"We are in a pretty good place. We are in the last stages of [Federal Trade Commission] approval for the Pilot merger," she said. "And we have filed a plan of reorganization with the [federal bankruptcy] court, with the confirmation [image-nocss] hearing scheduled for early July and exit by the end of July."
Ogden, Utah-based Flying J will be a smaller, albeit debt-free, company after seeking protection from its creditors in December 2008, said the report.
Its Bakersfield, Calif., refinery, which supplies 6% of California's diesel and 2% of its gasoline, was sold Monday to Paramount Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Alon USA Energy, for $40 million, plus the value of the plant's inventory, the report added.
Also gone is Flying J Insurance Services, which sells policies to drivers and trucking companies. The subsidiary was sold in November to The Buckner Co., a Salt Lake City-based insurance brokerage firm.
In July, Flying J sold its struggling Longhorn Partners Pipeline subsidiary to Magellan Midstream Partners for $250 million plus the value of petroleum products in the subsidiary's 700-mile conduit running between the Houston area and El Paso, Texas.
That same month, Flying J reached what it called a "preliminary" agreement to sell its fuel-stop businesses to Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot Corp., which runs 300 travel centers. And as part of the deal, Pilot promised to provide Flying J $100 million in "debtor-in-possession" financing to help it through the bankruptcy.
The Flying J refinery in North Salt Lake was put up for sale. But Maggelet said the company has decided to keep it, the Tribune said. It will also retain Transportation Alliance Bank, which provides financial services to truck drivers and companies, Transportation Clearing House, a credit-card operation and an equity stake in the merged Pilot-Flying J travel center business.
Maggelet declined to say how much of the travel center business Flying J will continue to own. "That's still being worked out," she said.
Also, Flying J has just announced that Comdata Corp. methods of payment will now be accepted at more than 250 Flying J locations across the United States and Canada. Comdata is a Brentwood, Tenn.-based corporation specializing in payment processing and data management products for the trucking industry.
"This arrangement will provide a new payment method which will enable more motor carriers and professional drivers to have access to Flying J's fuel network and state-of-the-art highway hospitality services," Maggelet said in a statement.
As an issuer and a processor, Comdataa wholly owned subsidiary of Ceridian Corpenables more than $23 billion in fleet-card, credit-card, paycard and virtual card transactions annually. More than 1.8 million Comdata cards are issued annually, and active cards at any given time total approximately 1.5 million. Comdata captures and reports detailed transaction data, empowering its customers to analyze their spending patterns in order to gain unprecedented control of their expenses. Other Comdata solutions include regulatory compliance programs and receivables financing options. Comdata provides solutions to more than 25,000 customers in four primary industries: fleet, aviation, construction and retail/hospitality.
The settlement means that Flying J's TCH-branded fleet cards will be accepted on Comdata's point-of-sale devices, the Tribune said.
"This is another step that I think will help Flying J even more," Maggelet said.
Flying J filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 18 months ago. The company cited falling oil prices and a sudden freeze in credit markets. The bankruptcy led to the resignation of longtime CEO J. Phillip Adams, who led Flying J for almost two decades. In an interview last year, Maggelet assigned much of the responsibility for the bankruptcy to Adams, who Maggelet characterized as an empire builder more interested in big revenues than in profits, said the report
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of Flying J.)
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.