Done Deals: Biggest Business Deals of 2024

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2025

No review of a region’s biggest business deals in a given year is complete if one limits the definition of a “deal” to dollars paid for goods/services rendered.

With that in mind, some of the biggest deals in the Kansas City region during 2024 were matters of regional, even global impact—notwithstanding the lack of a wire transfer or cashier’s check. But there were certainly some very big traditional transactions in the year just passed.

In terms of sheer dollar value, it was hard to top UMB, which announced last April that it would plunk down an estimated $2 billion to acquire Denver-based Heartland Financial. The all-stock deal, currently under regulatory review for approval, represents a dramatic shift in Kansas City banking dynamics.

But first, some history: Just a decade ago, at the end of 2014, UMB had $17.212 billion in assets. That made it No. 2 in the Kansas City area, behind only Commerce Bank’s $22.579 billion. Two things followed: UMB adopted an assertive acquisition strategy, complemented by an aggressive marketing effort to boost organic growth.

The result? Within just five years, UMB’s assets surged more than 52 percent as it overtook Commerce to become the biggest hometown bank. It has widened that margin every year since. Assuming regulators sign off on the deal as expected early this year, UMB will climb from regional heavyweight into the ranks of the nation’s Top 50 banks, with assets of about $67 billion.

Market-share figures followed a similar arc; where Commerce once held an edge of $13.63 billion to UMB’s $9.05 billion in deposits a decade ago, UMB is now at $29.11 billion. Its market share here has more than doubled to 11.54 percent, allowing it to surge past national powers U.S. Bank and Bank of America to sit atop the Kansas City marketplace among depositors.

And more may be in the offing: Said UMB Financial Chairman Mariner Kemper: “We believe this transaction will accelerate UMB’s growth strategy, further diversifying and de-risking our business model. The addition of this high-quality franchise is a great fit from a strategic, financial and cultural perspective, and we look forward to capitalizing on the many opportunities we see as a combined company in 2025 and beyond.”

Coming up just shy of a billion-dollar deal was CrossFirst Bank’s acquisition by Ohio-based First Busey Corp. for $916 million—another all-stock deal. 

Elsewhere in the financial services sector, Overland Park-based Mariner flexed additional muscle toward its goal of growing beyond wealth management. It backed that up by acquiring other firms with combined assets—either under management or under advisement—of more than $104 billion. It’s been a rocket ride at Mariner, which broke through the $100 billion AUM figure for the first time in 2023 and was more than double that by late last year.

Spoiler alert: It’s likely to headline the biggest deals of 2025, as well; just this month, Mariner pulled a fish-swallows-whale move with the announced acquisition of Chicago’s Cardinal Investment Advisors. That nearly quadrupled Mariner’s scale, which should see it north of $550 million in assets overseen once the deal closes this year. 

In a trade publication interview several years ago, Mariner founder Marty Bicknell raised more than a few eyebrows by saying he wanted to build a firm with 5,000 advisors. With nearly 1,900 on board after the Cardinal deal, nobody’s raising eyebrows now.

The region also saw some blockbuster activity in the tech sector. Foremost among those moves was Google’s announcement last spring that it would drop $1 billion on a data center complex that’s part of Hunt Midwest Business Center. On top of that, the search-engine giant announced it would expand a career-development program and support the alternative education STEAM program in the North Kansas City School District. 

“Google’s selection of the Kansas City region is another example of our state’s ability to attract and support world-class companies,” former Gov. Mike Parson said at the official announcement. “Our skilled workforce, superior infrastructure and prime business climate continue to result in investments from leading employers. We welcome Google to Missouri and look forward to the positive impact it will provide for our growing high-tech sector.” 

Those developments will have a long-term impact because estimates suggest that nearly two-thirds of young people today will work in jobs that don’t yet exist. 

Elsewhere on the development front, a major piece of what’s being billed as the CPKC district fell into place last spring when the Kansas City Current opened CPKC Stadium in Berkley Riverfront Park. The $135 million, privately funded project is the world’s first stadium designed and built specifically for women’s professional soccer competition. But it’s also a centerpiece for an $800 million multi-use development that will fill much of the vacant land between the stadium, on the east end of the park, and the River Market district just north of Downtown.

The development partnership that includes the Current’s owners envisions a thriving district adjacent to the stadium, with restaurants, retail stores, and apartment buildings. Upon completion, it would be a huge step toward a dream long-held by civic leaders to turn the expanse of the south riverbank into a signature asset.

Certainly not as new, but nonetheless significant as signature developments go, the Country Club Plaza is expected to get a $100 million makeover, thanks to its acquisition by Dallas-based HP Village Partners for $176 million in June. The firm is known in Texas for its high-end retail district, Highland Park Village in Dallas.

The new owners have vowed to restore the Plaza to its former glory as an entertainment and retail magnet after decades of out-of-market ownership that deferred maintenance and failed to address safety concerns. As a result, the value of the property plummeted; it previously sold for $660 million in 2016, but the owners eventually defaulted on loan payments in 2023, setting the stage for a fire sale to HPVP.

A $2 billion deal that’s been lingering for more than a decade gathered speed as the ambitious redevelopment of the former Brookridge County Club site received a project timeline reprieve from Overland Park. Now dubbed Meridian, and with a reset of the clock to start construction, the project led by Curtin Property Co. envisions hotels, 1.8 million square feet of office space, nearly 2,100 residential units, restaurants and entertainment options across more than 250,000 square feet of retail space.

To the northwest, entertainment developments in Wyandotte County are looming large.

The most concrete of those is Mattel Adventure Park, a full-scale amusement park that will feature roller coasters, a rooftop restaurant and bar, and various other attractions when it opens in 2026 near 118th Street and State Avenue, not far from the Kansas Speedway and the Village West shopping and entertainment district. The $115 million park is a centerpiece of the larger, $490 million Destination KCK resort-style entertainment district that will be funded in part by the state’s STAR bonds program.

That financing tool could trigger one of the region’s biggest development projects in years—the potential relocation from Missouri of stadiums for the Kansas City Royals, the Chiefs, or perhaps even both. Use of STAR bonds was authorized by the Kansas legislature in a special summer session. A move by either team from Jackson County into Kansas would mean at least one multi-billion-dollar construction project. Johnson and Clay Counties other prospective destinations, as Jackson County continues to slumber.

Wyandotte County continued its hot streak with the selection of Eastside Innovations to lead a massive $700 million redevelopment of the former Indian Springs Mall site, vacant for the past decade on prime ground adjacent to Interstate 635. Eastside Innovations and co-developer Arnold Development Group plan to build 1,475 apartments, nearly 291,000 square feet of retail space, 63 single-family homes and 150 townhomes, a hotel, and a grocery store, among other features, at the project dubbed Midtown Station. The first of its two phases is slated for opening in 2026, with the other phase following in 2027.

Two of the biggest deals to go down in 2024, paradoxically enough, didn’t come with big dollar signs attached to the transactions. The first was the formal consolidation of Saint Luke’s Health System in Kansas City with BJC HealthCare of St. Louis. That created a health-care giant serving the entire population of Missouri, organized into eastern and western divisions that essentially will continue to operate as they have over their respective territories. 

While no money changed hands, the unification created an enterprise with annual revenues projected at close to $15 billion.

That figure, by the way, is roughly equal to revenues of The University of Kansas Health System, which orchestrated the other big health-care move by jumping the state line to bring Liberty Hospital into its operating fold. Coming on the heels of 2023’s absorption of Olathe Health System, the partnership enhances KU Health’s market presence, overtaking HCA Midwest Health as the region’s largest provider and employer. All told, more than 17,000 people are now working under the KU Health banner.