CLOQUET, Minn. -- Citing family succession issues, current favorable market conditions and competition from chains such as Kwik Trip, Mike McKinney director of operations for Cloquet, Minn.-based Best Oil, said the company is selling its 20 Little Store gas stations and convenience stores to TravelCenters of America (TA) and its wholesale business to an undisclosed Minnesota company.
The retail deal with Westlake, Ohio-based TA is closing March 9, McKinney told The Duluth News Tribune. He said he expects the wholesale deal to close on March 18.
As reported in a 21st Century Smoke/CSP Daily News Flash, five of the 20 Little Stores are in Duluth and two are in Cloquet, with the others in Esko, Carlton, Barnum, Sturgeon Lake, Floodwood, Proctor, Superior, Hinckley, Moose Lake, Two Harbors, Grand Rapids and Iron River.
TravelCenters of America is a leading travel center business with more than 250 locations in 43 states and Canada operating under the TA and Petro Stopping Centers brands. It also operates gas stations and convenience stores in Kentucky and Tennessee under the Minit Mart name.
It has three truckstops in Minnesota, in Clearwater, Rogers and Albert Lea.
The McKinney-Lindholm families founded Best Oil in 1939, with the Little Stores operation starting up in 1971.
McKinney said the family's decision to sell the business wasn't easy, but it was something they have been contemplating for quite some time.
"There was no fourth generation to take it over, and … we are all getting older," he said.
A second factor, he said, was the market timing, stating that a handful of major national companies are in a "feeding frenzy" as far as acquisitions, citing the recent Erickson Oil/Freedom Valu sale to CrossAmerica Partners LLC and CST Brands Inc.
McKinney said Best Oil has been working with consultants who told the family that "right now is really a seller's market. With the interest rates as low as they are, we were told we could get maximum value in the next five years or so, but that window of opportunity isn't going to necessarily last forever."
McKinney said the decision to sell came before the competing Kwik Trip chain entered the local market, though he agreed that there was a "noticeable slowdown" for a time during the grand opening sales at the new Kwik Trip locations. But he said since that time, regular customers have started to trickle back again.
Best Oil provides wholesale fuel oil delivery to 70 to 80 independent operators, said the report. McKinney said his brother John McKinney, who is president of the company, will stay on as director of that business. The McKinney family will retain ownership of the company office complex as well as five or six auxiliary buildings and adjacent land.
The family also plans to retain its Frank Lloyd Wright-designed gas station, the only one of its kind in the world, with its affiliated Best Service operation, said the report. They also will retain ownership of 15 acres of land in Cloquet, on which stands a home--known as Mantyla--designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Lindholm-McKinney family.
In related news, Alaspa's Gas & Groceries in Cloquet has gone out of business after 15 years reported Pine Journal. The advent of Murphy USA and Kwik Trip gas stations and convenience stores has caused a decline in revenues of independently owned locations in the area, owner Steve Alaspa told the paper.
Click here to view the full News Tribune report.
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