8/18/26 From 457 Plans to Greyhound Flats

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Tuesday, August 18th BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guest: Cyrus Mojibi, CEO of San Joaquin Refinery Co.. website: https://www.sjr.com/ The Greyhound Flats: https://thegreyhoundflats.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. San Joaquin Refinery Co, The Greyhound Flats & Cyrus Mojibi are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management].

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  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield.

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  Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

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  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the Money Wise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. We are live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you are on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 AM KERN streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we are your hosts. I'm Sammy Abiyawi with

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  Dustin Weaver.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  Dustin Weaver.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Welcome to the show.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  It's good to be here, especially with you.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  Yes, very excited, very excited. I haven't done one with you since I left on vacation.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  It's been too long.

• 1:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's been

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Good show, good guests coming in here in a little bit.

• 1:20Speaker 03

  Great questions from the listeners. Keep those coming. To start us with, I mean, can you, what are we doing today with the market?

• 1:27Speaker 01

  Markets are mostly red. We've got S and P 500 down currently 0.61%. The Dow is down 0.16%. NASDAQ, which as a reminder is more tech-heavy, there's more technology companies there, down a little bit more than the others, down 1.3% today. Small companies in that Russell 2000, about the same 1.1%. Volatility Index is up, meaning there's a little bit more volatility. Gold's down about 1%, Bitcoin's up about 0.7%. So mostly red with a little bit of green.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that that was the story yesterday with a little bit of not green and then, I don't know, I can't remember how we closed that yesterday. So good. We have a great show ahead. We have a great guest in Cyrus Mujeeb attending later, but in the meantime, we have some listener questions and comments. We had Chad Hathaway on the show yesterday. We talked about the strategic petroleum reserves.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  And certain facts that I did not know. I mean, I thought that these things just get stored in some big containers and so, no, it's salt mines that they just put this stuff in, which was an interesting thing. And how many times you can pull and recharge again, like five times and we're at 12 times already. So

• 2:48Speaker 01

  And the normal is what?

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  Like they were created and the wear and tear on them should have been like five times. You film five times and you pull five times.

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  But they've already done that 12.

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  12 times.

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  Go back and listen to that.

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Because we've The 40-year-old virgin.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Steve, man, leave me alone. That was a comment I made a long time ago. This is the 40-year-old virgin.

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  Everything is recorded.

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  Everything is recorded. Whatever I say now is forever, forever in here and Steve does not make me forget that.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  So somebody had a follow-up comment, I guess, yesterday about historically, Bakersfield's been an oil town, ag, and a few years ago, looked like turning into a solar town. But it looks like there's some transitions with all three of them. And they're asking, what is Landman? Did you guys talk about the show Landman?

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're talking about Landman, the show, the show that exists, or is it Paramount? Yeah.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Sounds, yeah, I think so.

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  Paramount, I watched it a couple of times. It's a pretty good show. And according to Chad, it's kind of like helped change the view.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Oh, is that right?

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  Of the people on the oil patch and how things work and stuff because there's, I felt like there's some reality to it. Chad thinks that there is some reality, but not like 100%.

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  It's also drama, you know.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. I mean, we have to add the drama to the show so it can be successful and what have you, but I like the show.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  I like the show. It's from the same, I believe, creator as

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  Oh, it's Taylor.

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  That Ranch and stuff. So

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  That's right.

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  Taylor, Taylor Sheridan.

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  That's it. Sheridan.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  You got it.

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  He's bringing up some like old school shows. I like it.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  I like it. Stephen, would you agree?

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  I've never watched them.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Get with the program.

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  I work and sleep, so.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

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  Yeah.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

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  Yeah.

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  And you watch a lot of football, though.

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  Football is coming.

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  Yeah.

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  Yeah, can't wait.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  No, you can wait because the Dolphins ain't gonna do nothing this year again.

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  It's gonna be better than last year, so.

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  Yep.

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  Tour time is over.

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  I've known you now for almost five years. You've been telling me that every year.

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  Every year. I've been going probably 40 years, so.

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  We have another, another comment from a listener. I love that you guys discussed how many Americans live check to check. I work two jobs just to cover bills, mortgages, et cetera. And of course, I have to feed my family. Silly, but as a parent, I think I have to feed these kids.

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  That's funny.

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  But you hit it. Something has to give with everything going up in costs, but the rate of pay continues not to match what the cost to live is in this economy. Not getting political because it seems both sides don't understand it. Thank you for bringing this up. Show some people understand the problem.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of, there's a lot there, but yes, it is difficult and inflation has been a real thing.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  It has, it has. And, and just like I gave the example of us now being involved in the restaurant and, you know, type of minimum wage type of employees and it's, it's, it's a real struggle. I've seen it in with our own employees. Of course, we try to help pay more than what others pay at the restaurant, but still it's, it's, it's a real struggle, especially for single parents. I mean, we have some single parents working for us, either a single father or a single mother and

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  And I know a couple of them are also working a second job.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  That's correct. So that's, that's

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  Sometimes it takes two and maybe even three.

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  Yeah, I do, I still do believe that even though the struggle is real, budgeting is very, very important. I know, I know, I know it might be a broken record here, but even with that, you still want to budget so you can know exactly where your dollars are being spent. And you account for each, for every bill that you spend in, especially if this, if you're working through a job, especially if the the pay is not increasing to the rate of the inflation. You've got to still budget. You've got to know where things are going. You do not need Paramount subscription to watch Landman. If you have Prime, if you have something, one subscription is enough.

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  Well, that's where it can get out of control, you know, at 9.99 or 13.99 a month.

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  Yes.

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  Most of us can swing, you know, at least one subscription, but you know, when you start adding three, four, or five, it's like, oh.

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  You know what the funny part is? That you have three, four subscriptions, but you still sit in front of the TV sometimes at night and you're trying to find something really good to watch. And you have four, five of them and you still can't.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  That happens.

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  You know, just, just, so we have one more question before we go on a break. I have decided to retire in a few years at 65 and I just want to make sure I am maximizing my finances for the next couple of years. I have a 457 through my employer and I wanted to know if there, there are options for changing to a Roth, if that would be helpful. Thank you.

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Great question. And the answer as usual is

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  It depends.

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  You, you knew that was coming. So a 457, there's probably a few listeners out there that have them. There's two major types. You have a governmental 457. This is what most public sector employees have. So if you're working for a state, city, county, school district, et cetera, those are more flexible, meaning those types of plans can be converted to a Roth or rolled to a traditional IRA when you leave that job. However, a non-governmental 457, also known as what they call a top hat plan. Those are typically like for a nonprofit or a private employer, those are more restrictive. You usually cannot roll to an IRA at all, whether it's a Roth or otherwise. So

• 8:46Speaker 01

  that's the foundation of that question is which type of plan do you have? The next thing is if you are able and eligible to convert, you want to think about converting in a more ideal tax situation. So usually when you're fully gainfully employed and your top earning year is usually towards the end of your career, it's usually better to wait until you retire to do the conversion because you're likely in a lower tax bracket. So the other thing to be mindful of is you cannot convert to a Roth to meet your required minimum distribution. So really the window of opportunity for a Roth conversion is usually post-retirement up until the age of

• 9:27Speaker 01

  73 to 75, depending on when you're born. So yeah, that's just some of the details. There's weeds Weaver for you. Getting in the weeds again.

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Good, good, good stuff. Keep the questions coming. We're gonna go into our first break. When we come back, we have a great guest for the show. We'll be right back.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm just curious if Cyrus remembers this song from back in the day. No, not your tune. That's okay.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  I remember it. I know Steven does. I saw him singing in there.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  I don't know what I'm saying, but.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  Um, welcome back to the, to the show. I'm Sammy Abiyawi, uh, joined here with Dustin Weaver and Cyrus Mojibi. Uh, we had a little bit of a technical things. Can you hear me okay now Cyrus?

• 10:20Speaker 04

  I can hear you now.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  All right.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Obviously I didn't recognize the song if you have my microphone off.

• 10:28Speaker 03

  Cyrus is the CEO of San Joaquin Refining, CEO, right?

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, uh, and, uh, when did you take the title CEO?

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Uh, it's probably been six or seven years.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Okay, okay. And, uh, CEO of San Joaquin Refiners, yes, they do still exist in California refineries and Cyrus runs one of them. And, uh, how, how is, how is that going? The, the industry in general, oil. We had Chad yesterday. We talked about a lot of things amongst them, the reserves, but also pricing at the pump and all the challenges in between from a producer eventually to the refineries.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure. Well, like I, uh, like I mentioned last time, you know, there's three real distinct challenges in the oil industry. Chad has to deal with it on the upstream and the midstream side. You know, obviously we're just more downstream. So, yeah, when the, when the oil prices spiked as a result of, um, the, the conflict that started in the Middle East. Initially to refiners, you'll see margin suppression, uh, as, as our commodity price shoots up on a daily, daily basis. You know, we're typically holding prices for 45 to 60 days and we ship product all around the world. So it's hard to, um, when you see an immediate commodity rise and you, you know, that's just straight off the margin. And so, but you know, it goes both ways because when prices come back down again,

• 11:48Speaker 04

  we'll typically hold our prices and you know, you make it up on the side. It's just you're riding the ebbs and flows of the, any commodity basis.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  You've educated me on this in the past. We are producing, oil producing county. And then our prices at the pump sometimes are higher than non-producing counties. And, and a lot of it has to do with the refining aspect. Can you just explain to the listeners where our oil is produced and where does it have to go to get refined? Not all of it gets refined here in Bakersfield, I'm going to assume.

• 12:18Speaker 04

  Very little transportation fuel actually gets made here. We make a little bit of it in Kern. Energy makes

• 12:25Speaker 04

  larger volume, but to satisfy what we need to here locally, we have to get it from the Bay, Fresno or LA. And they have to get it in fill from, they, they get barrels brought off shore. So, you know, we're not, while we have all the abundant reserves here in California, there's very little chance your gasoline actually came from Crudo Island, California. It probably came from Venezuela or Ecuador or, you know, somewhere in the Middle East or, uh, typically to South America. So it's a little challenging because we have the resources here. And like I said last time, we do it better than anybody else. We do it cleaner. We do it more efficiently. But our, um, policies that we have don't allow us to, um, tap into our

• 13:08Speaker 04

  God-given natural resources that the state of California has.

• 13:11Speaker 03

  As, as, two refineries left the state. Valero was the, the latest one in April, I believe of, of this year. Has, has anything changed since then? The, the appetite of the state towards refining or oil in general?

• 13:27Speaker 04

  Uh, I'd say there's conversations happening that, that in the past, you wouldn't even get a, a meeting with, right? There, you're, you're starting to hear them recognize that they have a problem, which is good for California because usually they'll wait to even, um, you know, wait till it's dead. We died three times over before they start looking at the problem. So there is conversations happening, which is nice. You know, they, they're mostly around some of the environmental regulations and the cost of compliance that has just skyrocketed. And, um, literally is, uh, if the, if the program continues to ascend at the rate that they want it to, it eventually just will take us all out of business. And, you know, that's a feature, not a bug.

• 14:08Speaker 04

  For people who wrote it. So, um, I think they're starting to realize that you can't just get rid of this all without having major economic disaster. And, um, I think they're kind of coming around, but it's going to be a tough slog. You know, you get some of those, some, some of the kind of real crazy ones that just, they don't care. They, they, um, they live in their ivory towers and their apartment in San Francisco and they, they don't care to.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  I mean, I mean, you're, you're in the mix of this and you've been a huge supporter of, of the oil industry and Chad attests to that and others, including myself. I went to talks where you are a big supporter of the industry as a whole because of the economic impact it makes on our community. Do these people just don't see the vision, don't see the, the impact or the, what, what's their vision? I wanna like, if you're in talks with them or listen to them, what's their vision?

• 15:03Speaker 04

  Um, I, you know, I think that for people who are only focused on environmentalism or whatever. And when I, when I say environmentalism, I don't mean that oil refineries don't do it because we do. We, we work hard to take care of the environment. That's something that a lot of people miss, right? But what I'm talking about, the people who, you know, it's a classic term in real estate and, and California, they're NIMBYs, right? Not in my backyard. They just don't want it here. They don't want to see the rigs off Santa Barbara when they go over to the coast. They don't want to see, uh, oil rigs. They, they, you know, they hate the occasional accident that happens and they do, but, um, it's,

• 15:41Speaker 04

  you know, they're always going to take that stance no matter what. You could argue until you're blue in the face and they're just not going to see it that way. So you, you pick your battles a bit and you talk to the sensible ones. And I think the most important thing is more and more, there's more that, more people in legislature, legislator that are getting serious about at least having a conversation. Whereas in the past, they wouldn't even take a meeting.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And a quick question. You mentioned, um, compliance. It's expensive for compliance. What's an example of that? What, um, I know there's a lot of different costs or red tape, I guess we can call it. But, uh, for the listeners out there, what's, what's an example?

• 16:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. So there's three main, um, environmental compliance programs. Renewable fuel standards, which is federal, and then two California ones, greenhouse gas emissions and cap and trade. And those are all laws that have gone in place over the past 15 years. I think I shared this last time, but it's a number that's pretty staggering. In 2012, when we, before AB 32 passed, which triggered, um, cap and trade and greenhouse gas and tailpipe emissions. Um, and then renewable fuel standards started on the federal side. Our cost of compliance line item was about 400,000. Um, it'll hit over 25 million this year in about 13 years. So.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  That's incredible.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  And, and you know, look, we've eaten a lot of it, but also so has the taxpayer. So has the end user. So has, you know, the, the, the cost gets passed through. It just does. Otherwise it wouldn't be a business. So it's, um, it, it's something that everyone should realize. It really is a tax to yourself when you go out and support these programs because it's, um, it's simply getting passed on to the end user. I'm selling my diesel fuel higher to the jobber. Jobber selling it higher to the, um, distribution centers and then they're jacking up the price to you. So it's ultimately, we all pay for it.

• 17:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel it, especially with diesel.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  At the pump. I feel it personally.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  We haven't even seen the, you know, Valero will have product, I think they said till not October. Once they're out, then I think you're really going to see the price jump start.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Of diesel?

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Diesel and gasoline. And the jet fuel too. So.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  So.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Higher jet fuel means, you know, airline camp, they're going to have to pass that on to us.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  So higher ticket to fly anywhere.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  Those airlines don't like suppressing profit margin.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely. On, on, on the local side and at your refinery side, so I was just hoping for some of the products because you do have a niche. Of what you produce and you said that you ship internationally, you know, out of Bakersfield, which is amazing. I mean, a lot of people might not know that, that we ship internationally from a a local company. What are some of the products that that you have at the refinery?

• 18:32Speaker 04

  So we refine all heavy Kerner recruit oil. So fifty five percent of everything we make is asphalt and paving asphalt. A little bit in the roofing, roofing business, but mostly paving asphalt. Once Valero is fully out of business, we'll actually be the state's largest supplier of in-state asphalt, which is crazy because we're just a small, little family company.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  And then the lighter half of the barrel, we make a little bit of diesel fuel. That's the only combustible fuel we make. We make transformer oil, ink oils, process oils, basically anything that goes into someone else's further manufacturing. We're one of like the base oils for WD forty, for example. Transformer oil is our, I'd say our bread and butter. We're the second largest producer of transformer in the nation. Transformer oil is, it sits in every power box and pad mounted transformer on power poles. And it helps improve the conductivity and lubricity of electricity through the power lines. So it makes electrical, it makes electrical good more.

• 19:33Speaker 04

  It works better and it, it can't be done without it, right? So every time they talk about these mandates for all of us driving electric vehicles, electric stove tops, you know, getting your natural gas and all that, you gotta realize that you actually would need more refineries to make this product. There's no renewable product for it. You can make it out of a rape seed oil, but it's twenty bucks a gallon. So it's, you know,

• 19:58Speaker 03

  This is the, I got the tour of the facility. There's a facility that is very special. Is this the specialized one in the back?

• 20:06Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 20:07Speaker 03

  That was designed by this gentleman you told us about, and it's very hard to just duplicate that today.

• 20:13Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah, you couldn't. You wouldn't build that in, on the entire West Coast. And I think we built it in nineteen ninety-eight. And I think it was forty million to build. I bet you now it's over two hundred million, just the cost of big projects like that scaling up. So, you know, when you're, when you, on one hand, have people trying to put you out of business, you, you've put on your old banker hat. It's pretty tough for me to come get a loan when

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  I, I need ten years to pay it back and they're actively trying to get rid of this.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, get you out. I was gonna ask you about that as a follow up question before we go on a break on just the cost of borrowing and is, is, is high. Interest rates have been high. And, and I know you, you, you use banks either for a line of credit or letters of credit. How has that impacted you on your projects if you wanted to do any projects?

• 21:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. On our, on the refinery side, we, we blessed with good shareholders who keep things very well capitalized. So we don't have a lot there, but on the real estate side, certainly, it's, you know, just shrinks the margin on every product, on every product, project.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  We'll take our first break. When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about oil, but also real estate as Cyrus just started that conversation. We'll be right back.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  That's Dustin all over.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  I do know that one too.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy Abiyawu with Dustin Weaver, joined by Cyrus Mojibi. Cyrus is the CEO of San Joaquino refineries. I, I had the privilege of meeting Cyrus almost fifteen years ago through my banking career, got to know his, him, his family, his wife, but also his father, who was a great client, but also a great friend. Your father built this company, Cyrus, from, from the ground up as an immigrant with almost nothing, and I, and I love his story. What did he teach you about running this company and, and in general that the listeners can, can, can connect with?

• 22:28Speaker 04

  I think the best advice he ever gave me was, I knew I wanted to work in the family business, right? And you see a lot of good family businesses and you see a lot of really badly run family businesses when sons and daughters start taking over. And I remember the first thing you told me, one of the first days I came back from college, I, I worked in the summer in the refinery, went from fourteen on or so, but when I actually started my job, he pulled me in, he said, you're gonna have to work twice as hard to get half the respect of everybody that's been here. You know, we have, we have,

• 23:02Speaker 04

  someone's gonna celebrate their fiftieth year anniversary this year with us. So, you know, some of these guys, they built, they literally built the refinery with him. So, you know, when you're a twenty-two-year-old pompous little boss's kid that walks in, again, I'm all for good nepotism. I really think it's, it's truly a great thing for civilization. It's, it can go really bad real quick. And so I think it has to be managed properly, but

• 23:28Speaker 04

  he told me, work twice as hard and you'll get half the respect. So, you know, it's really almost a four X. And I've done that and I, and I, it took me a long time, to be quite honest, to get, you know, the respect of some of the guys who have been there a long time.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Because I know that the CEO title came after a while, because you did not just come in out of college and took the CEO title.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  Almost twenty years.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Correct, correct. I, I remember when you were, when you got promoted, I remember Mo was very, very proud of that moment. And I remember my first time meeting with him in your office, talking about a real estate deal. And from that moment, I was like, you know what? This is the type of person I want to be dealing with and having deals with because he shook my hand, looked at me in the eye, and I was charging more from another bank. And he still took my deal because of the relationship, and that's Mo. That's what was Mo was all about. And it's an incredible, incredible, just incredible. He did so much for this community.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  I've seen it firsthand, hosting things in his backyard, just to promote Cancer Society and raise money for Cancer Society. A great loss for this community, and it's still being felt, in my opinion. So, rest in peace, Mo. You're loved.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  Going back a little bit just to, to, to oil. With the advance now in AI and a little bit, Chad yesterday talked about, you know, operators of just rigs and stuff. Now it's a lot easier. You don't need a lot of guys like in the past. Are you seeing that now in your, in your, at the refinery level?

• 25:05Speaker 04

  I, I know it exists and we're, we're starting to dabble with it. I don't know if it will replace operators, like on like our hydro treating. I think you might use tools, you might have AI tools for them to use. I don't ever see the units being fully run by a computer. I, I, I just think there has to be a human element to it. Although, I mean, look how fast this thing's growing. Who knows where it could be a few years from now and how sophisticated it might get, but

• 25:36Speaker 04

  we have certainly taken the role of utilizing AI to make our employees' jobs and workflows better. We're not really looking for it to replace anybody right now.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  So you have seen it show up in some areas and able to help a little bit?

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's, I mean, just on my own personal day, I've started to use it quite a bit just for making things a little bit easier and it's quite efficient. I know there's certain areas of supply and logistics and all that, that you can roll out pretty cool software that makes the, does all the work that we've been doing for the last fifty years somewhat manually, well manually, way back in the day, and then data entry on our computers over the last twenty-five years. And now it's, you know, prompted and go do something else while it takes care of it. So.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, it's amazing. For me, as, as I, I wear a hat of a CFO for three, four different companies and the work, the amount of work that it used to take me to just do it one P and L, given, looking at it. It's, it's amazing what it can do for you, just straight from a bank account. Now you have a true, a realistic picture of your company really, really quick.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you said it well when you said organizing the data, right? Any of this text that has to go into a box or information, numbers certainly helps make things a lot faster.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Oil has been the legacy of the family, Cyrus, and you're still in it. With that being said, you dabble in real estate and other ventures and, and one of those real estate ventures is, is here, right here in downtown. The old Greyhound bus station. And, and you bought that, what, like four, five years ago?

• 27:14Speaker 04

  I think it was, it was pre-COVID, or just right around COVID. So, yeah, right around twenty twenty and bought it, then demoed it and yeah, I remember it was COVID because we watched construction prices skyrocket. And so we sat on it for a couple of years just to see if we could get prices back down. So we're excited, should break ground. I was hoping it was gonna be July, then I was hoping it was gonna be August. Now I'm hoping it's gonna be September.

• 27:37Speaker 03

  Is it, is it permitting? Is it just cost?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Permitting is a little slow and, you know, we're, we're right there. We just got grading permits in and we should be breaking ground here.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  For people that don't know the project, what it's gonna do, where, where, is apartment complex? Is that what it's going to be?

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Yep. So it's gonna be forty-two units, three stories. Really looking to, you know, we wanna make the

• 28:01Speaker 04

  best downtown offering, you know, there's some great projects that have gone up on, sort of east of Chester. This is the first one in Phil, closer to West Chester. And I think, I think it's gonna command a premium both in cost of the building and also hopefully the, the value and the, and the product we put out. So it's, we're excited for it. It'll be.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Does it, does it have a name yet?

• 28:24Speaker 04

  It does. It's called the Greyhound Flats. So we wanted to pay homage to the, you know, everyone who grows up in Bakersfield. You say Greyhound, you know exactly what it is, right? And so when we took it down, we wanted to pay homage to the fact that it's been such a legacy here in downtown Bakersfield. So we came up with Greyhound Flats. And so we're excited to kind of keep a little.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Legacy.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  Tradition of for where it is. And also, you'll never have to give the address, right? You just say you love the Greyhound flats and people will know where to come.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  How many units are you gonna have?

• 28:58Speaker 04

  Forty-two.

• 28:59Speaker 03

  All one bedroom, two bedrooms?

• 29:01Speaker 04

  One bedroom and two bedroom. Parking interior, inside gates, pool, great amenity room, and a rooftop deck.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That's exciting. And you said you're hoping to break ground in September. How are they estimating the timeframe to build? Start to finish?

• 29:19Speaker 04

  I think it's seventeen months start to finish is what we're told. So we're looking at a 2028 early year kickoff here.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  You'll partner up with?

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Smiths.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Smiths, right? That's Sage Equities?

• 29:32Speaker 04

  It is. And you know, one thing we always, my dad always taught us was, especially if you do something as a one-off, this is our first foray into multifamily, is don't do one thing, don't do a bunch of things once. You know, you do, you do one thing you're really good at. That's kind of what we do on the oil side, but we're not experts in multifamily. And so we looked for someone who has proven the model downtown and has done a good job. And so the deal is a little different than their other ones because we're mainly the financier, but they're come along as a developing partner. And so we're very excited. Austin and Anna are great and they know what they're doing.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  So it's, you know, it's nice to have a proven model that I can go replicate and deliver a great product.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, as, as an ex-banker, this definitely would be a very easy deal to put together if I was financing this just because of who is involved. And Anna and, and they, and her husband, they bring a lot of experience. I love what they've done downtown.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  I can see some of our clients at the luncheonette upstairs. That's, that's, they love the fact that we have the Woolworths because they use it a lot. The Reverb Coffee upstairs. So it's, it's, it's pretty cool to see downtown continue to, to grow with good housing, which we're in much need of. Your target clients, is it the same like what nurses?

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, nurses, anybody, any young professionals in downtown. And you know, it's also important to know that a lot of people, a lot of cries for lots of affordable housing. But what, you know, we've got to remember is any new units,

• 31:08Speaker 04

  you know, any added units to the marketplace is good for everybody. I mean, yes, these will be A-rated,

• 31:16Speaker 04

  relatively luxury apartments. But, you know, when somebody moves into those and they leave their old apartment, that frees up an apartment

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  for somebody else. So.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were talking a little before the break about supply and demand, right?

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Any new, any new units in downtown Bakersfield are great. And, you know, there's a bunch of big units going in on the west side of town, too. Couple of big projects out there, a couple hundred units each. So lots of new multifamily places in town. Should be good for home buyers and home renters.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, I, I've, I've seen the ones in the, in the southwest. We all, we need, we need housing. We have very limited units for either sale or rent. The fact that I'm, we're seeing new units is amazing. But the fact that we have, we see new units here in downtown Bakersfield. And I'm biased because we have the building down here. So forty-two units, that's, that's extra traffic for the coffee shop, for the restaurant, and we want to be good neighbors.

• 32:14Speaker 03

  But, but just the fact to see that, that investment going into downtown, that's great. And I really like the location, actually. I think that it's close to the Padres, close to the post office, it's walking distance on a bunch of other things. And that's what downtown life is about. And I'm, I'm glad it's coming to Bakersfield finally. It's, it took, I've been to Bakersfield for twenty-five years now. It's taken us that long to get, get things moving.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I actually think the city has a really good vision of what they want to do downtown. They just need more people living in there, right? You're, we're not gonna, you just need the synergy of people always being here to get sort of the walk-around flow and some of the vision that I think the city has laid out for it. So hopefully, we're helping do our little part for that.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  That's great. We have a couple of comments from listeners. First one, Mo was the man always there for us and took us in as a family. Cyrus is a, is a chip off the old block. This town should be happy that he put in the work to keep, to keep the business alive. Big Mark.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  Can't get a better comment than that.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Big Mark, I think, is a, is a usual. He always comments and so, so.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I've seen the name Big Mark before.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Yes. So keep, keep the comments coming. Second one, nice, excited for this project. When did he say he expects the apartments condos ready for rental? How would one get more info on getting into one of these properties?

• 33:45Speaker 04

  Well, this is the part where I should really know the URL.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  I think it's greyhoundflats.com, but I'd have to look it up.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  And you said late twenty-eight?

• 33:55Speaker 04

  Early.

• 33:56Speaker 03

  Early twenty-eight?

• 33:57Speaker 04

  If we break ground in September, we should be leasing out for Q1 2028.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  It is the Greyhound. The Greyhound Flats. Just saw that. And it's grey, G R E Y. Sometimes people want to spell it with an A. G R E Y, the greyhoundflats.com.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  All right. Exciting project. We'll take our last break. When we come back, we still have Cyrus. So keep the questions coming and comments coming. We'll be right back.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sami Abiaru with Dustin Weaver.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 34:36Speaker 03

  We still have Cyrus Mojibi with us here in, in the radio room. So if you have any questions, please send them, send them our way. Cyrus, I wanted to just touch base. This year, the state of California restarted the permitting process for new oil drilling with the expectation of, I think, two thousand new permits. Think so far, I researched it yesterday when Chad was here, I think we're at three hundred. So we still have some, some runway. Is, do you see that as a positive? Do you see an impact, positive impact eventually in our community, the county, the state?

• 35:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, any win's a good win, right? So a couple thousand new permits, wonderful, wonderful for Kern County, wonderful for the oil producers who have been stuck in limbo, just in neutral, trying to get, keep production online, do workovers, just maintain production levels. In the upstream side, Chad's way better at this, so I'm sure I'll get some stuff wrong here. But, you know, you, you have to keep drilling wells just to keep your production stable, right? If you don't, you, you will decline, you know, pretty rapid rate, actually. So, you know, when they put a halt on all these permits, it's not like they just froze things in time. They're actually degrades production. So if anything, we can stabilize production and, you know,

• 35:53Speaker 04

  hopefully, we have some amazing fields and some amazing reservoirs here, and they don't take a lot once you can go back and re-stimulate them. So I think it's great, right? Tons of blue collar jobs, a bunch of rigs coming back into town.

• 36:06Speaker 04

  I, I think it only be good for the economy, so.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  As far as you and, and, when you say upstream, midstream, and downstream, just for the listeners, can you just explain that, please?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was just thinking that.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Upstream is basically taking the crude oil out of the ground and getting it. And then midstream is the process by which it goes either in a pipeline or a truck. It's the distribution facilities. It's, you know, it's basically a transportation arm. And then the downstream is the actual refining process. So when you hear major companies like Chevron talking, they'll have upstream, midstream, and downstream. They're vertically integrated. So they'll have, you know, people only working midstream, downstream, upstream. So I don't, you know, we have a little bit of, we have a sister company, a little bit of crude oil production, but, you know, we're mainly downstream. So we buy crude oil from crude oil producers here in town, and we refine it on a daily basis. So I, I know a lot about it, but it's certainly not an expert in, you know, the, the troubles and

• 37:01Speaker 04

  trials and tribulations. But I know Chad and I have done this a couple of times now where, you know, when you say, when I, if someone asks me what's scariest thing to me, what's my biggest threat? I'd look and say, it's what they're doing to these guys. And now I think Chad would say the same thing. It's, you know, what they're doing to us. So we have to all work together. We have to all be in business. If you take out one, it cripples the whole thing. And you're seeing that, right? Originally, it was on the upstream side where they would kind of, they took it out on downstream by hacking the upstream at the, you know, taking a cudgel to it. Now, with some of these downstream refineries leaving, you're starting to see the upstream portion greatly affected with these major price differentials that are, you know, wildly

• 37:43Speaker 04

  out of proportion for what they normally are. And it's just because, again, supply and demand, there is less refiners buying well. And so there's more competition to get it into pipelines. On the midstream side, those pipelines were on the border, on the border of insolvency. Looks like the CPUC will probably approve a CRC's purchasing of them. So, you know, hopefully, the midstream assets get put back together. But all three have to work or none of them work.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  On, you said an acronym there, CPUC? What's that?

• 38:16Speaker 04

  California Public Utility Commission, I think. It's basically the, is the body that governs the, letting the, letting a single user have the tariffs operate the pipeline. So CRC put a bid in to buy San Pablo Bay assets and

• 38:34Speaker 01

  And so they oversee that and approve it?

• 38:36Speaker 04

  They'll approve it, yeah. So I, and I, I think they will because there's, I think there's a little bit of chatter about it, but I don't think anybody else bought it offered. So I think it'll go through.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  From a refiner standpoint, this new wells, does that constitute just, just security for you from a production or oil purchases standpoint?

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we, again, we, we only refine heavy Kern River crude oil. Our place is specifically designed to take crude oil from this county. Now I could buy a similar crude oil from other parts of the world, but we have a very distinct crude here. It's heavy, high sulfur. It is not like an Alaska North Slope crude or a Venezuelan crude or Saudi crude. Almost two wildly different products. You wouldn't recognize them. If we put that crude oil through our units, it would disrupt everything. Nothing would be in spec. You know, we're specifically tooled to pull oil out of Kern County and surrounding areas and refine it. So yes, I need people staying in business so that it secures my supply.

• 39:44Speaker 03

  Your second generation operator of the refinery, do you see your kid going into business with you?

• 39:49Speaker 04

  I think if they like to, there's more than enough runway for them. I, I think we'll be around for 150 years at least. I, I think I said this last time, but I talk a lot of doom and gloom just because I get frustrated with the way

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Things are done.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Things are done, but there is no replacement, cheaper or more effective than oil products. Maybe one day there will be, but it's going to take some major breakthrough in,

• 40:18Speaker 04

  you know, some massive technological breakthrough in power generation. And then we got to scale it up and then we got, so it's once we figure it out, whether it's cold fusion or something like that, and we will, but it's going to be a generation implemented, right? You're not just going to turn it on. You figure it out in lab and it's going to take 25 years, 30 years to scale it up.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  I recall seeing a visual one time of all the different things that even just one barrel of oil is split up to, and I don't remember the number, maybe you know, an estimated number of products, but people don't realize this is not just gasoline we're talking about. As you mentioned, what, did you say over 50% is going to asphalt from the product that you're refining?

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, only about 8% of what we make goes into actual combustible fuels. So the, the war on the oil industry is really targeted at combustible fuels, diesel, jet fuel, gasoline. And

• 41:12Speaker 04

  by, you know, waging the war on them, they, they inevitably potentially take people like us out. But yeah, we, we make things, we make

• 41:22Speaker 04

  products go into medical grade plastics, grease oil, grease manufacturing, you know, we basically are, you know, we lube the industrial, the industrial complex, right? So, and, and these products are very specific calculated, you're very tuned to specific, very, very tight specifications. So like rubber tire process oil, you know, in the last couple of years, last 10 years or so, the EU led the way on this, but they realized that some of the biggest emissions came from, you know, micro emissions of our tires. And so they've, you know, made the, they've, they've upped the standard for what you can make rubber tire process oil out of. And we're one of the best and make one of the cleanest products. And so, you know, things like that,

• 42:05Speaker 04

  you don't take it, you, you can have an EV, but you still need oil in your tires driving around. So

• 42:10Speaker 01

  Lots of science behind this. What a wealth of education. Thank you so much for coming today and sharing so much with us.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely, definitely. And also just great news that, hey, we're here for another 100, 150 years. And kids, if you want to go to college and study for this, I encourage you to do it because it's a really good industry and it's a very high paying industry as well. So don't give up on it. AI is here, but it's not taking this according to, to Cyrus. So, uh, thank you very much, Cy, for coming in today. Appreciate you. Always a pleasure to, to have you.

• 42:41Speaker 04

  Yes, thank you so much.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  Who do we have tomorrow, Steve?

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Tomorrow we'll have John Cox getting down to business from the Bakersfield Californian, but till then be smart, be safe. Be money wise.

• 42:56Speaker 02

  Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and Money Wise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.