Who Owns Bank OZK?

Bank OZK began in 1903 as the Bank of Ozark, a small community bank in Ozark, Arkansas, a town in the Arkansas River Valley. For most of the twentieth century it operated as a conventional local institution with a handful of branches.

The defining event in the bank's history came in 1979, when George Gleason, a 25-year-old lawyer at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, led an investor group that purchased the bank. Gleason took over as chairman and CEO and began an expansion strategy built on acquisitions and disciplined lending. The bank renamed itself Bank of the Ozarks in 1999 as it pushed beyond its home county.

Growth accelerated in the 2000s and particularly after the 2008 financial crisis. Bank of the Ozarks became one of the most active acquirers of failed banks in the country, completing roughly a dozen FDIC-assisted acquisitions between 2010 and 2016 that extended its reach into Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and beyond. Each failed-bank deal brought assets at a discount with loss-sharing from the FDIC, fueling outsized growth with limited credit exposure.

In parallel, the bank built the Real Estate Specialties Group, or RESG, a Dallas-based unit that became one of the most prominent construction and commercial real estate lenders in the United States. RESG financed some of the largest development projects in the country, including high-profile Manhattan towers, earning the bank a reputation far larger than its Arkansas roots suggested. The group is known for unusually conservative underwriting: low loan-to-cost ratios, significant developer equity, and personal guarantees.

The bank adopted the name Bank OZK in 2018. Under Gleason it posted record net interest income for five consecutive years through 2025. Assets grew a cumulative 47 percent over the three years ending December 31, 2025, reaching $40.8 billion, while the bank produced record diluted earnings per share each year.