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Shares of BOK Financial Corp. Inc. slid Wednesday after the Tulsa, Okla., company reported fourth-quarter earnings that fell well short of analysts' estimates.
February 1 -
Cautious executives at big regionals offer strict criteria for dealmaking, emphasize internal growth and play up niche targets in sharing their M&A outlooks.
January 23
BOK Financial Corp. in Tulsa is eyeing acquisitions of banks and nonbanks as it looks to both increase market share in areas where it operates and generate more revenues from fees.
Speaking to investors and analysts at a conference in Boston Thursday, Senior Vice President Daniel H. Ellinor said that the $25.5 billion-multi-bank holding company is primarily targeting healthy banks with between $1 billion and $2 billion of assets and well-placed branch networks. It is mostly interested in banks in the nine metropolitan markets where BOK already has branches and could add to its market share, though it would consider deals outside of its footprint, Ellinor said at the conference, which was hosted by Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.
He added that the company would also consider branch acquisitions and whole-bank deals above or below the $1 billion- to $2 billion-asset target if they proved to be a good fit.
BOK's lead subsidiary, Bank of Oklahoma, has the No. 1 deposit share in its home state and its Bank of Albuquerque has the No. 3 deposit share in New Mexico's largest city. In other major markets, though, including Dallas, Houston, Denver and Phoenix, the company ranks no higher than eighth in deposit share.
BOK has not made a whole-bank acquisition since 2007, when it bought the $173 million-asset United Banks of Colorado.
On the nonbank side, Ellinor said that the company is scouring the entire U.S. for line-of-business deals that could help it reach its goal of generating half of all revenues from fees. In the fourth quarter, fees accounted for 42% of revenues.
Like many regional banks, BOK is facing significant challenges in increasing fee income due to new regulations that cap fees on debit-card transactions and a 2010 law that required banks to receive customer approval before assessing overdraft fees. Ellinor said that he expects fee revenues to decline by $17 million a year as a result of the changes.
Ellinor said nonbank prospects it is eyeing include trust companies, asset managers and broker/dealers. BOK acquired a mortgage-servicing firm in 2010, but before that its last acquisition of a fee-based business was in 1998.
