BAINBRIDGE, Ga. -- Calling the deal a “really great opportunity” to bring two family-owned and community-oriented convenience-store chains together, Aaron Goodman, COO of Southwest Georgia Oil Co. announced the closing on April 28 of the acquisition of 44 S&S Food Stores in Florida from Scaff’s Inc.
As reported in a 21st Century Smoke/CSP Daily News Flash, Goodman said that the company plans to maintain the S&S c-store brand, only switching from BP to Marathon fuel at several locations.
“We’re a family-owned and oriented company, and they are a family-owned and oriented company,” he told CSP Daily News. “We operate the way they operate. It was the ‘perfect storm’.”
He continued, “It’s a great opportunity for my company to grow. It’s a great group of stores. It’s a great, well-recognized brand, so it’s really a turnkey opportunity to step into a well-run company and just continue to operate it the way they’ve operated. We don’t anticipate a lot of changes. We’ll just maintain the presence and the brand they’ve built.”
The company will retain all of the store and office employees. “That’s important,” said Goodman. “The people are the backbone of the company.”
He also said that Scaff’s has raised millions of dollars for the local community with fundraisers and charity golf events. “We’re going to continue to drive that process,” he said.
Describing how the deal with Scaff’s fell into place, he said, “I met Lester Scaff several years ago on a hunting trip in South Dakota. We later reconnected, and I heard that he may be interested in selling his stores, and so we agreed on a purchase price and shook hands.”
The companies did not disclose the price of the transaction.
“We signed an agreement to sell to these people because ... they’re going to treat people like we treat people,” S&S owner Scaff recently told The Lake City Reporter. “They should be a good community addition. It’s not only good for our people, it’s good for our community. There has been a lot of people interested in buying our company, but these are the only people we really took seriously. ... We took them serious because they’re going to be here and run the company similar to what we do.”
He continued, “This business is like family to me so it’s part of my life. It will be quite a change, but I’m at the age and time in life that somebody else can hit the deck running. Our business is a competitive business and you’ve got to stay up to date and there is always somebody chomping at you as far as the competition. These guys are 20 to 30 years younger than me, and they’ve got what it takes to do that.”
Before this deal, Bainbridge, Ga.-based Southwest Georgia Oil had 24 company-operated gas stations and convenience stores in Alabama, Florida and Georgia under the Sun Valley Market and Inland Fuels names. The company also operates a wholesale division and petroleum transport business.
Lake City, Fla.-based Scaff’s c-stores are all located in Florida. Scaff and his wife, Anne, founded S&S Food Stores in 1961. The company had revenues of $233.1 million last year, the newspaper said.
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