Tarrant Business

Trinity Bank declares special dividend

Fort Worth-based Trinity Bank said this week it will pay shareholders a special $1-a-share dividend, citing surplus capital and a lack of other growth opportunities. "In short, we are accumulating capital through retained earnings at a greater rate than is necessary to fund internal growth," President Jeff Harp told shareholders in a release. Trinity Bank,  which reported total assets of $164.9 million as of June 30 and net profit of $1.265 million in the year's first six months, said the year's second quarter marked its 31st consecutive quarter of higher earnings. The bank was founded in 2003. The one-time dividend is in addition to a scheduled 20-cents-a-share dividend. Both are payable Nov. 15 to shareholders of record Oct. 31. The bank's shares, which are thinly traded over-the-counter (ticker: TYBT) are trading at $31.11 after taking a jump Thursday, the day the special dividend was announced.

-- Jim Fuquay

LaGrave Field sold to Cats ownership group for $4.5 million

LaGrave Field, home to the Fort Worth Cats minor league baseball team, was sold to an affiliate of the team’s ownership group Tuesday morning for $4.5 million. The transaction, conducted outside the Tarrant County courthouse during a foreclosure auction, will give the team a home “for a long, long time,” said John Bryant, managing partner of FW Stadium Group LLC, which bought the property. Bryant said he is also managing partner of the Cats. The 13.2-acre parcel sold includes the stadium and land immediately around the facility extending to Sixth Street on the south.

Former Cats owner Carl Bell built the stadium in 2002 and went on to accumulate 58 acres in the area, on which he planned a mixed-use development of residential, retail and office space. But after the economy weakened, Bell defaulted on a $12.5 million loan from Houston-based Amegy Bank earlier this year. Amegy had posted the facility twice previously but the foreclosure was withdrawn after talks were extended both times. Bryant said the ownership group, which bought the team from Bell in December 2011, wasn’t certain what the stadium’s ultimate sales price would be, but he said the $4.5 million was about what they expected “it might reasonably be because of previous negotiations.”

-- Jim Fuquay

Familiar Fort Worth names on Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans list

With the exception of relocating Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton's residence from Parker County to Fort Worth (mistakenly, as far as we know), the Tarrant area members of Forbes magazine's annual list of the wealthiest Americans are pretty much unchanged this year. Walton is No. 8 on the 2012 list, with a net worth of $26.3 billion. (She listed her residence as 11500 Interstate 20, the address of her 3,200-acre Rocking W Ranch outside of Millsap, in October 2011 when she was charged with DUI on her way home from her 62nd birthday party in Fort Worth.) She's followed by investor Robert Bass (tied at No. 151 with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at $2.7 billion), investor David Bonderman (No. 170, $2.6 billion), investor Richard Rainwater (No. 206, $2.3 billion), brothers Ed and Lee Bass (tied at No. 239, $2 billion), and Sid Bass (No. 271, $1.8 billion). All have been on the list for years.

Dallas area residents on the list, in addition to Jones, include banker Andrew Beal, investor Harold Simmons, oilman and real estate developer Ray Lee Hunt, investor Robert Rowling, oilman Trevor Rees-Jones, investor H. Ross Perot Sr., oilman Timothy Headington, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, pipeline operator Kelcy Warren, banker Gerald J. Ford, Texas Rangers co-owner Ray Davis, real estate developer H. Ross Perot Jr., investor T. Boone Pickens, telecommunications operator Kenny Troutt, and online media developer Todd Wagner.

The complete list is here.

-- Jim Fuquay

 

Split investment and commercial banking, Frost Bank chief says

Cullen/Frost Bankers CEO Dick Evans, in Fort Worth Wednesday for a client luncheon, said lawmakers should restore the strict division of investment banking and commercial banks, which Congress abandoned in 1999 and which many blame for the severity of the financial crisis. U.S. taxpayers should not be on the hook for outsize losses incurred by bad bets at investment banks, he told a packed house at the Fort Worth Club. Evans also rejected the "too big to fail" doctrine applied to the very largest banking corporations, saying it short-circuits the discipline imposed by a free market. As chief at Frost Bank, Evans is more qualified to comment on prudent banking practices than most. Among Texas' 10 largest banks, Frost was the only institution that did not fail or be acquired in the 1980s after plunging oil prices shredded the Texas economy. Evans also said he agrees with Dallas Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Richard Fisher that there is little the central bank can do to further stimulate the U.S. economy, and policymakers should instead focus on reducing unproductive regulation.

-- Jim Fuquay

OmniAmerican Bank loans, earnings up

Fort Worth-based OmniAmerican Bank said its loans were up $27.5 million, or 4 percent, and earnings rose more than 50 percent, to $803,000, in the year's first quarter. Higher auto loans drove lending growth, and cost-cutting provided the biggest boost to earnings. OmniAmerican said it finished the quarter with $711 million in net loans outstanding, $832 million in deposits and $1.37 billion in total assets. OmniAmerican's shares (ticker: OABC) were down slightly in early trading Friday.

-- Jim Fuquay

Wells Fargo gives $50,000 for tornado relief; customers can contribute starting Friday

Wells Fargo & Co. says it's contributing $50,000 to the American Red Cross/North Texas Tornado Relief Fund. And its customers can join the effort starting Friday by making donations to the fund at all Wells Fargo ATMs in DFW. Customers will not be charged a fee and 100 percent of donations will go to the American Red Cross, Wells Fargo says. The bank also asks that consumers and business customers affected by the tornadoes contact their banker or visit the nearest Wells Fargo branch to discuss financial options on a case-by-case assistance. Affected customers can also call the bank 24/7 at 1-800-TO-WELLS (1-800-869-3557).  

 “We’re reaching out to help our team members, neighbors, friends, families and customers who have been affected by the twisters that ripped through our community earlier this week,” said John Gavin, Wells Fargo's DFW regional president of community banking. “We’re also committed to helping community recovery efforts and will work diligently to help families and business owners return to their homes and daily routines.”

-- Jim Fuquay

 

Morgan Stanley hit with consent order on Saxon foreclosures

Morgan Stanley, owner of Saxon Mortgage, which has a large Fort Worth operation, agreed to a consent order with federal regulators over "a pattern of misconduct and negligence in residential mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure processing by Saxon. The order requires Morgan Stanley, which bought Saxon at the height of the housing bubble, to hire an independent consultant to review Saxon's foreclosures initiated in 2009 and 2010. The aim is to compensate borrowers "who suffered financial injury as a result of wrongful foreclosures or other deficiencies." Morgan Stanley, which on Monday sold Saxon's mortgage servicing rights to Ocwen Financial Corp., said it would not comment on the order.

To read a copy of the consent order, click here.

-- Jim Fuquay

Fort Worth-based Carlile Bancshares buys Denton bank

Carlile Bancshares, a Fort Worth-based organization formed in 2009 to acquire existing banks, said Monday it agreed to buy Northstar Financial Corp., a much larger institution based in Denton. Terms were not disclosed. Northstar has 10 locations in North Texas and nearly $1 billion in assets. Carlile owns two banks, Treaty Oaks Bank in central Texas and Bank of Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, with about $300 million in assets.

"Northstar Bank is a successful community bank with the established leadership and brand that will add value to our holding company and positions us strategically to continue growing throughout Texas," said Carlile CEO Tom Nichols. Nichols and Carlile co-founder Don Cosby previously were with State National Bank, which was acquired by what is now BBVA Compass in 2006.

-- Jim Fuquay

PlainsCapital's downtown Fort Worth branch moving

PlainsCapital Bank will move into new downtown digs this summer when it joins The Capital Grille in the remodeled ground floor of the Oncor Building at Seventh and Houston streets. Steve Hambrick, chairman of the bank’s Fort Worth region, said last week his group has outgrown its current 5,600-square-foot space at 777 Taylor St. in the Fort Worth Club building.

“We decided to look for an expanded footprint downtown. The Oncor Building offered more space and more visible signage,” Hambrick said. PlainsCapital’s new location provides about 9,000 square feet for the 14 employees in the downtown branch, he said. He hopes to move in by July.

It’s the bank’s second significant Tarrant County move this year. In January it brought in four new bankers from Southwest Securities’ Arlington operation. They are currently working out of PlainsCapital’s Camp Bowie Boulevard branch, but “our plan is to look in south Arlington/Mansfield and expand there,” Hambrick said.

— Jim Fuquay

 

OmniAmerican Bank earnings up

 Fort Worth-based OmniAmerican Bancorp earned $1.2 million, or 12 cents a share, in the fourth quarter, way up from $316,000 in the same quarter a year earlier. Assets rose 21 percent to $1.34 billion as the bank boosted its borrowings from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board by $221 million from a year earlier. OmniAmerican is taking advantage of extraordinarily low interest rates on those borrowings to invest in government-backed securities and pocketing the spread.

Net loans outstanding were $683.5 million as of Dec. 31, up 3.5 percent from a year earlier, and deposits rose less than 1 percent to $807.6 million. For the year, OmniAmerican earned $4 million, or 37 cents a share, up 135 percent from 2010. Its return on assets was 0.31 percent and return on equity was 1.98 percent. Its shares (ticker: OABC) were up about 1 percent in early trading.

-- Jim Fuquay