Bank Mergers Are a Funny Thing
by February 3, 2014 12:00 am 90 views
Metropolitan National Bank president and CEO Lunsford Bridges, as you now, is not part of the long-term plan at Simmons First National Bank, but Susie Smith, Metropolitan’s senior VP and COO, apparently is.
A source told the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal that Smith is currently on sabbatical, but when she returns to work, will be part of the Simmons team moving forward.
The source also told Whispers that Smith will keep her office in the tower on Capitol Avenue in downtown Little Rock, while Bridges, who is being retained by Simmons as a “consultant” for the remainder of the year, had to move out of his 12th-floor office a few weeks ago and make way for David Bartlett, president and chief banking officer with Simmons.
The funny thing about bank mergers, among many other things, is that they have a way of changing what appears to be unchangeable.
For instance, just last summer Bridges and Smith, side by side and grinning, were pictured in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette at the Aug. 26 meeting of the Little Rock Touchdown Club, when University of Arkansas football coach Bret Bielema was the featured guest. MNB is the club’s longtime chief sponsor.
According to an ADG article describing the club’s meeting, Bridges incited the anxious crowd by mimicking Hank Williams Jr. and asking, “Are you ready for some football?”
That was just a couple of weeks before Simmons announced it had submitted the winning bid for what would ultimately become the $53.6 million purchase of MNB.
Whispers will probably never hear what Bridges has to say about what transpired. The Simmons communications division did not respond to our repeated attempts to reach the man.
But here in Northwest Arkansas, Bridges made an enemy in real estate broker Tom Terminella, and he was eager to speak to Bridges’ demise.
Referencing MNB’s lending practices, its bankruptcy and $25 million in federal bailout funds, Terminella told the Business Journal, “If the worst thing that happens to Lunsford Bridges is getting cut loose from the banking world, he will be a very lucky man.”