West Bank’s Thomas Stanberry expands footprint, services
Thomas Stanberry, a one-time Des Moines lawyer and former investment banker, has gathered little moss since he succeeded David Miller as chairman and chief executive of West Bancorporation Inc.
Since March, the 49-year-old has presided over the acquisitions of two very different companies, Hawkeye State Bank of Iowa City and VMF Capital LLC, a Cedar Rapids-based investment management company that controls about $370 million in assets. He has gotten married and joined the board of directors at the American Red Cross of Iowa. He said he’s just getting started.
“We’re working on new products and locations in the Golden Circle and other parts of the state,” he said. “We’re looking for vibrant communities with skilled workforces and good transportation.”
Miller, an influential banker, built West Bancorp.’s main subsidiary, West Des Moines State Bank, into one of the nation’s most efficient and profitable banks during his more than 40-year tenure.
In this month’s edition of U.S. Banker magazine, West Bank was named sixth-most efficient in the nation in terms of return on equity among the top 200 publicly traded community banks with assets under $1 billion. The bank’s return on equity has exceeded 20 percent in each of the past seven years.
When Miller took over in 1961, West Bank had assets of $3.5 million. By last year, its assets had ballooned to more than $850 million.
Last summer, West Bancorp.’s shares began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, a move that Miller forecast would make it easier to buy other financial institutions. In an interview with the Business Record in December, Miller said he believed the bank had missed out on prior acquisitions because there wasn’t enough liquidity for its shares.
On April 30, West Bancorp. announced plans to buy Iowa City-based Hawkeye State Bank. The acquisition, which closed last week, marked the first time the company had bought another bank in its more than 100-year history.
Hawkeye State Bank, which has about $140 million in assets, will give West Bank access to the quickly growing eastern region of the state and is expected to flesh out the bank’s retail operations. Commercial products account for the bulk of West Bank’s business in Des Moines.
The team of workers managing the transition has “performed spectacularly,” Stanberry said. His challenge will be ensuring that the new units run just as smoothly as the old.
“I don’t think any acquisition is easy,” he said. “If we can do what we’ve done in West Des Moines in Iowa City, then we’ll be successful.”
In an effort to provide a greater breadth of services to customers and further round out the bank’s capabilities, West Bancorp. announced July 11 that it had agreed to buy VMF Capital, with which West Bank has had a partnership for two years.
Financial details of the transaction weren’t announced, though it is expected to add to West Bancorp.’s earnings in 2004. VMF, which has 25 employees, is the largest independent investment adviser in Iowa. It has an office in Clive that has six workers.
“We think there’s very good potential to grow that business,” Stanberry said.
Miller and Doug Gulling, West Bancorp.’s chief financial officer, played large roles in both acquisitions.
Stanberry, a native of Indianapolis, is a member of the board of trustees at Wabash College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree. He received a law degree at Drake University in 1979 and was a partner at the Des Moines law firm of Ahlers & Cooney P.C.
In Minneapolis, where Stanberry worked at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, he was a board member of the Red Cross and he also served as chairman of the Downtown Minneapolis YMCA. During his 14-year tenure at the investment bank, Stanberry worked in a variety of roles, most recently as a managing director and senior investment banker in Piper Jaffray’s fixed-income capital markets division.