A founding family of Batesville’s Citizens Bank has exited the ownership picture in a $13.7 million transaction.
The Doyle Rogers family sold its 25.82 percent stake in the $722 million-asset lender to a descendant of another founding family: poultry pioneer J.K. Southerland.
The specific buyer is the Jeffery F. Teague & Sarah Shell Teague Joint Revocable Trust. Jeff Teague of El Dorado is the chairman of Citizens Bank.
The acquisition builds the Teague family holdings in Citizens Bancshares of Batesville Inc. to 44.39 percent, the largest block of stock.
Doyle “Rog” Rogers Jr. will remain on the board of directors. His late father, Doyle Rogers Sr., helped establish Citizens Bank in 1953.
The Teague-Rogers transaction re-flects a minority-shareholder multiple of about 0.8 times book value as of March 31.
Branching Out I
Citizens Bank intends to expand its south Arkansas footprint with a new branch in Arkadelphia.
The current loan production office at 2710 Pine St. will serve as temporary quarters until replaced by a new full-service location.
“I’m excited because I lived there for 14 years and have a lot of friends there,” said Phil Baldwin, president and CEO of Citizens.
Most of his time in Arkadelphia was spent working at Southern Bancorp Inc. Baldwin joined the rural development bank as its chief financial officer in 2000 and served as president and CEO from 2002-11.
In addition to his familiarity with the market, market flux caused by a $216 million transaction attracted Citizens Bank to Clark County.
That deal was the May 2014 purchase of the $1.2 billion asset Summit Bancorp Inc. of Arkadelphia by Little Rock’s Bank of the Ozarks Inc.
Baldwin hired a team of Summit-Bank of the Ozarks staffers to land disaffected former Summit Bank customers in search of a new banking home.
The recently announced $1 billion Shandong Sun pulp mill plant in the Clark County Industrial Park south of Arkadelphia adds juice to the move by Citizens.
Last year, the bank opened two branches in Hot Springs and one in Fayetteville and gained five more in northwest and southeast Arkansas as part the Parkway Bank acquisition.
Citizens continues on its march toward a total assets goal of $1 billion.