Verimore Bank’s KC expansion guided by long-term strategy

Brookfield-based Verimore Bank recently acquired Liberty, Mo.-based Clay County Savings Bank. The acquisition of the bank, headquartered in the northeast suburbs of Kansas City, increased Verimore’s asset size to $600 million. BankNews.com Digital Managing Editor Sam Wilmes recently interviewed Verimore Bank CEO Kristie Stuewe and Chief Deposit Officer Ken Honeck to discuss how the acquisition fits into the bank’s broader strategy along with its commitment to the communities it serves..SW: Your acquisition of Clay County Savings Bank closed late last month. How does that strengthen your presence in the Northeast Kansas City Metro and fit the bank's broader strategic goals?KS: We have been a bank that for years has been interested in prudent, smart growth. We have spent a lot of time working on our infrastructure over the last few years to make sure we were prepared. And the northland of Kansas City — Platte and Clay counties, one of the things that we looked at was, this is an area that has traditionally appreciated community banking. When you look at the deposit market share, five years ago, the third and fourth positions were held by community banks. Because of acquisition and consolidation in our industry, you now have to go all the way to No. 8 to find a community bank in the northland.We saw that as an opportunity to take our community bank model, which is very desired — that personal touch — for a lot of people. It’s the personalization, but also making sure you've got all of the bells and whistles and products and services of the big banks, but also the personal side of that and saw the northland as an opportunity to serve, businesses, households, the ag industry for a subset of the community that historically has appreciated community banking. That's a role we can fill well. KS, continued: Clay County Savings Bank has been a competitor of ours in the Northland. And on day one, we had complimentary products that made us a bank that was stronger and better together. They have a traditionally strong mortgage presence that we did not have. We were more focused on household retail, commercial business and serving the ag industry. Putting the two banks together broadened our ability to serve that sector of the population.SW: How many staff did you add through the acquisition?KS: We didn't necessarily add in total head count. We retained all of Clay County Savings Bank's staff. Not just in their mortgage operations, we retained all of their staff across the board. They do have a long history and an experienced staff. Approximately 27 Clay County Savings Bank staff were added to the Verimore Bank team.KH: It moves our overall head count just south of 100, so a community bank size-wise.SW: How have you engaged in prudent, smart expansion opportunities over the past several years? KS: Our bank historically has been open to growth in a number of ways. Our North Kansas City branch was opened as a de novo in 2013. In 2018, we acquired our Milan branch in our rural market. And this was the first opportunity that we thought made sense for us in the Kansas City metropolitan area. When we talk about infrastructure, we did a core conversion in 2020. We (rebranded to Verimore Bank from First Missouri Bank) in 2022, and then we've added talented people to our staff of long-term employees. We’ve built out our organization chart so that we were prepared for a larger asset size and to handle more branches, more customers, more assets and deposits.KH: We're in the second-fastest growing county in the state of Missouri, with a little more than a quarter million people in Clay County. You put Clay and Platte together, those two counties are just short of 400,000. But importantly, this puts Verimore Bank much closer to households than we've ever been. It's a much more populated area, and we have to be a little more aggressive from a marketing standpoint. That’s not only with the legacy Clay County customers, but the opportunity to have branches nearby. Branches don't matter like they used to, but customers still like to have a branch nearby in case they do need it.