Going into the Sinclair purchase, which closed [image-nocss] April 29, Western Oil owned and operated 41 ConocoPhillips-branded c-stores under the Petro-Mart name. And in the 43-year-old company's tradition, 41 plus 13 will not equal 54.
"We're going to hold some of the units and operate them and sell a few others off in wholesale-supply options," Jacobsen said. "The ones that we think are a good long-term fit for us, we'll hold onto the operation of it.... When the smoke clears, we'll probably operate four of the Sinclair units that we acquired and flip out the others."
As previously reported in CSP Daily News, the stores are located throughout Northeast Missouri in Florissant (5), St Louis (4), Bellefontaine, Festus, Columbia and University City. The locations will all be rebranded to ConocoPhillips.
Of the 13 stores, 12 were with real estate and one was a leasehold; three were company-operated by Sinclair and the balance were commission marketers. The locations were retailing nearly 13 million gallons of fuel annually. The Energy Exchange, Chicago, a commercial real-estate firm specializing in gas station and convenience stores, aided in the sale.
Last August, Salt Lake City-based Sinclair said that it had made a commitment to exit retail by the first quarter of 2010. At the time, a letter announcing the sale of the retail sites noted that the owners of Sinclair Oil have "faced tough economic challenges for the past year in nearly all of the business units."
Sinclair will continue wholesale fuel marketing throughout the Midwest and is nearly complete with its exit from the retail business. The sale of the 13 sites to Western Oil signaled Sinclair's exit from retailing in Missouri. The company licenses its name and iconic green "Dino" logo to more than 2,600 stores that sell the Sinclair brand of gasoline.
Initially, the 13 stores in Missouri were tied to a Sinclair supply deal; however, Jacobsen said, "We negotiated through that."
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