Bank of the Ozarks of Little Rock said Tuesday that it has completed a corporate reorganization that merged Bank of the Ozarks Inc., the bank's parent holding company, with its bank, which continues as the surviving corporation.
The publicly traded firm said eliminating the holding company will create "a more efficient corporate structure," and that its operations, directors and executive officers will not change.
The Arkansas-chartered bank, the state's largest by assets, replaces Bank of the Ozarks Inc. as the publicly-traded entity. Shareholders of the holding company automatically became shareholders of the bank, and the company's common stock continues to trade on the Nasdaq under the "OZRK" symbol.
Greg McKinney, the bank's chief financial officer, describe the restructuring in an April 11 conference call.
"This proposal is intended to further improve our efficiency by eliminating redundant corporate infrastructure and the associated duplicative federal regulatory oversight," he said. "We have studied this for several months, and we expect the elimination of our holding company will have substantial benefits and no material adverse impact on our combined company, shareholders, customers or employees."