No-Risk Banking

Talk about a bank deal you can’t refuse – the new owners of National Bank of Commerce can give it back to Arkansas Best Corporation in several years if they don’t want it. Here’s the deal: NBC’s new owners bought 51 per cent interest in the bank from Arkansas Best Corporation, at $11.70 a share. The transaction included about $1.50-$1.75 cash and a no-personal-liability note for the remaining $10. In three years the new owners can forfeit their cash payments and give the bank back to Arkansas Best, if they choose. Or they can keep the bank by converting the notes to personal-liability and begin paying them off.

The new ownership is a voting trust of approximately 85 investors. Three trustees will vote the group’s stock. They are NBC president Ed Nash, Merchants State Bank president Fred Brooks and wholesale druggist H.D. Stanley. When asked about the bank’s no-personal-liability selling conditions Nash said, “I can’t deny it, but I don’t want to give people the idea that we’re going to handthis bank back to Arkansas Best inthree years. We’re going to build abanking business.”