Roger Brown is retiring from the bank board and the bank is looking for a buyer. Wow. End of an era. Banks were hit hard in the recession — three years ago we were writing about how successful local banks were. This is what everybody has been predicting, but confirmation didn't come until now.
I know HNB gets flack for trying to push its weight around and, frankly, the people behind it being targets of jealously, but the bank has been a tremendous contributor to local causes and events. It's role in the community can't be questioned. You might have disagreed with some of it - like not being a Cowley First funder — but the contribution to the community is there.
Hopefully, whatever happens, that will remain the case to some degree.
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6 comments:
When Mr Brown (Bob) pasted away, the era died. HNB stopped being a local bank when they opened up the Northsite Branch in Scottsdale, AZ 10 years ago, and they moved all the management positions there in 2006. Now the question will be, will the existing Board of Directors be able to sell off the bank before the FDIC comes in and shuts them down, and force a sale. Any bank that buys them will chop them up into little pieces, down-size them. My bet will be Arvest from the south, or Emprise from the north will take them, and unload all the AZ branches, as the KS/OK branches are the only branches keeping them afloat right now.
Lisa Roberts, of the marketing dept. at Home National Bank, stopped by Friday to answer questions about HNB and rumors that the Brown family, Roger and Trent, were no longer active directors of the bank.
NOT TRUE, says Lisa. Both are still on the board and involved in the operations of the bank.
A good example of when SPIN doesn't work!
AND
That is usually the case when it's not all the TRUTH!
Emprise from the north will take them
Rumor has it that Intrust is already involved to some degree!
Anonymous said...
April 28, 2010 3:18 PM
What makes you think anyone will buy HNb for the purpose fo keeping them in SC Ks and NC Ok. Specifically, Cowley County has a glut of banks on a per capita basis.
We would be best served if other local banks acquired their assets AND OBLIGATIONS. USB and Corner would be more stable versus the Credit Unions in the county that way.
Another deep pockets bank will strain banking resources here. The margins will be diminished and the community presence we have known for years which was first through the Docking bank, then to HNB and gradually back to USB now is more likely to continue with one less bank in the mix.
I think Corner Bank is about ready to grow into a nice sized facility like the current HNB building on Summit and 5th Avenue. Actually, in our most economically vibrant days - 60's and 70's - we were serviced by two banks and a cuople of S&L's. The old Rodeo credit union was a safety net for packinghouse labor force with marginal credit.
Our economy shrank and our bank census grew. It was bound to happen. Just took some folks from Az and an economic implosion to accelerate it.
After the commercial and residential housing bust in AZ, the KS/OK branches are the only ones profitable. Plus Emprise/Intrust does not have a presence in Cowley Co. It would a prime opportunity to put one in place. Same goes for Arvest; this gives them a stepping stone into the Wichita market.
Has anyone thought of the people who will most likely lose their jobs if a major bank were to take over HNB? Though all of HNB management functions are run out of the AZ main office, almost all of their Operations are run downtown. If a major player comes in, they will not need an Item Processing dept, IT Dept, call center, loan processing center, Trust Dept (you get the point). All these depts together have about 20-25 people employed. All these services will be taken over by the purchasing bank, which already have these services somewhere else. I lived in a town with a large downtown bank like HNB, with a couple of in-town branches. BoA came in, bought them, shutdown the main bank (because they didn't need all those services anymore), and eventually sold it to the city for something like $10k after sitting empty for 5 years.
I think the local banks (Cornerbank and USB) have already contemplated the potential run-off of accounts from HNB if it were to go under (or sold). Increasing deposit accounts causes a bank's numbers to go funny, and is not always a good thing. Cornerbank may not want any new accounts, as they were under an OCC enforcement letter about the same time HNB was, and taking on additional accounts may cause them to be eye-balled a little closer come exam time. USB is state regualted, and I haven't heard anything about their position. Bankrate seems to like them, giving them a 4 star rating, while Cornerbank and HNB are both 1 star, but that is all subjective.
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