Springdale, Huntsville Banks Merge

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis recently gave its approval to Springdale Bank & Trust to merge with The First National Bank of Huntsville. Springdale Bank & Trust, of course, is a part of Arvest Bank Group, the Walton family-owned banking company.

Buddy Philpot, president of Springdale Bank & Trust, says the merger was planned.

“This was the plan all the time [to merge the two banks].” With approval from the Fed in hand, Philpot says state banking regulators were expected to act quickly on the merger request.

Mark Long, who previously worked for First Commercial Corp., in Hot Springs and Conway, was named president of the Huntsville bank and assumed his position in November. Long says several new directors will be named to the bank’s board.

Public documents on the deal indicate Arvest agreed to pay $19 million for the Huntsville bank, which included three offices: the bank’s main office at 104 S. Hughes St., and branches on the Huntsville square and at Hindsville. Founded in 1890, the Huntsville bank has assets of more than $84 million and deposits of more than $70 million.

In other news, Springdale Bank & Trust employees who had been working in a building on the north side of Emma Avenue have moved back across the street to the main building. New construction essentially tripled the space in the main building from its original 6,000 SF. Neal Hefner was the general contractor and Richard Alderman of Wittenberg Deloney & Davidson Inc. did the design work.