Great Southern Bank today announced it has penned separate deals to sell Great Southern Travel and Great Southern Insurance. The transactions are valued at nearly $7 million.
Effective Nov. 30 for both deals, Great Southern has signed definitive agreements to sell its travel division to Milwaukee, Wis.-based Adelman Travel and its insurance division to St. Louis-based Huntleigh McGehee, according to a news release.
Current Great Southern Travel and Great Southern Insurance employees and offices will become part of the operations of Adelman and HM, respectively.
Great Southern has agreed to transfer the assets of its insurance division to HM on Dec. 1 and the assets of its travel division to Adelman on Dec. 3. Combined, the transactions are expected to result in a fourth-quarter gain of roughly $6.8 million for Great Southern, the release said.
"The decision to find buyers for our travel agency and insurance company was not taken lightly. Both divisions have been very visible parts of our institution for decades and they are highly respected and profitable entities. Our top priority was to find buyers that we knew would take excellent care of our customers and employees and provide even more resources and capabilities," Great Southern President and CEO Joe Turner said in the release.
"Banking is and always has been our core business," he added. "We have made the decision to strictly focus our resources on that core business."
For the 12 months ended Sept. 30, Great Southern's travel and insurance divisions produced a combined $8.2 million in noninterest income, $7.2 million in noninterest expense and $739,000 in net income, or diluted earnings per share of 5 cents, according to company financials.
Adelman, which has $400 million in annual revenues, employs 185 and operates 20 on-site travel centers national and four regional reservation centers. HM provides risk management services to customers in all 50 states, the release said.
Great Southern parent, Great Southern Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq: GSBC), which has assets of $4.1 billion and operates 107 branches in six states, posted third-quarter earnings of $7.1 million, according to
Springfield Business Journal archives.
As of 8:42 a.m., the company's shares were trading at $25.69, compared to a 52-week range of $18.44 to $31.81.
