ANB Introduces ?Bucks Buggy?

Mobile ATM earns parking rights to Razorbacks games

It’s an automated teller machine of a different color that Arkansas National Bank is introducing next.

Actually, the machine is adorned with multiple colors and its formal name is the “Mobile ATM.” But even before its arrival in Northwest Arkansas, the new ATM-in-a-van was collecting numerous nicknames: Bucks Buggy, The Bread Truck and Dough to Go, for a few.

Nat Bothwell, president of ANB Online, credits the bank’s president, Dan Dykema, with the idea.

“Dan and I have kind of a unique relationship. He’ll come up with off-the-wall ideas” and then it’s up to Bothwell to see whether those ideas will fly. “This one actually panned out,” Bothwell says of the mobile ATM.

Putting an ATM on wheels isn’t easy. The project, six months in the making at a cost of about $75,000, requires serious customizing of a Ford Econoline van, including work on the van’s suspension, wiring and installing adequate security.

Bothwell was bound for Reno, Nev., recently to check out the work and was arranging for transportation for the van back to Arkansas. Once here, Arkansas National Bank has a contract with the University of Arkansas that guarantees it choice parking places at Razorbacks football, basketball and baseball games.

“We wanted to expand our ATM services and we wanted to do that creatively,” Bothwell says. The mobile ATM will allow Arkansas National to have a presence at many of those one-day or one-weekend activities, including craft fairs and golf tournaments, but without the expense of a bricks-and-mortar building.

“It doesn’t make sense to put a permanent $50,000 machine anchored in the grass somewhere that’s busy only one weekend of the year,” Bothwell explains.

Before purchasing the van, however, bank officials made sure they had a marketing agreement with the University of Arkansas. In addition to being a sponsor at various athletic events, the bank is also a sponsor of the athletic department’s web site, Hogwired.com.

Bothwell says a few other much larger banks, including Wells Fargo, Hibernia and Bank of America, have mobile ATMs. But, he says, “I think this is really a first for this area and a first for a bank our size.”

As for security, Dykema and Bothwell are satisfied their van has it. They don’t anticipate trouble getting volunteer drivers from the bank staff for weekend duty at Razorback games either since the driver gets a ticket for the event.

Unique sites, II

Also on the subject of unique branch locals is Bank of Fayetteville, first in the market, as well as the nation, with a branch built inside retired railroad cars. The branch, located on Fayetteville’s Dickson Street, remains popular with customers and sightseers alike.

Currently, the bank has two additional branches under way with opening dates scheduled for next year.

Both are attractive, but neither incorporates the train theme — despite the fact that the bank has one more train car in its possession.

John Lewis, chairman and CEO, says the bank has been discussing with the Fayetteville School District the possibility of using that car as a computer kiosk. It’s an all-steel caboose that would definitely be secure as well as adding a distinctive ambience to the classroom.

As for the bank’s other two branch projects, the east side location contains about 3,200 SF while the west branch has 3,300 SF.

Arvest Bank Group buys Little Rock bank

Over the past year, the owners of P&W Bancshares Inc., the holding company for Central Bank & Trust Co. in Little Rock, considered several suitors.

Robert M. Wilson Sr. and the family of the late George Pitts pondered a sale to Bank of Oklahoma and public companies First United Bancshares Inc. of El Dorado, Bank of the Ozarks Inc. of Little Rock and Union Planters Corp. of Memphis.

But an all-cash offer that came about Aug. 10 from Arvest Bank Group Inc. of Bentonville was “too good not to take,” says Bryan Pitts, the oldest child of George Pitts. George Pitts bought the remains of Jim McDougal’s Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan in 1990 with Wilson and changed its name to Central Bank & Trust.

“We have done a lot of participations with Arvest over the last three years,” Bryan Pitts says. “We’ve had such a great relationship with them that it just seemed like a perfect fit. Ron Strother [Central Bank’s chairman and chief executive officer] and Bill Roehrenbeck [Central’s president] have been friends with most of those guys up at Arvest for some time. We’ve had some discussions in the past, and this last time we felt like it was the right time.”

Neither Pitts nor Roehrenbeck would reveal the price Arvest is offering P&W Bancshares, which includes Central Mortgage Co. But P&W’s book value is about $8 million. At 2.5 times book value, that would put the deal at about $20 million.

The reason the deal is for cash is because Arvest, a private company, is almost 100 percent owned by the family of the late Sam Walton and doesn’t offer stock in its company for a purchase.

No one at Arvest wanted to talk about the purchase, but one insider familiar with the Waltons’ banking operation says, “It is obvious that Central is a small bank in a large market and has a limited number of locations to cover a large geographic area.”

“Arvest’s history has been to expand by both new branches and acquisitions where the market opportunity is good,” the insider says. “The availability of other banks to purchase is up to the ownership of those banks.”