Money Talk: Home Bancshares to ring NASDAQ opening bell on Tuesday

Editor’s note: Each Monday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Money Talk,” a wrap-up of banking and financial news.

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HOME BANCSHARES TO RING NASDAQ BELL

Home BancShares, Inc., parent company of Centennial Bank, announced that on Tuesday, May 24th it will be featured on the NASDAQ Tower in Times Square in celebration of the Company’s 10th anniversary as a NASDAQ listed company. Chairman Johnny Allison and members of the Home BancShares management team will ring the NASDAQ Opening Bell.

At its initial public offering on June 22, 2006, the Conway-based bank holding company operated 48 branches in Arkansas and Florida and had assets of approximately $2 billion. Today, Home BancShares is currently a $9.4 billion company operating in Arkansas, Florida and South Alabama across a footprint of 141 branches as well as a loan production office in New York City. Since listing on NASDAQ, Home BancShares has grown its market cap from approximately $263.4 million to approximately $2.88 billion, according to the company.

Between March 31, 2006 and March 31, 2016, the company had an earnings per share compound annual growth rate of approximately 17.1%. Its stock has seen a total shareholder return of approximately 543% since its listing with NASDAQ.

SEC ANNOUNCES INSIDER TRADING CHARGES AGAINST SPORTS GAMBLER, REQUESTS CLAWBACK FROM PRO GOLFER PHIL MICKELSON

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced insider trading charges against a professional sports gambler who allegedly made $40 million based on illegal stock tips from a corporate insider who owed him money. The SEC alleges that the sports gambler, William “Billy” Walters of Las Vegas, was owed money by then-Dean Foods Co. board member Thomas C. Davis. According to the SEC complaint, Davis regularly shared inside information about Dean Foods with Walters in advance of market-moving events, using prepaid cell phones and other methods in an effort to avoid detection.

The SEC complaint also alleges that professional golfer Phil Mickelson traded Dean Foods’s securities at Walters’s urging and then used his almost $1 million of trading profits to help repay his own gambling debt to Walters. Walters and Davis are charged with insider trading, and Mickelson is named as a relief defendant. Relief defendants are not accused of wrongdoing but are named in SEC complaints for the purposes of recovering alleged ill-gotten gains in their possession from schemes perpetrated by others. Mickelson neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the SEC’s complaint and agreed to pay full disgorgement of his trading profits totaling $931,738.12 plus interest of $105,291.69.

FEDERAL AGENCIES INVITE COMMENTS ON PROPOSED RULES TO PROHIBIT INCENTIVE-BASED PAY INAPPROPRIATE RISK-TAKERS

Six federal agencies are inviting public comment on a proposed rule to prohibit incentive-based compensation arrangements that encourage inappropriate risks at covered financial institutions. The deadline for comments on the proposed rule, which was submitted for publication in the Federal Register, is July 22, 2016.

Section 956 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires the agencies to jointly prescribe such regulations or guidelines. There is evidence that flawed incentive-based compensation packages in the financial industry were one of the contributing factors in the financial crisis that began in 2007.

The proposed rules would apply to covered financial institutions with total assets of $1 billion or more. Many of the proposed rules would address requirements for senior executive officers and employees who are significant risk-takers with assets at Level 1 and Level 2, which are institutions with assets of more than $250 and assets of between $50 and $250 billion, respectively.

All institutions that would be covered by the proposed rules would be required to annually document the structure of incentive-based compensation arrangements and retain those records for seven years, and boards of directors of covered institutions would be required to conduct oversight of the arrangements.