YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
SOUTHWEST MISSOURI—From talks in St. Louis of another Anheuser-Busch InBev merger to yet played out discussions of Bass Pro Shops exploring a bid for Cabela’s, 2015 was a hotbed of mergers and acquisitions.
Southwest Missouri was no exception.
Leading the local pack, two of the area’s largest insurance agencies merged. Springfield-based Ollis & Co. joined forces on July 1 with Branson-based Akers & Arney to create a 100 percent employee-owned firm dubbed Ollis/Akers/Arney. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Ollis & Co. was the sixth-largest insurance firm in the area, with 29 agents and 34 staff. Akers & Arney ranked No. 9 with 14 agents and 18 employees. The combined company comprises nearly 50 employees, potentially the area’s largest.
The insurance industry also shouldered a May divide among partners of Employee Benefit Design LLC, which prompted two of its co-founders and nine staff members to join forces with another Queen City-based firm, Barker-Phillips-Jackson Inc. The founding EBD partners had differing visions for the future of the company, specifically, an employee ownership program. The move left EBD with 10 employees.
In December, accounting firm Elliott, Robinson & Co. LLP closed on two mergers with Gary Fenton, CPA PC in Springfield and Lindy H. Maus CPA in Republic. The accounting firms’ employees – seven from Maus’ firm and five from Fenton’s – grow Elliott, Robinson’s staff. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Springfield accounting firms Bohl & House LLC and Samek & Co. LLC signed a merger deal in late November resulting in a new firm dubbed Bohl, House & Samek CPAs. The undisclosed deal brings Bohl & House’s five full-time employees together with Samek’s seven.
The money kept moving in May as Pine Bluff, Ark.-based Simmons First National Corp. (Nasdaq: SFNC) added Springfield-based Ozark Trust and Investment Corp., the parent company of Trust Company of the Ozarks. Closing in the third quarter, the deal adds $1.1 billion in assets under management to the financial institution that currently manages roughly $3.5 billion in trust assets.
According to terms of the deal, Simmons paid roughly $20.7 million in cash and stock. TCO held $1.1 billion in assets under management, with 1,346 accounts and 1,314 clients.
The move followed Simmons First National’s first-quarter closing of its Liberty Bancshares Inc. acquisition – a deal valued at $206.9 million – which transferred 1,000 shares of TCO’s common stock to the Arkansas company.
In March, the owner of Nowata Printing Co. and several area community newspapers found a buyer in Phillips Media Group LLC. In the undisclosed deal, Phillips Media picked up Missouri newspapers Bolivar Herald-Free Press, Buffalo Reflex, Christian County Headliner News, Cedar County Republican, Nixa Xpress and The Marshfield Mail, as well as two others in Arkansas.
It also included Nowata print operations in Springfield – at Partnership Industrial Center – and in Nowata, Okla.
In a smaller deal, Springfield-based casino games and event DJ company Ozarks Entertainment LLC picked up inflatables business Gorilla LLC in March. In the undisclosed deal, the company also acquired two other Springfield-area inflatables businesses, Party Hoppers and Airtime Entertainment LLC.
Moseley’s Discount Office Products was purchased; Side Chick opened in Branson; and the Springfield franchise store of NoBaked Cookie Dough changed ownership.