It started with a phone call.
Gary Fields, president and CEO of BancFirst, called Mann in August 2000 to have lunch at the Zoar Tavern & Inn near Dover.
The men knew each other and were familiar with each other’s banks. This, however, was not a social call.
They discussed the potential benefits of a possible combination. The more they talked, the more a merger started to make sense: growth in earnings per share, increased efficiency of operations and an increase in fee income.
"It doubled the size of both companies," Mann says. "From an analyst standpoint, you start to have more liquidity in your stock. Instead of having 6,000 shares traded a day, we’re averaging about 31,000 traded a day. It creates much more interest in your company."
Over the spring and summer, Mann and Fields met several times, then agreed to expand discussions at the next meeting to include James Pennetti, UNB’s CFO, and James Nicholson, president of BancFirst’s banking subsidiary, The First National Bank of Zanesville.
They also discussed the need for a single, clearly defined CEO to lead the combined institutions.
This is usually where negotiations in a merger of equals heats up. But not in Unizan’s case, according to Mann.
"We did it on a handshake," Mann says. "Gary looked at me and said, ‘Roge, this ship can only have one captain, and you should be the CEO.’ All those things started to fall in place."
