ORLANDO, Fla. -- Ever since it filed its Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) application to become a publicly owned company, Susser Holdings Corp. has been indicating a desire to grow. This week, the company's CFO, Mary Sullivan, outlined just where that will likely happen.
We certainly have a lot of room for growth just within our own areas in South Texas, she said Tuesday during the Bank of America 2006 Credit Conference in Orlando, Fla. Quite a few of our stores are along the border from Brownsville to Laredo. This area is just absolutely booming, [image-nocss] and if we're not building 15 stores a year in that area, we're losing market share.
And with a goal of opening 18 to 22 new stores in 2007, Sullivan told investment bankers the Corpus Christi, Texas-based company is keeping its eyes on other markets as well.
We also have stores up in Oklahoma, so we're used to operating with some pretty big geographical distances, she said. We're also adding retail stores in Houston, which is new for us. We've had a wholesale presence there for quite a few years, and in the last couple of years, we've built five Stripes stores in Houston. So we're going to continue to add a retail presence in Houston.
So what does Susser Holdings look for when it's considering entering a new market?
We want to look at markets where we feel like we can have substantial market share and market presence, Sullivan said. We look at what competition is there. We look at the growth projections for those communities. And we try to allocate our capital where we think we're going to have the best growth.
Susser, with 323 stores currently being rebranded from Circle K to Stripes and from CITGO to Valero, went public in October to the tune of $113 million.
Once those rebranding efforts are complete at the end of February, Sullivan expects the company will find the changes a long-term benefit.
We're very pleased with how that's going so far. We have not seen any material impact from that rebranding, she said. It seems the customer experience, the customer acceptance has been very good. So we're very pleased with how it's going and we think it's going to be a great strength for us in the long term.
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