Following Arvest Bank acquisition, role of Bear State CEO still unclear

In April, eight months after the deal was announced, Arvest Bank completed its all-cash purchase — for $391 million — of Bear State Financial Inc., the publicly traded parent company of Bear State Bank.

What that means for Matt Machen is still unclear. Machen, a member of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class in 2009, was just 35 when Bear State’s board of directors elected him president and CEO of the holding company and CEO of the bank. That was in January 2017.

Machen, whose lending career started in 2003 with First Security Bank, joined Bear State (then First Federal Bank) following a $46.3 million recapitalization in 2011 by Bear State Financial Holdings. He successfully led the bank’s turnaround in Northwest Arkansas as market president before relocating to Little Rock in 2013 to become chief financial officer of the company and the bank. He was promoted to bank president in 2016.

An Arvest spokesman said Machen’s role right now is focused solely on integrating the two banks. Sept. 24 will be the first day Bear State customers will have full access to Arvest branches, services and systems, and when 20 Bear State branches will become Arvest branches.

Although all Arvest branches are technically part of the same Fayetteville charter, the company maintains 16 separate community bank markets in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, each with its own executive team and advisory board.

A Bear State executive whose role is known is actually now a Bear State alum. Matt Brasel, who backfilled Machen’s job as Northwest Arkansas market president in 2013, has taken a job as chief financial officer at CrossMar Investments, a commercial development group in Bentonville led by Chris Crossland and Phil Martz.

Like Machen, Brasel also is an alum of the Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 program. He was recognized in the class of 2015.