Latest news with #OklahomaCity-based
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
BancFirst to buy Oklahoma lender hit with DOJ redlining order
This story was originally published on Banking Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Banking Dive newsletter. Oklahoma City-based BancFirst has agreed to buy in-state peer American Bank of Oklahoma, a Collinsville-based privately held community lender. The acquisition will add roughly $385 million in total assets, $280 million in loans and $320 million in deposits to BancFirst's $14 billion in assets, the larger lender said last week. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter, according to the press release. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. BancFirst aims to leverage ABOK's presence in the Tulsa metro area with its Collinsville and Skiatook branches, about 20 miles north of Tulsa. 'Collinsville and Skiatook are thriving communities that continue to experience dynamic growth in Northeastern Oklahoma,' BancFirst CEO David Harlow said in a statement. 'We are excited to welcome the American Bank of Oklahoma team and their customers to BancFirst. This acquisition aligns with our continued commitment to serving communities here in our home state.' BancFirst's last acquisition, The First National Bank and Trust Company of Vinita, was placed under a prompt corrective action directive by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in January 2021, just before the acquisition was announced. The OCC deemed the bank to be engaging in unsafe and unsound practices and notified the lender it would be subjected to supervisory actions applicable to undercapitalized lenders. A month later, BancFirst announced the purchase and assumption of assets and liabilities of the troubled bank. ABOK has had its share of challenges as well. In February, ABOK was fined $7,500 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for violating FDIC rules related to flood insurance. The lender allegedly failed to obtain sufficient flood insurance coverage for properties in special flood hazard areas and ensure proper coverage before loan origination, increase, extension, or renewal. ABOK agreed to pay the civil money penalty without denying or admitting to the findings. In August 2023, ABOK agreed to pay more than $1.15 million to settle a Justice Department investigation into allegations that the lender engaged in inadequate mortgage lending practices in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the Tulsa metropolitan area from 2017 to at least 2021. Under the consent order, the lender was required to open a branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic census tract within its four-county lending area around Tulsa. Additionally, ABOK was required to put at least $950,000 in a loan fund to subsidize mortgages and home improvement financing in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. ABOK, for its part, denied the DOJ's allegations that the bank failed to monitor and address fair lending risk appropriately. The community bank had a partial win when a magistrate judge removed two references to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre from the redlining consent order to which the bank had objected. ABOK noted that the DOJ's decision to reference the 'distressing historical event' in its complaint was concerning since the bank was established 77 years after the massacre. BancFirst did not respond to requests for comments by press time. ABOK will operate under its present name until the merger with BancFirst is completed, the company said. 'Joining forces with BancFirst represents a great opportunity for our customers and employees to join one of the strongest banks in the country,' Teresa Brown, CEO of American Bank of Oklahoma. 'We share common values and a commitment to local service, and we look forward to the partnership.' BancFirst also operates two subsidiary Texas state-chartered banks: Pegasus Bank, headquartered in Dallas, and Worthington Bank, headquartered in Arlington. BancFirst has 104 locations with over 2,000 employees serving 60 counties in Oklahoma. Recommended Reading Valley National Bank to buy Bank Leumi's US arm in $1.15B deal Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The Classic Ice Cream Chain That's Closing Dozens Of Locations In 2025
It's a difficult time to be in the business of food, period, as the classic ice cream chain Dairy Queen has been closing locations throughout the first half of 2025. Known for its famous (and adorably named) Dilly Bar, and as one of the fast food restaurants that is completely different today from when it first opened, DQ — as it's known colloquially — began its closing spree in February, when it was confirmed that it would be saying goodbye to 25 locations in Texas. By early April, however, the chain had closed 40 locations in Texas. Customer feedback following the announcements reflected disappointment, though many were unsurprised. One person commented on Facebook, "I think this is sad, but honestly, Dairy Queen isn't what it used to be. It's really gone down downhill," while another mentioned that all the restaurants were showing signs of wear and tear. Others remarked that they preferred Oklahoma City-based chain Braum's to Dairy Queen anyway. Read more: The Vanilla Ice Cream That Uses The Best Ingredients Hands Down Financial woes have plagued the food sector for months now, with the likes of Hooters and Bar Louie filing for bankruptcy in March, along with other fast food chains like Wendy's closing stores in 2024. However, Dairy Queen's recent restaurant closures in the Lone Star State aren't necessarily indicative of a chain-wide issue; rather, they stem from a single franchisee, who owns the locations under the name Project Lonestar and apparently refused to make the renovations requested by the parent company, Dairy Queen. Rather than invest the no-doubt thousands of dollars needed to bring the restaurants up to scratch, the franchisee opted instead to close the locations and attempt to sell them. While there was an interested buyer, parent company DQ stepped in and refused to allow the restaurants to change hands, and the sale did not go through. However, the franchisee did sell the contents of the restaurants on Local Auctions, an online marketplace for auctions, including Dairy Queen's signature Blizzard machines. Imagine having one of those at home — you could whip up a Cookie Jar Blizzard, one of those secret fast food menu items everyone should try, whenever the craving hit! Want more food knowledge? Sign up to our free newsletter where we're helping thousands of foodies, like you, become culinary masters, one email at a time. Read the original article on Food Republic.
CNBC
22-05-2025
- Business
- CNBC
50-year-old's side hustle brings in $117,000 a month, he works 1 day a week on it: I can 'set my own schedule'
Four days per week, nurse anesthetist Mike O'Dell spends his 10-hour shifts sitting in a swivel chair shoved between pieces of towering, whirring operating equipment. He can't use the bathroom, grab lunch or sip water without asking someone to cover for him, he says. Running his side hustle, Oklahoma City-based quilting company Legit Kits, offers the opposite experience. One day per week, O'Dell enjoys a cup of coffee on his patio and drives his kids to school before starting work, he says. "I can eat breakfast, I can go to the gym. I set my own schedule," says O'Dell, 50. O'Dell launched his side hustle in 2020, after making his two sons Star Wars-themed blankets by drawing a pattern and sewing fabric to the 5-by-6.5-foot paper — like a craftier version of paint-by-numbers. The process, called "foundation paper piecing," made quilting easier than he'd expected, so O'Dell decided to start a business around making and selling quilting kits, he says. Knowing he didn't want to leave his full-time job — which currently pays him $240,000 per year — O'Dell built Legit Kits to run without him most of the time. He hired two graphic designers to create art and quilting patterns, then another employee to cut fabric and ship quilts, he Kits, which now has seven full-time employees and four freelance designers, brought in $1.25 million in online sales in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The company made an extra $150,000 selling kits at the now-defunct Joann Fabrics and Crafts, O'Dell estimates. (On February 23, Joann announced closures of its roughly 800 stores, citing bankruptcy liquidation.) The business was profitable in 2023, and broke even last year after accounting for the expenses of moving into a new 4,500-square-foot-warehouse, says O'Dell. O'Dell learned to sew two decades ago to make his own Braveheart kilt for Halloween, he says. Now, he spends one day per week testing color swatches, approving designs and marketing the company to new customers and retailers. He plans to pay himself a $50,000 salary — for serving as the company's creative director and CEO — from Legit Kits this year, he says. "The burnout I feel at the hospital fuels my energy to do the other thing for myself," says O'Dell. "It turns the volume down when everybody's mad at work." Legit Kits has a relatively small amount of market share in a quilting industry that's worth nearly $5 billion, according to the Craft Industry Alliance, a trade association. To grow, O'Dell wants to expand his customer base beyond experienced quilters, he says. His current Facebook advertising campaign targets more casual crafters and Legit Kits has started selling more "mini" kits — $99 for each 15-by-20-inch creation — as easier products to complete. Another reason for selling lower-cost items, O'Dell says: As U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff policies threaten to raise prices on common consumer goods, Americans could be less likely to spend money on crafts. "I don't want to price people out of a hobby," says O'Dell. But tariffs could also make Legit Kits more expensive to run. The company's fabrics come from Southeast Asian countries including Indonesia and Vietnam, and goods imported from those two countries face 32% and 46% tariff rates, respectively, under policies unveiled by Trump on April 2. Those rates are currently paused until July 9, temporarily replaced by a baseline 10% tariff rate on all foreign imports. "The uncertainty is stressful," says O'Dell, adding that he can't confidently hire new employees until he knows how tariffs will affect Legit Kits' costs. "Optimism is essential these days. Hope mine isn't misplaced." His high-paying, full-time job is his company's safety net. Since O'Dell doesn't have to worry about Legit Kits turning enough profit to pay himself a living wage, he predicts that tariffs — or any other form of economic uncertainty — won't ever force his side hustle's closure. Even pre-tariffs, he didn't expect his side hustle income to surpass his nurse anesthetist salary for another five years, he adds. "I'd have to get Legit Kits up to eight figures in annual sales [to consider making it my full-time job] ... and I want my kids to go to college," says O'Dell. ,
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Energy private equity patiently waits to pounce and lead the next wave of oil and gas M&A amid crude oil, tariff chaos
As crude oil prices plunged and tariff chaos took hold in early April, oil and gas deal-making slammed on the brakes from a record-breaking pace to a virtual standstill. As the top oil supermajors in the U.S.—Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips—gobbled up smaller players, the next feeding frenzy was supposed to come from private equity-backed startups that had raised funds and were ready to feast on so-called, 'non-core' asset sales from the biggest oil producers. Now, energy-focused private equity firms are waiting and working behind the scenes amid the current uncertainty, looking for advantages or signs of distress to jump into the fray and start buying. But it may take longer than they initially expected. 'When you do have uncertainty, when you do have market dislocations, we have seen very compelling investment opportunities that tend to present themselves during those periods of time,' said Mark Teshoian, managing Partner and co-head of energy private equity at Kayne Anderson, told Fortune. 'Our expectation is that now will be no different. PE firm Kayne Anderson announced May 13 the closing of its $2.25 billion Kayne Private Energy Income Fund III, easily exceeding its initial $1.5 billion target. The firm in late April, for instance, committed $400 million to the Oklahoma City-based startup South Wind Exploration & Production—an oil and gas firm, not wind energy—which has yet to make any big acquisition moves. 'We don't know exactly where those opportunities will present themselves, but we have found that—when you have a little bit of uncertainty, a little bit of distress—having access to capital, having a good reputation in the industry, does tend to allow you to get deals done,' Teshoian said. 'In our experience, those deals have historically performed better when acquired or invested in during these more uncertain periods of time.' The biggest energy deals that closed in 2024 included Exxon buying Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion, Conoco snatching Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion, and Diamondback Energy acquiring Endeavor Energy Resources for $26 billion. The pending $53 billion purchase of Hess by Chevron won't close until this summer at the earliest because of an arbitration dispute. In the meantime, the remaining private equity firms focused on oil and gas built up a lot of dry powder that is now ready to be deployed, said Andrew Dittmar, principal analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research, including for assets such as Conoco potentially selling Marathon's legacy Oklahoma acreage position. But tariffs create cost concerns, especially when they are constantly in flux, and the lower oil prices create a greater mismatch in the bid-ask spread between buyers and sellers, he said, stalling out or killing most potential deals. 'The bigger public companies really pushed aggressively to consolidate,' Dittmar said. 'I think the private equities are ready to make some moves when assets do come up for sale if we go through a larger wave of non-core divestments.' Similar to Kayne Anderson launching South Wind, Post Oak Energy Capital recently backed the startups of Tiburon Oil & Gas, Ichthys Energy, and Quantent Energy last fall. Quantent made a modest initial deal in September, but the three have yet to publicly act otherwise. 'There's no lack of effort on trying to reach an agreement around bid-ask. We're not taking a holiday. We're not taking a wait-and-see approach,' said Frost Cochran, managing director and founding partner at Post Oak. 'But we are influenced by our view that oil prices could be low for a while.' Still, the Post Oak-backed companies are making 'small bite' deals that don't rise to press release levels, even if larger-scale deal making seems temporarily off the table, said Frost Cochran, managing director and founding partner at Post Oak. These are deals closer to $10 million than 'hundreds of millions,' he said. 'I think we could have a very disappointing year in transaction activity. Our base case is this could be a slow period this year, and activity picks up next year.' In the meantime, Cochran said, 'We focus more on the ground game for our portfolio companies, and that's why we're still actively buying small assets to bolt onto existing positions. The larger M&A stuff may just have to wait until we're past this period of volatility.' There is still some more modest M&A occurring since President Trump's tariff 'Liberation Day' in the beginning of April. Publicly traded Permian Resources, on which Cochran sits on the board, bought a large swatch of Apache's Permian Basin assets in New Mexico for $608 million in early May. But no other oil deals have exceeded $500 million. Citing the Permian Resources-Apache deal, Cochran said, bigger oil producers may be willing to sell some acreage at a discount to maintain their spending plans on their core assets and to keep their dividends fully funded. And the definition of what counts as 'non-core' assets put up for sale by companies could widen the longer crude oil prices remain weaker. 'If lower prices persist into 2026, that's when you may see companies start to become more elastic on the definition of what counts as a non-core asset as they divest to preserve cash and pay down debt and protect the dividend,' Dittmar said. The only deal bigger than Permian Resources since April 1 was focused entirely on more bullish natural gas, and not on crude oil, especially in the gassy Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. In late April, EQT said it would buy Blackstone-backed Olympus Energy for $1.8 billion in the Marcellus. Just prior to tariffs, gas bullishness rose to the level that generalist hedge fund giant Citadel bought Haynesville Shale producer Paloma Natural Gas for $1.2 billion in March. So, while oil price futures remain hazier, there's more emphasis on natural gas, especially thanks to construction booms for both liquefied natural gas export facilities and for data centers that crave gas-fired power. Ben Davis, managing director at Energy Spectrum Capital, is very cognizant of that reality. U.S. grid demand was basically flat and increasing 0.2% per year for more than 15 years as of 2023, according to S&P Global Commodities Research. Now, it's slated to rise 1.7% per year from 2024 to 2050. 'That may not sound like a lot, but that's an incredible increase,' Davis said. 'We think it makes for an attractive investment environment.' Because the up-and-down cycles for oil and gas prices have occurred more frequently in the past decade and there are now fewer potential buyers because of consolidation, PE firms are willing to hold onto their portfolio companies for longer and run them more like publicly traded companies with an emphasis on free cash flow and returns. 'It's a very tough time to sell assets,' Davis said. 'People want to see how the dust settles.' 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Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pilot project seeks to fix Achilles heel of geothermal power
A pilot project from a team of oil industry veterans could save one of California's key clean energy resources from terminal decline. On Thursday, the Oklahoma City-based GreenFire Energy announced it had restored new life to a defunct well in the Geysers, the world's largest geothermal power station — and one that has been in a state of slow, decades-long collapse. By means of technology that taps the heat from underground — rather than the rapidly depleting water — the GreenFire team turned a well whose electric production had flatlined into a power producer. That offers a potential lifeline to the Geysers, which currently generates about 630 megawatts of on-demand, carbon free electricity to Northern California — down from 2,000 megawatts in 1987. 'You can see these gray wells — they've been abandoned,' said Rob Klenner, a former oil and gas engineer who is now GreenFire's chief executive, pointing to a diagram of the site where boreholes once funneled steam — heated by plate tectonics beneath California — up to spin turbines. 'There's still heat in this area, but it's kind of like a dry well,' Klenner said, comparing it to petroleum. 'Like, 'Hey, we got a little bit of oil, but not enough to make this economics, and then they shut everything in,'' Klenner said. The reason for the decline: the ferocious pace at which conventional forms of geothermal energy can use up water. Today, the Geysers plants use an average of 15 million gallons — 22 Olympic pools — per day. The complex's 18 power plants, spread across 45 miles, tap into the source in the form of the steam that spins their turbines. While this largely comes from treated municipal wastewater, it nonetheless represents a significant loss of water in a famously water-stressed region — and a significant brake on the ability of so-called hydrothermal fields to produce power. GreenFire's next-gen system, which sits atop a well that had also been largely abandoned for lack of pressure, takes an approach that produces power without losing water. Rather than spinning a turbine with the physical force of superheated water — which is then lost to the atmosphere — GreenFire's team circulates water in a closed loop to restore production. Now, as the steam rises from the hot rock below, it hits the heat exchanger of a different kind of power plant called an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC), a closed-loop system full of a 'working fluid' that boils at a much lower temperature than water. As the working fluid moves through the pipes of the ORC, it spins a turbine and generates power — before releasing its heat into a condenser and falling, exhausted, back into the pump to start again. Inside the well, something similar is happening, Klenner said. The rising steam dumps its heat into the ORC and then gets reinjected into the new underground closed loop. 'It cools back down, and then we would reinject it,' he added. 'So now there's no water coming to the surface anymore.' He compared this system to injection wells that coax new oil out of failing oil wells — with the difference that ideally nothing leaves the ground. As the buzz in geothermal energy increasingly focuses on 'enhanced' forms of the technology that use techniques like fracking to create artificial underground cavern networks, Klenner hopes that techniques like this one offer a low-hanging fruit to revitalize existing resources. Proponents of enhanced geothermal (EGS) hope for geothermal drilling on a scale that rivals the oil and gas boom of the 2010s. But while GreenFire has its own EGS projects, Klenner noted that side of the business, almost by definition, means creating electricity at new sites which planners will then have to figure out how to connect to the grid. At the Geysers, he said, 'The infrastructure is already there. They already have the wells. They already have the power lines. Rather than going to an area where, you know, we want to go do this for the first time, we're working in an area that has everything already put together — which helps lower the cost hurdles.' Bringing the Geysers back to its late 20th Century peak, he noted, would be the equivalent of adding a gigawatt to the grid — the equivalent of building, say, hundreds of new wind turbines, with none of the challenges that such new builds entail. 'If we can do this in existing wells, and we could simply just double production, there's large opportunity,' he said. Updated at 9:50 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
