coahoma County, Mississippi.

Without hiring a consultant but with models from other communities, the chamber partnered with Lyon College, where Weatherman returned as president in 2009, and the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville to produce the strategic plan. (See Education a Cornerstone of Batesville's Strategic Plan.)

Before the ideas were committed to paper, "There wasn't really any vision for the community," said Crystal Johnson, the chamber's president and CEO. Now community leaders refer to Impact the way preachers refer to the Good Book, and it helped the chamber win a two-part grant totaling $67,000 from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation of Little Rock.

That money, in turn, is being divided into "mini-grants" to organizations that pledge to use the money to benefit low- and moderate-income residents, which are targeted by many of the 168 goals included in the Impact plan.

The goals are "all very achievable by 2020," Johnson said, and some of them have already been achieved. For example: hiring someone to promote tourism, something Johnson and chamber COO Jamie Rayford don’t have time to do as well as it needs to be done.

The Batesville Area Chamber receives no tax dollars and the city does not (yet) have a local-option advertising and promotion tax, but Kyle Christopher was hired two months ago as tourism director with seed money from a fundraiser at the chamber's annual meeting.

While other parts of Arkansas have been laser-focused on promoting their attractions, Batesville hasn't even had a brochure available at state tourism information centers.

"That's such a little thing," Weatherman said, "but it's a thousand little things."

Private Investments

Citizens Bank announced in April a $10 million, low-interest loan program specifically for investments in downtown Batesville. It also set aside $100,000 for small grants of about $5,000 each, and six of those have been made so far.

One was used to replace windows in the 231 E. Main St. building that houses Elizabeth’s Restaurant & Catering. One paid for the patio seating at The Pinto, the new rock building that Haley and Brice Stephens built from scratch on the vacant southeast corner of Main Street and Central Avenue with help from local architect Zack Mobley.

“We’ve been talking about this for probably 10 years,” Haley said last Monday, the last day of preparation before the soft opening.

The Pinto will compete with Big’s, a lunch spot directly across Main Street, where business has picked up since Joe and Janelle Shell and Mandi and Adam Curtwright put $650,000 and almost as much in sweat equity into reopening The Melba a half-block away.

The theater — exact age unclear, Joe Shell said — opened with a black-tie screening of “The Wizard of Oz” on Aug. 12. The Melba had been in almost continual operation since the 1940s, when its few African-American patrons had to use a separate entrance to climb stairs to the segregated balcony, but it had been closed for several months when the Shells and Curtwrights bought it in March 2015.

With the help of John Greer Jr. of WER Architects of Little Rock, the new owners tackled a labor-intensive renovation that included reupholstering the 414 orchestra seats. Janelle Shell’s father sanded and refinished every wooden armrest, a gleam that competes with the brass plates on the chair backs from a community fundraiser for the project called “Save Your Seat.”

Cliff Brown, who works for Baldwin at Citizens Bank, has teamed up with Chintan Patel, owner of the U.S. Pizza franchise in Batesville, to open 109 Main. Brown said he hoped the bar and lounge, modeled after places the partners visited in bigger cities, would help kickstart nightlife in Batesville.

Brown and Patel chose one of the last vacant storefronts on historic Main, which is being narrowed to a single westbound lane in order to slow traffic. But the hopes of city boosters were smashed last month when a petition to put a dry-to-wet initiative on the November ballot failed by fewer than 400 signatures.

Under a 2015 state law that also frustrated efforts in Randolph County, one invalid signature can disqualify an entire page of voter signatures. (Among the signatures thus invalidated in Independence County: Mayor Elumbaugh’s and that of Robb Roberts, the chamber chairman.)

Public Investments

The wastewater treatment plant that was completed earlier this year had been in the works since a 1 percent sales tax was approved by city voters in 2009, creating vast new capacity for industrial users.

But wastewater holding ponds aren’t as sexy as the “lazy river” water feature at the new community center whose delayed opening is now expected by yearend.

“Nobody ever asked me when the treatment plant would be finished, but people ask me all the time when the community center will be ready,” Mayor Elumbaugh said.

The community center — 105,000 SF under roof, plus a 40,000-SF water park — was designed by ETC Engineers of Little Rock, and the contractor is G.A.G. Builders of Cabot. The gymnasium, big enough for three basketball courts or six volleyball games, can also be used for trade shows or banquets, and that will take some of the pressure off the UA Community College, the go-to place for large gatherings in Batesville.

The community center — Batesville Parks & Recreation Director Jeff Owens says naming rights are still available — is being paid for by a dedicated 1 percent sales tax approved by voters in 2012, half of which will sunset after paying for the construction.

The Batesville Public Library, supported by a 1-mill property tax, got a new director in April, Vanessa Adams. She is overseeing the move from a 5,000-SF historic building on Main Street to a 21,000-SF space being renovated down the street.

The library is among the recipients of a mini-grant from the Rockefeller Foundation: $3,750 for three computers for use by children.

The library currently has five computers, and Adams says it needs about 20. The new space will have room for more computers, programs, even book club meetings.

Younger Residents

Crystal Johnson said Batesville’s stagnant population — not dwindling like many communities in the Delta to the east but not growing like Conway or northwest Arkansas — was a “call to action.”

But the area is already attracting newer residents, like Baldwin and chamber director Carter Ford, a former aide to Gov. Mike Beebe who has opened a State Farm insurance agency in Batesville. Natives are also returning, like the Stephenses at The Pinto and Johnson’s husband, Damon.

The younger faculty members that Weatherman recruits to Lyon College like the idea of living in the historic houses downtown, where many of the residents are under 50.

“Almost every single week, a new millenial family moves to Batesville,” Ford said. “To find arts, to find diversity, you have to move to a large city — Impact proved that wrong,” Ford said.

Little Rock developer Philip Herrington recently filed a Chapter 11 reorganization for one of his developments in Oklahoma City.

The twist in this case is that Herrington is acting as the attorney for Gaillardia Brownstones I LLC in its bankruptcy proceeding.

Herrington isn’t an attorney but is the managing member of Gaillardia Development Co., which is the managing member of the LLC. His legal moves quickly drew an objection from Acting U.S. Trustee Daniel Casamatta.

He pointed out that an individual had the right to represent himself in court. “However, the statute does not permit an unlicensed layman to represent anyone else other than themselves,” Casamatta said in the motion to dismiss. “Therefore, a layperson may not represent a corporation, limited liability company or partnership even if that person is the sole stockholder, member or partner.”

Casamatta wanted the case dismissed. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Little Rock in front of Judge Richard D. Taylor.

Herrington didn’t immediately return messages for comment Thursday. But in the initial filings for Gaillardia Brownstones, Herrington listed the unsecured claims at $1.1 million. The total estimated debts are listed at between $1 million and $10 million, the same range as the estimated assets.

As you know, Herrington also has a personal Chapter 11 bankruptcy pending. In March, Herrington, who is represented by attorney Kevin P. Keech of Little Rock, filed for Chapter 11 and listed $13.45 million in debts and only $5.1 million in assets.

Casamatta has asked that that case be converted from reorganization to Chapter 7 liquidation. A hearing on Casamatta’s motion is set for Oct. 4 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Little Rock in front of Judge Ben Barry.

FAYETTEVILLE - The University of Arkansas has announced the start of a fundraising campaign that officials hope will raise $1 billion.

The university said in a news release that the money raised by Campaign Arkansas would be used to support academics, including scholarships and fellowships, endowed chairs, interdisciplinary academic programs and capital projects that include renovation of existing facilities.

UA Chancellor Joe Steinmetz said that without increases in state funding, private fundraising is needed to support the programs and projects.

UA System Board of Trustees Chairman Reynie Rutledge, who is president of First Security Bancorp. of Searcy, will chair the Campaign Arkansas Steering Committee.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

If you're considering selling commercial property or trading up on a second home, you should consider a like-kind exchange.

A like-kind exchange under United States tax law, also known as a 1031 exchange, is a transaction or series of transactions that allows for the disposal of an asset and the acquisition of another replacement asset without generating a current tax liability from the sale of the first asset. In other words, no gain or loss is recognized.

In a like-kind exchange, the basis of the property received is the basis of the property transferred decreased by any cash received and any loss recognized on the exchange and increased by any cash or other consideration paid and any gain recognized on the exchange.

For a transaction to qualify for non-recognition treatment under the like-kind exchange rules, the following requirements must be met:

• Exchange requirement: A transaction is an exchange where there is a reciprocal transfer of property between two or more taxpayers. The use of some boot (money or other non-like-kind property) does not destroy the exchange requirement. Receipt of boot will trigger partial recognition of gain.
• Like-kind property: Property that the taxpayer exchanges must be of like kind to the property that the taxpayer receives. "Like kind" refers to the nature or character of the property, and not to its grade or quality. Real properties (land) generally are of like kind, regardless of whether the properties are improved or unimproved. However, real property in the United States and real property outside the United States are not like-kind properties.
• Business or investment property: Both the property given and the property received must be held for productive use in a trade or business. For the purposes of the like-kind exchange rules, whether a property is held for investment or for use in a trade or business is determined by the taxpayer's intent at the time of the exchange. Incidental or occasional personal use of otherwise qualifying property does not disqualify the property from like-kind treatment.
• Excluded property:Neither the exchange property nor the replacement property can be stock, bonds, notes, inventory or other assets held primarily for sale, debt securities, partnership interests, beneficial interests in a trust, or goodwill and going concern value.
  • Related party rule: In general, an exchange of like-kind property can qualify for non-recognition treatment even when the exchange is between related parties. However, an otherwise properly executed like-kind exchange may fail to qualify for non-recognition treatment if either of the properties exchanged is subsequently disposed of within two years of the exchange.

In general, a deferred exchange of property will qualify for non-recognition treatment as a like-kind exchange if the following additional requirements are met:

• The property to be received by the taxpayer must be identified on or before the 45th day after the day the taxpayer transferred his property; and
• The property must actually be received by the taxpayer by the earlier of:
  • the 180th day after the taxpayer transferred his property; or
  • the due date (including extensions) for the taxpayer's return for the year in which the taxpayer transferred the original property.

(Written by Deborah Lawrence, CPA & Principle at Bell & Company, PA.)

Arkansas' August unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.9 percent, according to a report Tuesday by the state Department of Workforce Services.

The report said the state's civilian labor force declined by 1,520 jobs, the result of 1,787 fewer employed and 267 more employed Arkansans. The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in August.

"The unemployment rate in Arkansas remained stable this month, as did the national unemployment rate," said Susan Price, the Bureau of Labor Statistics program operations manager. "While jobless rates in Arkansas and the U.S. were both at 5.1 percent in August 2015, Arkansas has declined at a faster pace. We are now one full percentage point lower than the national rate."

More: Click here (PDF) to view the complete report.

Arkansas' unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in August 2015, with 1.33 million people in the civilian labor force. This year, that number has grown by more than 24,000 to 1.35 million. 

This year's labor force number includes 53,170 unemployed Arkansans, down by more than 14,000 from last August. The number of employed Arkansans has risen to 1.3 million, up by more than 38,000 from August 2015.

The report said that since August 2015, nonfarm payrolls in Arkansas grew by 16,900, with eight industry sectors showing growth and three showing declines:

• Professional and business services increased by 7,600, the majority in administrative and support services, a subsector that includes employment agencies. 
• Educational and health services added 6,400 jobs, mostly in health care and social assistance. 
• Employment in trade, transportation and utilities rose by 3,400, with the most gains in retail trade. 
• Leisure and hospitality increased by 1,600, with accommodation and food services accounting for a majority of the gains. 
• Manufacturing decreased by 1,800, with losses in durable goods offsetting gains in nondurable goods. 
• Mining and logging declined by 1,300 due to layoffs and closures. 

LAS VEGAS - A coalition of 21 states sued the U.S. Department of Labor Tuesday over a new rule that would make about 4 million higher-earning workers eligible for overtime pay, slamming the measure as inappropriate federal overreach from the Obama Administration.

Republican Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Eastern Texas, urging it to block implementation before the regulation takes effect on Dec. 1. Laxalt, a frequent critic of President Barack Obama's policies, said the rule would burden private and public sectors by straining budgets and forcing layoffs or cuts in working hours.

"This rule, pushed by distant bureaucrats in D.C., tramples on state and local government budgets, forcing states to shift money from other important programs to balance their budgets, including programs intended to protect the very families that purportedly benefit from such federal overreach," he said in a statement.

Labor Department officials did not immediately respond to telephone and emailed requests seeking comment.

The measure would shrink the so-called "white collar exemption" that exempts workers who perform "executive, administrative or professional" duties from overtime and minimum wage requirements.

It would more than double the salary threshold under which employers must pay overtime to their white collar workers. Overtime protections would apply to workers who make up to $913 a week, or $47,476 a year, and the threshold would readjust every three years to reflect changes in average wages.

"This long-awaited update will result in a meaningful boost to many workers' wallets, and will go a long way toward realizing President Obama's commitment to ensuring every worker is compensated fairly for their hard work," the Labor Department said in May when it announced the new rule.

Business groups say the changes are too much and too fast, especially as states continue to recover from the recession.

"We believe that many employers across our state and the country_large and small alike_will not be able to meet the high cost of these ongoing rate changes, and as a result, will be forced to curtail hiring or even lay off employees," said Kristin McMillan, president of the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Other plaintiffs include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

The Eastern Texas district where the lawsuit was filed is known as a "rocket docket" court where cases move along quickly.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

The vacancy rate on commercial property in northwest Arkansas is 12.7 percent, up from 12.4 percent in the second half of 2015, according to the Arvest Bank's Skyline Reports for the first six months of 2016.

Released Tuesday, the reports on commercial and multifamily real estate also said new construction added 462,563 SF of commercial space in northwest Arkansas during the first half of 2016 while 474,410 SF of existing space became occupied, netting a positive absorption of 11,847 SF.

Almost all the new retail space added to the market was immediately absorbed, according to Kathy Deck, lead researcher for the Skyline Report and director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

More: See the reports on commercial construction and multifamily real estate in northwest Arkansas.

The absorbed space resulted in a dip in the retail vacancy rate to 9.2 percent. Meanwhile, no new construction added space to the warehouse submarket but the submarket vacancy rate from 11.5 percent at the end of 2015 to 8 percent at the end of June.

"We have been seeing increased consumer optimism in northwest Arkansas and the state in general…" said Chris Thornton, loan manager and executive vice president of Arvest Bank in Springdale. "As consumers feel more confident in spending and buying, businesses are readying themselves to provide the goods and services consumers are looking for."

From Jan. 1 to June 30, there were $206.5 million in commercial building permits issued in northwest Arkansas, an increase from the $112.8 million in commercial building permits issued in the last half of 2015.

Vacancy rates in multifamily real estate remain at dramatically low levels despite substantial building activity in the region. The overall vacancy rate for the northwest Arkansas market during the first half of 2016 was 2.4 percent.

More: Millennials drive a boom in Arkansas' apartment market.

Rogers had the largest year-over-year increase in vacancy rates, up to 5 percent in the first half of 2016 from 0.9 percent in the first half of 2015. Fayetteville experienced the largest year-over-year decrease in vacancy rates with 2.7 percent in the first half of 2016 from 3.6 percent in the first half of 2015.

The average monthly lease price for a multifamily property unit increased to $608.88 in the first half of 2016 from $601.43 in the second half of 2015.

"Since 2011, average lease prices for multifamily units have increased 14.8 percent across the region," Deck said. "While the average price has increased to $608.88, the median lease price has remained somewhat steadier at $550."

More than 6,200 rental units have been announced or under construction in new multifamily projects across northwest Arkansas. 

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is keeping its key interest rate unchanged but signaling that it will likely raise rates before year's end.

(Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Arkansas Business and the Best Companies Group on Wednesday honored 29 Arkansas companies with "Best Places to Work" awards, which honor firms that have exceptional workplace environments.

Among the winners was United Federal Credit Union, which received the 2016 Benchmark Award, given to the company whose workplace goes above and beyond in offering employee benefits, professional development programs and other perks.

The Michigan-based institution operates five locations in Alma, Fort Smith, Van Buren and Springdale. In 2015, the company reported over $2 billion in assets, $17.5 million in income and 140,000 total members.

"That would not happen without a satisfied workforce that advocates for us and the goods and services we offer," Noel Andrew Sanger, the company's market vice president, said of the its growth. "As the Arkansas market vice president, I follow two guiding principles: 'Leadership takes care of the team and the team takes care of the member,' and 'Teamwork divides the task but doubles the success.'"

UFCU’s focus on the employee has driven turnover to just 6 percent in the Arkansas region, well below national turnover rates of between 15 and 22 percent. Sanger credits operational elements that address its 49 local employees as individuals first as one big reason why.

Award winners are determined by a set of criteria set forth in the Best Places program, through which companies survey their employees about workplace satisfaction, corporate culture and company leadership. This year's honorees were recognized at a luncheon at the Embassy Suites Little Rock.

The event recognized two other companies as overall "Best Places to Work" in the small and large company categories.

Saatchi & Saatchi X of Springdale, an advertising firm, won in the small company category. 

"We transcend fun to make this a joyful place to work," said Jessica Hill, the firm's talent director. "We celebrate every success, birthday and anniversary. We have a committee that finds different ways for us to give back to the community; we've held fundraising events and internal games or competitions to raise money, as well as donating our time. Additionally, we have a secret committee called X-Files that creatively executes fun activities throughout the year."

Amid the entertainment value of crawfish boils, Halloween costume contests and charity Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, the company is also achieving important team building benefits that show up most clearly during times of stress.

Rockfish, a digital media agency founded in Rogers in 2006, won in the large company category. 

The firm, with offices in Little Rock, Dallas, Cincinnati and Atlanta, marked its fourth consecutive year as a Best Place to Work honoree. Lisa Bridgers, senior vice president for talent acquisition and human resources, said Rockfish wants its employees to do their best in the office and at home. 

This year, the company deliberately focused on employees' overall well-being. The goal was a happier, healthier and more productive workplace.

Other winners for Best Place to Work in the small category were:

• Braswell & Son Pawnbrokers
• C.R. Crawford Construction LLC
• Clark Contractors
• Delta Dental of Arkansas
• Harrison Energy Partners
• Kimbel Mechanical Systems
• Optus Inc.
• Perks.com
• Rainwater Holt & Sexton PA
• RevUnit
• Team SI
• The Good Earth Garden Center
• Travel Nurse across America LLC
• WELSCO Inc.

Other winners for Best Place to Work in the large category were:

• ABC Financial Services Inc.
• Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
• Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.
• Arkansas Federal Credit Union
• CaseStack
• City of Siloam Springs
• Delta Plastics
• Rockfish
• Rural Sourcing Inc.
• St. Bernards Medical Center
• Total Quality Logistics
• United Federal Credit Union
• USAble Life
• VCC LLC

More information about the Best Places to work program, including profiles of each company and how to register for next year's program, is available here.

Brandon Woodrome, a northwest Arkansas real estate developer, has pleaded guilty to one count each of bank fraud and wire fraud, according to Kenneth Elser, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas.

The move comes after a two-count federal information was filed against Woodrome, 28, charging him for his role in a scheme to defraud First Western Bank in Fort Smith and Rioux Capital of Austin, Texas. 

A sentencing date has not been set. 

Arkansas Business wrote about Rioux Capital's accusations against Woodrome in May. Rioux made the charges in connection to Woodrome's personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy case.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Woodrome owned and operated a construction business in Fort Smith called Behr LLC. In 2014, he obtained a $795,000 construction loan at First Western Bank to fund the purchase of land and build a medical clinic and strip center in Fort Smith. The loan agreement required him to submit invoices for work the subcontractors had completed. 

Prosecutors say Woodrome "created and submitted fraudulent invoices that contained material misrepresentations about construction work he knew had not been done by subcontractors to First Western Bank for payment."  The bank issued cashier's checks based on the invoices; Woodrome received more than $300,000 from First Western between November and December 2014 for the fraudulent invoices he had submitted, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

Prosecutors say Woodrome also defrauded Rioux Capital of about $1.8 million by submitting fraudulent invoices by email.

Judge P.K. Holmes III accepted the guilty plea Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Fort Smith.

Allied Bank of Mulberry was closed late Friday afternoon by state and federal regulators, and its five branches will reopen for "normal business hours" as branches of Today's Bank of Huntsville.

The action comes almost six weeks after the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis gave Allied 30 days to either inject equity capital into the "critically undercapitalized" bank or find a buyer. The receiver was announced jointly by the Arkansas State Bank Department and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Today's Bank entered into a purchase agreement to assume all of Allied's deposits and to purchase essentially all its assets, the regulators said. As of June 30, Allied Bank had approximately $66.3 million in total assets and $64.7 million in total deposits.

Bad loans have battered Allied for more than five years and eroded its tier one capital to $1.3 million as of June 30. Its capital ratio of 1.8 percent during the second quarter was the lowest of all financial institutions in Arkansas.

The bank lost nearly $4.5 million through the first six months of 2016. Allied has lost more than $17.7 million since 2011. The bank's inability to generate dividends prompted the April 2014 bankruptcy of its parent company, Acme Holding Co.

The bank had been under the control of bankruptcy trustee Ray Fulmer of Fort Smith. The family of former Allied CEO Lex Golden controls Allied Bank and Acme Holding.

"Customers of Allied Bank should continue to use their existing branch until they receive notice from Today's Bank that it has completed systems changes to allow other Today's Bank branches to process their accounts as well," the announcement said.

This evening and over the weekend, depositors of Allied Bank can access their money by writing checks or using ATM or debit cards. Checks drawn on the bank will continue to be processed. Loan customers should continue to make their payments as usual.

Full details are available on the FDIC website.

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be $6.9 million. Allied Bank is the fifth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year and the first in Arkansas since First Southern Bank at Batesville was shuttered in December 2010.

Today's Bank had been considered a possible acquirer of Allied Bank since early in the bankruptcy, which originated as a Chapter 11 reorganization. 

Known as First State Bank of Northwest Arkansas until 2014, Today's Bank had assets of $116 million and equity capital of $17.4 million as of June 30. It reported net income of $1.08 million for the first half of the year, exceeding the $1.07 million it earned for the full year of 2015.

Today's Bank has five branches: two each in Huntsville and Fayetteville and one in Springdale.

Allied's office are in Mulberry, Alma, Ozark, Mansfield and Little Rock (5701 Kavanaugh Blvd.).

The potential value of the Community First Bancshares Inc. sale has climbed to more than $77 million since the deal was announced two months ago.

Shares in publicly traded Equity Bancshares Inc. of Wichita are now trading at near $25, which has pushed the stock component of the transaction to nearly $67 million. Equity’s pending acquisition of Community First includes $10.1 million in cash.

The deal for the parent company of Harrison’s Community First Bank was valued at $68.5 million in July. At the time, that represented a tangible book value multiple of 1.58, which has increased to 1.77.

The three biggest Community First investors benefiting from this favorable stock movement are Thomas Miller of Harrison, and Kirkwood and Cynthia Dupps of Eureka Springs.

Miller holds a 6.31 percent stake, worth $4.8 million; Kirkwood Dupps has a 4.6 percent stake worth $3.5 million; and Cynthia Dupps owns a 3.29 percent share worth $2.5 million.

The transaction represents the first Arkansas deal for the $1.5 billion-asset Equity. Community First’s prime holding is its $495 million-asset bank.

Two holding company assets aren’t part of the deal:

• Mobius Technology Consulting, a small data processing and management consulting firm in Springfield, Missouri, that Community First has held a stake in since 2005.
• A 23 percent piece of White River Bancshares Co., parent company of the $500 million-asset Signature Bank of Fayetteville, valued at $8.2 million in the merger agreement.

Two Community First directors will join the Equity board of directors. They are Jerry Maland, a former McDonald’s franchisee in Harrison, Berryville and Eureka Springs, and Dan Bowers, a Harrison lawyer.

Class of 1997

And then there were two.

The sale of First Community Bank will leave only two members from the Arkansas De Novo Class of 1997: $1.1 billion-asset First Community Bank of Batesville, chartered on Aug. 4, and $145.6 million-asset The Capital Bank of Little Rock, chartered on Sept. 8.

Gone but not forgotten are Pinnacle Bank of Little Rock (chartered on Jan. 27), Alliance Bank of Hot Springs (chartered on May 5) and River Valley Bank of Russellville (chartered Aug. 5). The trio sold in separate transactions in successive years.

The $127.8 million-asset Pinnacle Bank was the first to go in 2002. It sold shortly after the expiration of the five-year regulatory restriction governing new bank charter transactions.

BancorpSouth Inc. of Tupelo, Mississippi, paid about $21.2 million for Pinnacle.

The sale of the $54 million-asset River Valley Bank followed in 2003. Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks Inc. acquired the lender for $7.1 million in cash and stock.

Completing the series was the 2004 sale of the $155 million-asset Alliance Bank. Pine Bluff’s Simmons First National Corp. bought the lender for $25.7 million in cash and stock and transformed it into Simmons First Bank of Hot Springs.

Community First was the last of the Class of 1997 chartered, opening for business on Oct. 30.

Community First Bank, Harrison

(As of June 30)
All dollars in thousands.
Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Last week in this space I wrote about what the egregious corporate behavior of Wells Fargo Bank does to innocent competitors in the banking industry, especially the little banks that must meet most of the same expensive regulatory hurdles even though they couldn’t execute anything on that level if they wanted to.

But Wells Fargo had other victims, so I’m going to say a few more things about this scandal while it’s on my mind, even though it may seem like piling on to the few Wells Fargo employees in Arkansas. If the second-largest bank in the country can operate a scam for five years, I can harp on it for two weeks.

The customers — at least 1.5 million of them — whose personal information was used to create accounts they didn’t want, need or request were also victims. Oh, they didn’t lose much money — only a fraction of the customers were ever charged bogus fees, and Wells Fargo made them whole with refunds averaging $25.

But here’s something that I never considered even though I think of myself as more financially literate than most: Those unauthorized accounts — checking accounts and credit cards, mostly — could reflect negatively on the unsuspecting customer’s credit score, and that could cost them far more for far longer.

“Yes, we pull a credit bureau [report] for each one of these cards,” Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf acknowledged when pressed by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., during a grilling by the Senate Banking Committee last week.

And here’s another thing I never considered: Even if customers figured out what was happening to them, there wasn’t much they could do about it. That’s because Wells Fargo, like many other corporate giants, tucks a forced arbitration clause into every contract, preventing the peons from filing public lawsuits individually or collectively.

A helpful reader called my attention to commentary about this by a couple of consumer advocates, Robert Weissman of Public Citizen and Lisa Donner of Americans for Financial Reform, that appeared last week in The Hill, an influential Washington political newspaper:

“The problem isn’t just that aggrieved consumers don’t have access to a remedy. Keeping cases out of court means abuses are kept out of the spotlight.

“That’s exactly what happened with Wells Fargo, and why the abuses could go on so long.”

Now, that may sound very clever to business readers who tend to be sympathetic to a company just trying to make a buck … or 20 billion. But, ironically, I was reminded that big shots were also Wells Fargo’s victims as I sweated through a YouTube video of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Flamethrower, scorching Stumpf.

Warren was mainly talking about the self-serving corporate culture that spawned the phony account fiasco: While most banks’ customers average fewer than three accounts, Wells Fargo set a goal of eight accounts for each customer because, Warren quoted from the 2010 annual report, “eight rhymes with great.”

It was such a ridiculous goal, based on linguistics rather than an identified market demand, that low-level customer service reps resorted to fraud in order to keep their crummy jobs. They would be fired when caught — more than 5,300 of them over the years.

But did Wells Fargo acknowledge the faulty incentive structure and back off the account quota that was making desperados out of thousands of employees? Au contraire!

In 12 consecutive quarterly conference calls in 2012-14, Stumpf “personally cited Wells Fargo’s success at cross-selling retail accounts as one of the main reasons to buy more stock in the company,” Warren scolded.

And ticker symbol WFC did rise more than $30 a share during the years that the phony cross-selling was being incentivized, then punished and then bragged about, making Wells Fargo the most valuable banking company in the country. That added about $200 million to Stumpf’s personal net worth, so he’s clearly not a victim.

But everyone who bought the stock based on those representations was suckered, in part because the arbitration clause kept the truth under wraps. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Sept. 7 that Wells Fargo had agreed to pay fines totaling $185 million, a relative pittance, but over the next few days the company’s value slid by almost 10 percent —$20 billion, give or take. (And that’s before we learn how many customers decide to take their real accounts — one or two or eight of them — to a bank that hasn’t proven that it cannot be trusted.)

Several class-action lawyers are already eagerly seeking out Wells Fargo stockholders as plaintiffs. They don’t seem to think investors who have been rooked can be forced to arbitrate.

Gwen Moritz is editor of Arkansas Business. Email her at GMoritz@ABPG.com.