Fayetteville Taking Bids For Investment Management Services

Back in June, the city of Fayetteville began collecting bids for investment management services. We hear the bidders were quickly whittled down to four main players: Arvest Asset Management, Garrison Financial Corp., Stephens Inc. and Crews & Associates.

On July 7, the companies presented their options, and on July 10 at least some of the losers were notified they did not get the job.

We hear Crews & Associates landed the gig.

However, the city refused a request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act to view all the bids, despite the city stating in its vendor information material that “all documents become public upon award and issuance of the purchase order.”

We called Crews’ Springdale office, and they didn’t know anything about being awarded a contract.

We wondered if the city was getting out of its FOI obligations by notifying the losers, but not the winner. But Andrea Foren, buyer for the city, said the Fayetteville City Council still has to approve the contract before it’s official.

Crews & Associates is primarily a fixed-income broker investing in municipal, corporate, U.S. government and agency bonds. At the end of 2004, Crews’ net worth was about $17.77 million.

It’s owned by First Security Bancorp of Searcy.