Jim Iman is the principal behind Jim Iman & Associates, Fort Worth, which invests in oil and gas drilling deals for its own account, and provides corporate finance and M&A advisory services to E&P and service and supply firms. As if that’s not enough to keep him busy, he is also the business development director for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.

As he likes to say, no two days are alike. “I’m my own boss—I hire myself every morning at 8 and fire myself every night at 6,” he quipped, adding that laughter is the best medicine in the world.

Through more than 50 years of deal-making he has known many of the industry’s most active and successful entrepreneurs on both the service and E&P sides, “meeting anybody who was anybody in the ’80s and ’90s.” He was there when the Barnett Shale kicked off and has plenty of stories to tell.

He attended Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, but left before graduating to go into banking, first in the credit and installment loan departments. While at NCR (National Cash Register) he attended its retail sales school, which he likens to getting an MBA. His first energy job was in sales at Halliburton, where he combined his NCR sales experience with what he learned from his father by osmosis (the latter being employed at Shell Oil for 42 years). Later he became a stockbroker for DFW Securities and helped form its investment banking department, thus learning how to do oil and gas deals. One early deal involved Owen Oil Tool Co. Another was John Schmitz, who later formed today’s Select Energy Services and is chairman and CEO.

These experiences and contacts led to his current Rolodex and deal-making business. At press time, Iman was in the middle of negotiating a merger between two service companies, where he represents the buyer. “We’ve moved from first base to third base and I can see it closing in about three months,” he said. He also consults for his longtime friend, noted Texas wildcatter and entrepreneur Jack Hightower, regarding Hightower’s latest E&P venture.

Jim Iman

Investor: Which is your favorite or most active arena, investing in wells and leases, advising on M&A or arranging corporate finance for third parties?

Iman: I love all three and try to work all of them. I guess I’m one of a kind because of my investment banking experience and I love doing M&A; I’ve put some service companies together and I’ve raised money for them as well. Everybody wants money—I don’t care if they’re bustin’ at the seams. My light goes on when they tell me what county they’re operating in, because I’ve probably been to them all. When I was in sales for Halliburton I covered 33 counties.

Then I was tapped a year ago by Alex Mills and George Rogers to become what the Texas Alliance calls business development director—I’ve been a member for 35 years. I’ve got over 50 years in oil and gas, corporate M&A and buyouts, so no two days are alike.

Investor: What sort of corporate finance do you do?

Iman: It’s always for service companies. I get them debt or equity, a line of credit or a lease deal for their equipment. People call me to find this, that or the other. I once had a guy who needed to sell his 737 jet, so I helped him do that last year—that was a different notch for my briefcase!

Investor: But you also help people sell leases or production?

Iman:I do. I have a paddle for everyone’s boat. I know all the reserve engineers around town and I get evaluations, then peddle it for them. I know a lot of buyers and sellers.

Investor: What is your outlook for an oil recovery?

Iman:I think prices will go lower and I think it’s going to be the second quarter of 2016 before we see a turnaround. It’s just gonna be tough. I don’t think there’s enough production on the market yet, but in six months there will be, and the smart money is waiting for that. In my opinion oil needs to get back to $75 or $80. Every time it goes higher, to $100, we go off a cliff and everybody gets greedy and it’s unnecessary.

Investor: Tell us about your time with the late famed oil and gas investor, Duke Rudman.

Iman: I called on him when I was at Halliburton. He was my mentor. He introduced me to the Yates, the Anhaeuser Bush family—they were all investing up in North Dakota long before it was the Bakken. He would say, ‘You need to know this person; you need to know that person.’ He knew where all the money was. Rudman probably taught me more about oil and gas than anybody, and that’s including my father, who was a production superintendent at Shell.

Rudman told me you can always make more money in the hard times than you can in the good times, but it took me a long time to really learn that.

Investor: How do you apply that concept today?

Iman: I like to turn lemons into lemonade because I have the right lemonade stand. I’ve seen this same kind of thing in ’57, the late ’60s, 1972-’73, the ’80s, the ’90s and now here we are again. It’s not a bust yet though—I’d call it more a shakeout. If everybody can hang on another year, I think we’ll be back on track.