First National Bank CEO excited about growth, confident in agri resilience

Donald Guinn is president and CEO of Paragould-based First National Bank. The Northeast Arkansas bank was founded in 1889 as the Bank of Paragould and has expanded in recent years throughout the region as well as central and Northwest Arkansas.

FNB’s holding company, privately-held First Paragould Bankshares Inc., has been one of the state’s fastest-growing financial institutions in Arkansas for several years. As of September 2018, First Paragould Bankshares had $1.6 billion in assets and $1.27 billion in deposits. It has offices in Paragould, Jonesboro, Corning, Piggot, Heber Springs, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville.

Guinn has served as leader of First National Bank since 2006. He shared his thoughts on the bank’s growth and future with Talk Business & Politics CEO Roby Brock.

Brock: What are you seeing right now in Northeast Arkansas in terms of commercial real estate and lending activity?

Guinn: With our being headquartered here in Paragould, we’re still very much involved in the agriculture sector. We’re a big agri bank up here in Northeast Arkansas and it continues to be one of our areas that we have a lot of interest in, a lot of loans in. The Northeast Arkansas market is very diverse in our opportunities. There are a lot of commercial loan opportunities with the growth in the Craighead county, Jonesboro market especially in retail and mortgage service opportunities. We’ve got some white collar, service opportunities and there’s a lot of commercial growth happening in Jonesboro.

Brock: Do you see a lot of ‘infill’ development coming online, where people talk about going back in to the interior parts of cities and towns and finding opportunities to refurbish, revitalize property?

Guinn: Without a doubt, I think you see that. You see that in downtown Jonesboro, you see them going into some of areas of Paragould. There’s been quite a bit of development over the years in downtown Jonesboro. There are projects going in on Caraway Road. A lot of it shifted over to Stadium Boulevard, Red Wolf Boulevard, over there and around the mall, but we’re seeing it shift back over to the Caraway Road area. And there are other areas of Northeast Arkansas with just kind of a steady stream of development.

Brock: You mentioned agriculture loans being a big part of your business. How are you handling that part of your portfolio with the roiling of the markets we’ve been seeing due to the tariff and trade wars. Are you nervous about agriculture right now? Are you bullish or bearish on agriculture?

Guinn: We feel agriculture is a business that is resilient. It’s a very, very resilient business and farmers certainly go through their ups and downs. It’s a cyclical business and certainly now we are in what I call ‘an agriculture correction’ right now. We’re seeing some farmers have to adjust their operations to meet what’s happening out in the market with the tariffs and the recent lower commodity prices. They’re certainly having to adjust, but we feel good that our agriculture customers are very, very solid. The good managers, the good operations are certainly making those adjustments when necessary.

Brock: Let’s talk about central Arkansas. What are your plans for the OneBanc acquisition?

Guinn: We’re excited about the opportunity to enter the market there, to be a part of that, and how it expands our footprint. We’re not trying to specialize or go after any particular segment of the loan market. We’re a bank that wants to be involved in all types of loans. We’re certainly excited about the opportunity to develop the deposit growth opportunities in that [central Arkansas] market. That’s probably the big thing that we’re interested in. We’re interested in good solid loan opportunities and we’re interested in the opportunity to expand our deposit base as well.

Brock: And in Northwest Arkansas? What are your goals for that market?

Guinn: The same thing applies to Northwest Arkansas. We’re not trying to specialize. I get asked that by companies a lot: “What’s your specialty? What are you going after?” It’s pretty much the same in every one of our markets. We like to do a good cross section of all loan types. We try to be very diversified in our portfolio. We like the diversity, we like not to specialize, we don’t try to specialize any one type of loan. We just look at the good ones and the good relationships with customers that have proven track records and we look at building our institution through building it the right way with good, solid customers one relationship at a time.