SEATTLE -- Six months after selling its Tacoma, Wash., refinery, Time Oil Co. has hired an outside agency to help it determine the direction the company will take.
We've retained the services of an industry consultant to advise the company as to potential future strategies, Richard Gordon, general counsel of the Seattle-based company, told CSP Daily News. There have been no decisions made, and certainly no decisions made to sell any or all the stores.
Now with 104 stores, Time Oil Co. was founded nearly 70 years ago as [image-nocss] a gasoline-station business, according to the company website. Over the years, as the company acquired more gas stations, it opened small convenience stores under the name of Jackpot Food Mart to provide gasoline customers with food, snacks and household items that they could pick up easily and quickly.
In those early days, the company's c-stores were largely secondary to its gasoline business. Today, both businessesc-stores co-located with gas stations located across the four western states of Washington, Oregon, California and Nevadawork together to provide gasoline and c-store products and services to motoring customers.
Time Oil Co. owns the property on which its stations and c-stores sit; however, under the lease business model, Time Oil Co. now leases its c-store buildings to independent store operators.
Along with the c-stores, Time Oil sells branded gasoline, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, Valero and in a few select areas, its own Time Oil brand.
In late March 2006, the company sold its US Oil & Refining Co. refinery in Tacoma to Compagnie Nationale a Portefeuille's Astra Oil subsidiary, based in Huntington Beach, Calif.
Gordon could offer few details of the consultant agreement, saying only that the deal was made recently and that there have been no recommendations made by the consultant. We're still in the process of doing the retention documents, he said.
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