White River Bancshares Limits New Shareholders

We hear the holding company for Fayetteville’s start-up Signature Bank of Arkansas, White River Bancshares Inc., has to turn down investors every day.

White River opened a stock subscription for an additional $15 million in capital for its bank, but board members voted to only allow 104 new shareholders, said Mike Hill, White River’s CFO.

The bank is limiting the number of investors because once a company tops 500 shareholders, it has 30 months to start filing the same regulatory paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission that a public company would.

Gary Head, Signature’s chairman and CEO, has said he’d like to take the bank public but not just yet.

The group collected $45.2 million in capital late last year in its stock subscription. All told, the group will have raised more than $60 million in just over a year.

Principals at the bank were trying to wind up the stock subscription as of Dec. 13.