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Autry Stephens is set to be one of the world’s richest people after selling his oil business, but he doesn’t seem to have any idea what to do with his newfound motherload.

The 85-year-old oil tycoon appeared solemn in an interview about selling his business, per BusinessInsider.

Stephens sold his company, Endeavor Energy Resources, to Diamondback Energy earlier this week in a $26 billion cash-and-stock deal.

The sale would vault Stephens to 78th place from 130th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index of the world’s richest people, making him the wealthiest oil driller in the country with a net worth of $25.9 billion based on the current Diamondback share price.

But the solemn Stephens seemed reluctant to leave the company he founded in 1979, telling The Wall Street Journal he made the decision largely because of a cancer diagnosis.

“I’ll miss the people there,” he told the Journal in a recent interview. “It was kind of a little family.”

As one of the last independent major oil companies in the rich Permian Basin of western Texas, the son of peanut-and-melon farmers, Stephens, had for a long time resisted willing buyers Endeavor. But then, everything changed when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he told the Journal.

He said he decided against passing the company on to his daughter, Lyndal Greth, who sits on the company’s board and has children of her own, and that his son wasn’t part of the family business.

Fortune notes that the sale terms mean Stephens will keep a foothold in the industry he spent his life’s work shaping. After the merger, Stephens and his family – Endeavor’s sole equity holders –  will own just under 40% of the combined company. He’s also poised to receive $8 billion in cash. Stephens’ daughter Lyndal Greth, an attorney, is vice chair of the Endeavor board.

Even without a gruelling cancer ordeal ahead of him, Stephens has been known to have an unassuming style. He drove an old-model Toyota Land Cruiser to work and flew budget on Southwest Airlines, the Journal reported.

When he was featured on the truTV reality series Black Gold, his career trajectory seemed to remain focused on his initial ambitions, which he said were “to earn a steady paycheck and comfortable retirement,” according to UT Austin.

Well, he’s gone and done it. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out what to do with all the extra cash. Might I suggest spending it on offsetting the environmental damage that oil reaks on the planet?

The deal with Diamondback Energy, which beat out other big-name bidders such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, is poised to make the company a powerful force in the domestic energy scene. Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

[source:businessinsider]