Local firms hit billion-dollar benchmarks

While southwest Missouri is full of businesses of all sizes, it’s still a bit unusual to hear about billion-dollar milestones. But this summer two local entities reached billion-dollar rungs on their financial ladders. BKD Wealth Advisors LLC in July accumulated $1 billion in assets under management for its clients, and Great Southern Bank in June reached $2 billion in assets – just five short years after reaching $1 billion.

BKD’s billion

After six years of advising wealthy investors, BKD Wealth Advisors LLC’s client accounts total $1 billion. While significant, company officials say it wasn’t an end goal.

“Our goal was never necessarily to reach $1 billion,” said Jack Thurman, president of BKD Wealth Advisors, a subsidiary of accounting firm BKD LLP. “It was something we felt was a benchmark of whether or not we were making progress.”

The firm’s goals, Thurman said, are more centered on making sure that clients are satisfied.

“If you satisfy your clients, a billion dollars, $2 billion, $5 billion will come,” he said, noting that the average experience level for BKD Wealth Advisors personnel is 15 years.

The average BKD Wealth Advisors client, Thurman said, has a high net worth, with assets just short of $1 million.

Mac McCartney, president of consulting company Development Management Services, is among those clients. BKD Wealth Advisors has been managing his investments for more than two years.

“I have three things that I look for in a company that I work with. I look for honesty, I look for integrity, and of course, I look for expertise. They hit all three in abundance,” said McCartney, who also has hired BKD LLP for tax work for 25 years.

While BKD Wealth Advisors LLC has its headquarters in Springfield, the firm has six offices in the United States. The Springfield office, Thurman said, manages $310 million in assets.

The firm operates on a fee-based system with no sales incentives.

Great growth

After spending seven decades building its first $1 billion in assets, Springfield-based Great Southern Bank was on the five-year plan collecting its next billion.

Several changes, both for the bank and within the industry, set the stage for Great Southern’s accelerated pace.

One of the notable changes was its 1989 decision to go public. Other factors have influenced Great Southern’s growth as well. In the 1990s, Great Southern changed from a thrift to a bank charter, and in the 1980s and 1990s, it broadened its primarily residential lending focus to carve a niche in commercial real estate lending.

Changes in the banking industry enabled the bank to further broaden its focus.

“Deregulation of the financial services industry in the ‘80s enabled the company to offer more products and services to customers,” Great Southern President and CEO Joe Turner said in a statement. “In the mid- to late ‘90s, consolidation in the banking industry dramatically changed the competitive landscape in our local market. Many large financial institutions were acquired by national banks, and we saw a migration of customers from these institutions to local institutions, such as Great Southern.”

In 2000, when Great Southern hit its first billion dollars in assets, the bank had 27 branches. In June, when the $2 billion milestone was achieved, Great Southern had 31 branches and three loan production offices. In August, the bank added three more branches with the acquisition of Peoples Bank of the Ozarks, and once new branches are up and running in Republic and Lee’s Summit, there will be 36 Great Southern locations.

Great Southern shares (Nasdaq: GSBC) closed Sept. 14 at $29.95.

[[In-content Ad]]