Vivakor Dividend Delayed Again Amid Governance and Valuation Questions

DALLAS, TX – December 30, 2025 – Vivakor, Inc. (Nasdaq: VIVK) announced today another significant delay in the payment of its special dividend, pushing the distribution date to April 30, 2026. The energy services company attributed the postponement to persistent difficulties in completing required filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), citing operational backlogs stemming from the recent U.S. government shutdown.

While the company's explanation points to bureaucratic hurdles, the repeated delays are drawing attention to the unusual nature of the dividend itself—shares in a sports technology company with deep ties to Vivakor’s own CEO—and compounding frustrations for investors already navigating the company's precarious financial standing.

A Pattern of Postponement

For shareholders of record as of September 5, 2025, the wait for their special dividend has become a prolonged saga. The payment was initially scheduled for September 26, 2025, before being pushed first to October 31, and then to December 31, 2025. This latest announcement marks the third major delay, extending the timeline by another four months into 2026.

In its press releases, Vivakor has consistently pointed to one culprit: the partial U.S. government shutdown that began on October 1, 2025. During the shutdown, the SEC operated with a skeleton crew. While its EDGAR system continued to accept electronic filings, the crucial functions of reviewing documents and declaring registration statements effective were completely halted. This created a significant bottleneck for companies like Vivakor seeking to finalize complex corporate actions.

Vivakor noted in its announcement that the payment date “may be subject to further adjustment if the required filings are not completed in a timely manner,” leaving the door open for even more uncertainty. The continued delays, though plausibly explained by the regulatory environment, have tested the patience of shareholders and cast a pall over the anticipated payout.

An Unconventional Dividend from an Unlikely Source

Adding to the complexity is the form of the dividend itself. Instead of a cash distribution, Vivakor shareholders are slated to receive 206,595 shares of Adapti, Inc. (OTC: ADTI), a micro-cap company operating far outside Vivakor’s core energy business.

Vivakor is an integrated provider of energy transportation, storage, and remediation services. Its business is firmly rooted in oil and gas infrastructure. Adapti, Inc., by contrast, is a sports technology and social media firm. Its business model revolves around its AdaptAI platform, which uses artificial intelligence to match brands with social media influencers, and its recently acquired sports agency, which provides athlete representation and development services, including Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) management for college athletes.

Vivakor has framed the dividend as a move to “provide immediate value to Vivakor shareholders” and to “focus our efforts on our core crude oil transportation and facilities business.” In essence, the distribution functions as a divestment of a non-core asset. However, the value of this dividend remains highly speculative. Adapti is a loss-making entity, reporting a net loss of $3.42 million on revenues of $2.13 million over the last twelve months. Its stock is thinly traded, and its market capitalization has shown significant volatility, with recent estimates ranging from as low as $3.28 million to over $20 million. This makes it difficult for Vivakor shareholders to gauge the true worth of the shares they are set to receive.

The CEO Connection and Governance Concerns

The strategic divergence between the two companies is further complicated by a significant related-party transaction involving Vivakor’s Chairman, President, and CEO, James Ballengee. On July 14, 2025, Adapti, Inc. acquired The Ballengee Group, a Dallas-based baseball sports agency. The seller was an entity controlled by Mr. Ballengee himself.

The terms of that deal were substantial. In exchange for the sports agency, Ballengee’s entity received 6,500,000 shares of Adapti common stock, a promissory note for $7.5 million, and potential earnout payments of up to an additional $20 million, payable in Adapti stock.

This transaction places Vivakor’s special dividend in a new light. A company, Adapti, Inc., acquired a major asset from an entity controlled by Vivakor’s CEO. Subsequently, Vivakor, where Ballengee is also CEO and a 49.42% shareholder, decided to distribute its stake in Adapti to its own shareholders. While such related-party transactions are not illegal, they often raise corporate governance questions regarding potential conflicts of interest and the fairness of the deal to all shareholders.

To address some of these concerns, Vivakor previously disclosed that Mr. Ballengee and other executives had waived their right to receive any shares from the special dividend. Nonetheless, the interconnected dealings between the three entities—Vivakor, Adapti, and the CEO's private company—create a complex web that is difficult for the average investor to untangle.

A Test of Investor Confidence

The market has reacted negatively to the continued uncertainty. Following the December 30 announcement, Vivakor’s stock (VIVK) fell by 8.33% in trading. This follows a pattern of negative reactions to prior delays. The company's stock has been trading at penny-stock levels, recently at just $0.01 per share, and it has faced delisting notices from Nasdaq for failing to meet minimum price requirements.

This latest setback comes at a difficult time for the company, which has been working to shore up its finances. While Vivakor recently announced a significant debt reduction of approximately $65 million, the ongoing dividend saga appears to be overshadowing any positive momentum. For shareholders, the situation remains fraught with ambiguity. They are left waiting for a dividend of uncertain value from a company in an unrelated industry, a distribution that is now delayed for the third time due to circumstances that, while plausible, only add to the layers of complexity surrounding the deal.