Bill Bartmannâ€™s Back with a New Business

After a bankruptcy took hundreds of local jobs down with him, one of Tulsa's better-known businessmen is starting a new career. Bill Bartmann's Commercial Financial Services went bankrupt and

Wednesday, February 23rd 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

After a bankruptcy took hundreds of local jobs down with him, one of Tulsa's better-known businessmen is starting a new career. Bill Bartmann's Commercial Financial Services went bankrupt and was sold last year.

Now Bartmann says he's going to help low-income people straighten out their money woes. This time it's on the other side of town from his former companyâ€™s quarters. Bartmann's once mighty company went bankrupt in 1998. He says he's ready to make his mark again. "We're going to revolutionize the check cashing, pawn shop, signature loan and rent-to-own industries in America," Bartmann said. It's the low-income market Bartmannâ€™s looking to tap into. "Itâ€™s more than being under served, it's almost an abused market," he said.

Bartmann and four of his former C-F-S employees are going in on the $5,000,000 First Neighborhood Financial Center. He describes it as a mall environment where medical services, rent-to-own items, a pawn shop and other services will be offered along side cash checking and small loans.

He says it's a far cry from C-F-S where the purse strings didn't seem to be tight until the end. "We're not going to be able to offer the perks and advantages that C-F-S had,â€ Bartmann noted. â€œAt C-F-S, we one time rented 27 747s to fly 6,000 people to Walt Disney World for a weekend. It cost $12,000,000," he said.

Some clouds still linger from the C-F-S days. Thereâ€™s at least one lawsuit pending against Bartmann for his alleged mistreating of C-F-S employees. But Bartmann says the C-F-S experience was a great teacher. "I thought making a lot of money would be very cool,â€ he said. â€œI've now done that and found out it wasn't that cool. It didn't fill me up. It didn't give me anything."

Bartmannâ€™s store at 21st and Sheridan is set to open at the end of April. Bartmann says he plans to open 28 stores across the country in the next few years.