© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Merger Announced Between Cullen-Frost And Oil-Rich West Texas Bank

Flickr user Hilton Lieberum
/
cc

One of San Antonio’s oldest banking companies has struck a profitable agreement with one of the largest oil banks in the country.

Cullen-Frost Bankers, Inc., has agreed to pay $220 million in stock and cash in the merger with Odessa-based WNBBancshares, Inc. Both companies expect benefits to accrue from the deal.

Cullen-Frost Chairman and CEO Dick Evans said in a press release that the 145-year-old West Texas franchise will increase Cullen-Frost’s participation in the lucrative oil production market in the Permian Basin, which he said is responsible for 14 percent of the nation’s oil production and more than half the oil production in Texas.

Evans said WNB customers will benefit from the variety of products and services offered by Cullen-Frost.

WNB Bancshares operates eight branches through its subsidiary, Western National Bank, primarily in the Midland and Odessa areas with $1.4 billion in assets, $1.2 billion in deposits and $656 million in loans as of June 30, 2013.

WNB president, Jack Wood, will join the Cullen/Frost Board. 

The transaction is expected to close in January, 2014, after the deal gets approval from the Federal Reserve and the Texas Department of Banking.

Eileen Pace is a veteran radio and print journalist with a long history of investigative and feature reporting in San Antonio and Houston, earning more than 50 awards for investigative reporting, documentaries, long-form series, features, sports stories, outstanding anchoring and best use of sound.