George Makris is taking a little breather.
“This is the first time we haven’t had a bank conversion on the schedule in over two years,” the president and CEO of Simmons First National Corp. of Pine Bluff told Whispers last week.
“So our folks are going to enjoy the holidays, and then we’re going to get busy again.”
At the end of last month, Simmons announced that it had completed the acquisition of Ozark Trust & Investment Corp. of Springfield, Missouri.
Makris said that the bank will “continue discussions with other institutions. … We don’t have anything that’s pending today.”
But he said that after the first of the year, “I hope we’re successful.”
In other Simmons news, you might have seen a recent U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission filing concerning a $60 million debt offering.
Makris said the filing was tied to the purchase of Metropolitan National Bank of Little Rock in 2013 for $53.6 million.
“We borrowed the money at that time on a floating rate, three-year period to buy Metropolitan Bank,” he said. “Because of the favorable rates today and the fact that loan demand is not … spectacular, we went back to those banks and said look guys we’d be willing to extend the terms, … fix that rate for a period of time if you guys had an interest. And they did.”
He said the transaction was similar to refinancing and not new money. But he said that the filing was required.
“All that cash is at our holding company, and we would expect if we had any more opportunities for some acquisitions that that cash would be available as part of the purchase price,” Makris said.