Bank Board Confusion Leaves Less Paper

Readers may remember this scenario: Back in February, Jeff Collins, executive director of the University of Arkansas’ Center for Business and Economic Research, apparently agreed to be a board member for The Bank of Fayetteville. The bank put his name on proxy statements and sent them out to shareholders.

Then on March 8, Mary Beth Brooks, president and CEO of BOF, got a phone call from Bill Curington, senior associate dean at the UA’s Walton College of Business. Curington told Brooks that Collins wouldn’t be allowed to serve on the board.

There was much speculation in the banking community about what happened and whether or not the Walton family pulled its multi-million dollar donation weight to quash Collins’ director status.

The college bears the Walton name, after all, and Collins oversees the work done on the “Skyline Report,” a quarterly analysis of Northwest Arkansas’ real estate market commissioned by BOF competitor Arvest Bank Group Inc. Arvest is owned by Jim Walton.

“I didn’t know I had to call Jim [Walton] to find out who I could have sit on my board,” one irritated banker told the Business Journal.

In March, Curington explained the call to Brooks by saying, “Sometimes the appearance of a conflict of interest can be as damaging as actual conflict.”

We set out to find what we could about the rub by filing a request through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act asking for all correspondence between Collins and UA personnel related to BOF.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a paper trail.

The UA’s Office of the General Counsel finally e-mailed the response to that query 17 business days after the request. All that was included was an e-mail sent to Collins from Curington on Feb. 28 that read: “Jeff, I hate to disturb you on a few well deserved days of vacation but I need to talk with you about your membership on the Bank of Fayetteville Board and the CBER contract with Arvest. I would rather not do it by e-mail, so when you have a chance, could you give me a call …”

FOI Request Confuses Some

In its FOI request, the Business Journal also asked the University of Arkansas’ Office of the General Counsel for a “comprehensive list of university personnel — staff and faculty — who currently serve, or have served in the last five years, as a board member to any financial institution.”

The office was able to supply copies of the “Annual Report on Outside Employment of Faculty/Administrative Staff Members for Compensation.”

The only name listed in the response was Doyle Z. Williams, the former Dean of the Walton College of Business who has served as a board member to Arvest Bank-Fayetteville (and formerly Arvest McIlroy Bank & Trust) at least since July 1, 2000.

But we happen to know that UA athletic director Frank Broyles serves as a board member for Priority Bank of Ozark. We’re not sure if Broyles is compensated for his time or not.