Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And we'll take our first question from Erik Mielke with Merrill Lynch.
Erik Mielke - Merrill Lynch
Good morning. My question relates to your cash balance and your bank account as you referred to it and enviable liquidity. What are your thoughts on that going forward? May be you've added fair amount in the first quarter and it seems to be they stay more than healthy and more then what you need given the size of the business and the underlying business outlook.
You've previously talked about M&A; there was one transaction in the first quarter. Did you look at that and if you did, why did you decide not to participate? And should we think about M&A opportunities outside the traditional refining space? Would you consider buying fuels ethanol et cetera?
Michael Jennings
Erik, that's mouthful of questions. Let's see if we can work through on one at a time.
Erik Mielke - Merrill Lynch
It is one question. What would you do with the cash?
Doug Aron
The amount of cash required to run this business is nowhere near $600 million and we understand that. With that said, doing anything meaningful strategically in this business requires large amounts of capital. It's hard to grow a $100 million at a time and so, we've allowed ourselves to luxury; particularly with the capital markets effectively close to us, to accumulate cash for a little while.
We are looking in the M&A market. What I would tell is the things that we're looking at don't show up a binder from an investment banker, the assets that we're most interested in typically aren't for sale and certainly not being marketed. Relative to the asset that traded in the Tulsa market, that's very different than the type of asset that Frontier is interested in. And I congratulate Holly on hopefully getting their deal done but, it's not something we would pursue for the following reasons.
We view crude by flexibility and products by flexibility as critically important to making money through the cycle in the refining business. And that plant has a very, very narrow fairway in terms of the operating and market conditions that will allow it to be profitable. So, that was our strategic outlook. Holly obviously had a different opinion and that thus, they are the purchaser and not Frontier.
In terms of how long and how much relative to the cash balance; we are going to play that one stroke at a time. We have no immediate plans to disburse cash. But we are shareholders ourselves and very sensitive to the fact that the share repurchase and dividends would be received favorably. So I am not going to make more of a commitment in that just now, Jim, do you have any additional cover that you would like to provide on that subject?
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