Equity Bank plans to go public

Equity Bancshares, the Wichita-based holding company of Equity Bank, has moved to go public.

The company announced Friday afternoon that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its Class A common stock.

A portion of the shares will be issued and sold by Equity and a portion will be sold by certain stockholders of Equity, according to a news release. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not been determined. Equity intends to apply to list its common stock on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol “EQBK,” the release states.

Established in 2003, Equity has close to $1.4 billion in assets with 27 offices, including 11 in Kansas and 16 in Missouri. Equity was started by a group of investors who acquired the former National Bank of Andover. The bank had a pretax return on assets of 1.35 percent during the second quarter of 2015, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Since its inception, Equity has made a habit of acquiring community financial properties, including, most recently, the holding company for First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Independence. Equity has also been profitable in nine of the past 10 years and in each of the last five, according to a prospectus filed with the exchange commission.

The change would cause Equity to standout within the Kansas banking landscape — Capitol Federal Financial in Topeka, Blue Valley Ban Corp. in Overland Park and Landmark Bancorp in Manhattan are among the few publicly traded commercial bank and thrift holding companies based in Kansas.

Equity president and CEO Brad Elliott said Friday that he couldn’t comment on the move beyond what is in the news release.

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Equity Bank plans to go public."