How it started
History
The roots of BancFirst date back to 1966, when lead investor and Chairman H.E. "Gene" Rainbolt purchased Federal National Bank in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Federal National had $16 million in assets at the time of purchase. Throughout the 1970s, Rainbolt acquired interests in many rural Oklahoma banks and formed Thunderbird Financial Corporation to assist each bank with management services. In 1985, Rainbolt's banks in seven communities were brought under the ownership of United Community Corporation.
On April 1, 1989, BancFirst was formed and established its corporate headquarters in downtown Oklahoma City. Changes in Oklahoma's banking laws that allowed multiple banks to merge in such a fashion were largely due to Rainbolt's efforts to modernize the law.
David Rainbolt became CEO in 1992, and took the company public in 1993 through an initial public offering; BancFirst began trading on the NASDAQ under stock symbol BANF. David Rainbolt became chairman in 2017 after having led the bank through more than 35 bank acquisitions over the years. David Harlow is currently CEO of BancFirst Corporation.
From Wikipedia’s article on BancFirst, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3