Tower Trust & Investment Company is a new independent company with familiar faces and services. Its leaders, from left, are Keith Bonjour, senior vice president; CEO Joe Slavens; and Cody Allen, president. CREDIT TOWER TRUST
With the sale of Northwest Bank & Trust earlier this year, the bank’s longtime trust department has struck out on its own with a new brand and identity but the same familiar faces and investment expertise. Tower Trust & Investment Company launched on Jan. 1 as a standalone company becoming the only independent trust company […]
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With the sale of Northwest Bank & Trust earlier this year, the bank’s longtime trust department has struck out on its own with a new brand and identity but the same familiar faces and investment expertise. Tower Trust & Investment Company launched on Jan. 1 as a standalone company becoming the only independent trust company headquartered in the Quad Cities, and the first in Iowa to operate outside and independently of an existing bank. The company builds on the expertise of the Northwest Bank Investment Management Group. The move to spin off the bank department and create Tower Trust came as the ink was drying on the deal to sell the bank. Under that agreement, the nearly 85-year-old Northwest Bank was sold to Time Bank, a Park Ridge, Illinois-based community bank. “We always knew we would keep the Investment Management Group under family ownership,” said Joe Slavens, who has transitioned from Northwest Bank’s president and chief executive officer to CEO of Tower Trust & Investment Company. At Tower Trust’s helm is Cody Allen, whose 18-year Northwest career led him from senior trust officer of the Investment Management Group to president of the rebranded firm.He is joined by Keith Bonjour, a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) who has been promoted to senior vice president of Tower Trust. Today, the firm manages more than $500 million in assets and has experienced significant growth under Mr. Allen. (See related story, page 5.)Mr. Allen said that the company’s creation “has been an exciting evolution for our team and clients. We are thrilled that our clients have continued with us in this new chapter.” Tower Trust, which retained its 10-person staff and its Northwest Bank Tower location at Davenport’s NorthPark Mall, also now has its first Illinois location in Rock Island.
How it worked
In an interview with the QCBJ, company leaders described the complexities of rolling the previous trust company out of Northwest and other steps taken by the Slavens family to retain its other subsidiaries. “We didn’t actually sell the bank charter, we sold the assets and they (Time Bank) assume the liabilities,” Mr. Slavens said of the “purchase and assumption transaction.” Time and Northwest, both multi-generation family-owned banks, first announced the sale in July 2024. Time, owned by the Tom Carter family of Park Ridge, completed its acquisition of about $225 million of Northwest’s total assets and liabilities effective Dec. 31, 2024. In anticipation of the deal closing, the former Northwest Bank & Trust Co., which owned the bank, became NWBT Inc. and now is the parent of Tower Trust and these subsidiaries: River City Development (towers’ owner), the banking software company Stratman Solutions, and Centennial Tax & Accounting. “They just all stay a subsidiary of NWBT,” said Mr. Slavens, who also is president of the holding company.“When you sell the bank, you can’t be a bank anymore and it also means you have to give up your trust powers,” he said.
Stumbling blocks
According to Mr. Slavens, Tower Trust was incorporated under Illinois law because Iowa law does not allow for an independent trust company. Its predecessor, Investment Management Group, had been a department of the bank. “Looking around, (we found) Illinois has a very robust trust company statute,” he said, adding “we incorporated under Illinois law because we couldn’t have an Iowa one (trust company).”Additionally, Iowa’s banking laws also prohibit an out-of-state trust company from having an office in Iowa. But a letter ruling by the Iowa Superintendent of Banking in the past few years determined, Mr. Slavens explained, “if a trust company is formed out of the sale of the bank and it’s really just the old trust company, same ownership … we really ought to let the trust company serve the customers.” Under that ruling, which impacts the state’s banking industry, he said “If a bank is sold and the buyers don’t want to buy the trust department, the ownership can form a trust company in another state and it’s allowed to keep its office in this state. We’re the only ones that have exercised that power …”In fact, he said there’s never been a nonbank trust company that has Iowa offices until Tower Trust, which operates from the eighth floor of the NorthPark tower and out of its Illinois office at 2300 Fifth Ave., Rock Island (a Centennial Tax branch). “Because we’re incorporated in Illinois, we are allowed to do business anywhere,” Mr. Slavens said. That is significant as its investment clients become more mobile but want to remain with their investment adviser. After months of approval processes and preparations, “In December … all the (Investment Management Group) fiduciary accounts transferred over to Tower Trust,” he said, proudly pointing out that all its trust clients agreed to be part of the transfer. “One hundred percent of the customers said ‘This is great.’ (For them) it’s the same team, same place, same ownership, same exceptional services … so it’s been absolutely seamless to them.”
New brand stands tall
Tower Trust, its leaders said, will continue offering personalized financial solutions to individual, family, non-profit and business clients across the region. “We had a lot of conversations,” Mr. Slavens said, in choosing the new company name Tower Trust & Investment Company. “The Northwest name now is owned by Time Bank.” While they could have kept the northwest part of the name, they all agreed it might create confusion. “We loved the Northwest name, but we all scratch our heads at it,” Mr. Slavens said. “We’re no longer northwest Davenport.” The leaders decided, he said, “if we’re going to do this, let’s go out with a new brand, a new name that brings the right message.”Mr. Allen sees the new brand as symbolic and forward-looking. “It does a nice job of drawing parallels of the past and (helps clients) understand that we’re not this brand new institution with nothing to our name. … But it also has the ability to say we’re not what we completely were and will be in the future.” Tracy Schwind is senior vice president and chief experience officer of Northwest Investment Corp, which owns NWBT. She said keeping the word tower in the name was key. “With the tower being the biggest piece of branding that the bank had … this draws the tower into the imagery. It’s allowing us to have that connection to our history with Northwest Bank, but be a new entity.” ‘
Deep investment roots
Tower Trust will continue a legacy dating back to 1969 when Northwest Bank entered the investment field. Then bank President Jim Slavens, Mr. Slavens’ uncle, established a trust department within the bank. At the time, there were other stalwart banks with trust departments, Davenport Bank & Trust and First Trust & Savings, to name a few, Mr. Slavens said.“In many ways, this is just the continued evolution of Jim’s vision for what was going to happen,” Mr. Slavens said.He added “Jim always saw over the horizon and I think he saw more wealth being developed whether it was farmland or real estate. I call it the democratisation of the markets. Go back to 1969, and I’d guess maybe 20 to 25% of the country owned something in the stock market.”But today with retirement plans and other investing, he said “the vast majority of Americans have an investment in the stock market. I think Jim foresaw wealth building, wealth transference. “There were significant contributors to moving the ball down the field for the trust department prior to Cody (Allen),” Mr. Slavens said, stressing how “we don’t forget the others who this is built on.” He credits two senior trust officers with building a strong foundation: Margo Hancock, a 40-year bank employee, who led the department through the 1990s; and her successor Karen Goodall, who led it for the next decade and initially hired Mr. Allen in 2006. He was the department’s president and chief operating officer when the Management Investment Group was introduced in 2008 and named senior trust officer in 2013. “The ability to say we’re a trust company really gets to the heart of what we do,” Mr. Allen told the QCBJ. “Having Northwest Bank & Trust Company on your name badge gets folks naturally thinking about bank-related products.” Under Tower Trust, he said, there will be the “ability to message quicker and cleaner by not having the (bank’s) name associated to it. But it still allows us to draw on the roots of what it was.”
Tower Trust leadership
Cody Allen is the new company’s president. He began with Northwest Bank in 2006 as a business development officer and was promoted to senior trust officer in 2013. He holds his Certified Retirement Services Professional (CRSP) designation and has more than 23 years of experience in the financial industry. A graduate of Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa, and the Cannon Institute, he is active in the Quad Cities community including current and former board roles with Empowering Abilities, Regional Development Authority, Palmer College Planned Giving Council, Quad City Estate Planning Council, North Scott Rotary Club and the Quad Cities Community Foundation.Keith Bonjour, the senior vice president, is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) professional with more than 19 years experience. He joined Northwest in 2015. In his new role, Mr. Bonjour will manage the investment research and portfolio construction of Tower Trust & Investment Company and continue providing financial advice to clients. A graduate of Ashford University, his community service includes serving as treasurer for the Scott Community College Foundation as well as being a member and past president of the Moline Kiwanis Club.
At a glance: Tower Trust & Investment Company
Founded: Launched Jan. 1, 2025, as the Quad Cities’ first independent trust company. It picks up the baton from Northwest Bank’s Investment Management Group.Ownership: Tower Trust now is one of the subsidiaries of NWBT Inc. (formerly Northwest Bank). The NWBT holding company continues to be owned by Northwest Investment Corp., which is owned by the Slavens family. Joe Slavens serves as Tower Trust’s CEO. Services: Personalized fiduciary and wealth management services to help individuals and businesses achieve their long-term financial goals. Locations: Bank office tower at NorthPark Mall, 100 E. Kimberly Road, Suite 800, Davenport; and 2300 5th Ave., Rock Island, in the offices of Centennial Tax & Accounting, another subsidiary of NWBT.
