The company had filed the necessary paperwork in November 2008, but the conditions just haven't been right, according to McKeen.
"We're still ready to go; it's more a matter of the market than anything else," he told CSP Daily News, adding that the situation has been particularly unfavorable for new retail IPOs. Alon Brands was established [image-nocss] as the retailing subsidiary of Alon USA in November 2008. "You can see that some of the comparable stocks that we'll be compared to, regardless of the performance of the companies, aren't being traded very well right now."
Such stocks include The Pantry, trading at $13 per share, and Susser Holdings Corp., Corpus Christi, Texas, trading at $8.34 per share as of yesterday afternoon.
Alon hopes to raise as much as $100 million from the IPO to upgrade stores, as well as expand foodservice efforts. "We're working on a hot food program, and expanding fountain and coffee and all those types of things," McKeen said. In the company's more-than-100-page Securities & Exchange Commission filing, the company outlined that such efforts "carry higher margins than other retail products." The paperwork does not, however, include a suggested opening share price for the IPO.
The company also recently has added three former Valero stores (two in San Angelo and one in Odessa, Texas) to its portfolio in December 2009, bringing its total count of co-branded Fina and 7-Eleven stores to 309. "So we continue to do well, and we're meeting our plan expectations," McKeen said.
The company had been aiming for the first quarter of 2010 for the IPO, but conditions continued to be unfavorable. "Timing is everything," McKeen noted. "When the market is right and our underwriters tell us it's time to go, we're ready to go."
Alon Brands includes retail arms Southwest Convenience Stores LLC and Skinny's LLC, as well as Alon Marketing and SCS Beverage Inc.
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