Colte Koen’s entrepreneurial spirit led him into the oil and gas industry in 2014. He partnered with brothers Michael Stack and Marcus Stack, in WellWorx, a drilling and workover business in the Permian Basin. There he served as the CSO where he managed the recapitalization and rebranding of the entity.

In January 2015 in the midst of a downturn, Colte led the effort in launching a transaction advisory and oil and gas asset acquisition firm, Bellator Partners, primarily specializing in minerals and oilfield services with holdings across Texas and Oklahoma.

In early 2017, Bellator partnered with Entoro Capital, an energy-focused broker dealer and investment bank utilizing its proprietary syndication portal, OfferBoard, with founder Jim Row, a previous partner of Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse. As one of Entoro’s partners, Colte assists in managing transaction origination and strategy.

Originally from Arlington, Texas, Colte graduated with a business degree from Texas A&M University in College Station where he put himself through college by starting a series of smaller entrepreneurial endeavors. He holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

In his spare time, Koen enjoys the outdoors, including hiking, mountain biking and rock climbing.

Investor How did Bellator Partners start?

Koen Bellator started as many things do—out of necessity. At the time, my partners and I were running a contract drilling and workover services business (drilled over half a million feet throughout the Permian Basin) when the market crashed in ’14. My partners, being third generation oil and gas, have been through previous downturns and knew what was coming in ’15. We decided to pivot our efforts, adjust to the new reality within the industry and get on the transaction side of the business. We said, look, there’s going to be M&A in the market, there’s going to be movement, there’s going to be consolidation, let’s get on that side; let’s start Bellator Partners.

Investor You started the company at the beginning of the downturn. Any challenges or opportunities?

Koen There’s always opportunity in a down market. Warren Buffett will tell you that. I’d say a definite challenge was managing the overall morale of the industry. Strategically navigating that and the concurrent abundance of capital rushing to a seemingly distressed market was something we had to quickly adapt to.

That all said, there was opportunity there and that’s really where Bellator was born. We started focusing on how to make money in the downcycle of oil and gas.

Investor What is the company strategy today?

Koen When we started, we were much more focused on the advisory side of the business; working with oilfield services businesses that needed to restructure, recapitalize and/or raise growth and acquisition capital in a consolidating market. That’s where the “Partners” in our name came from, because we looked at it as teaming with quality, independent thinking, gut-driven entrepreneurs.

We really liked the model of empowering entrepreneurs because we’ve been there, we’ve done that, and we understand what they go through. Today, we still very much work with those groups but have since added a strong mineral rights acquisitions side to the business.

Investor What are some determining factors when deciding to acquire mineral assets or investing in a company?

Koen On the mineral side of it, it’s much more black and white. We look for a quality reserve analysis and we look at drilling schedules. So you might have an amazing asset or amazing reserves, it’s just in a place where no one’s going to drill for 10 years. For us, that’s really what it comes down to. On the oilfield service side of things, there’s a lot more soft elements that we take into account.

Honestly, it’s come to a point where we feel like we’re just going out in the market and doing deals with friends these days; it’s one of the things I love about the oil and gas space. That’s how we look at these oilfield services deals. For us, business is never just business; business is personal and we always want to make sure that we’re getting into business with someone that we want to talk to every day. We typically look for companies that have at least some operating history, solid MSAs and are at least breaking even; a proven concept.

Investor How does OfferBoard work?

Koen OfferBoard is Entoro’s proprietary online platform and is replacing the old ways that institutional investors source their deal flow; it’s a marketplace for quality transactions. We’ve recently made a couple of acquisitions and are continuing to add functionality; most recently in block-chain and digital currency.

Investor Who are you mentors?

Koen The first people that come to mind are my business partners, Michael and Marcus Stack. These guys put a lot of faith in me by bringing me in to WellWorx and then funding the launching of Bellator. They’ve truly been amazing stewards in exposing me to the oil and gas industry. Jim Row at Entoro has also been great to work with. He’s extremely knowledgeable and one of the hardest workers I know.