Community First Bancshares Price Tag Rises to $77M In Equity Deal

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.