CHARLESTON, S.C. — Refuel Operating Co. LLC more than doubled its store count when it bought Double Quick Inc.’s 48 convenience stores in April 2020. And with new funding secured in January, Refuel CEO Mark Jordan said that could happen again.
The Charleston, S.C.-based retailer, which runs 175 stores, recently received a $511 million capital infusion to continue pursuing acquisitions. Jordan told CSP he expects to acquire 60 to 70 stores a year and add 10 new builds a year, but those numbers could vary.
- Refuel is No. 64 in CSP’s 2021 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by number of company-owned retail outlets.
“We have enough funding now to last us for quite a lot of acquisitions,” he said. “We’re going to be busy. It’s going to be a bigger company by quite a bit. I would expect to see us grow from 175 stores to 300 to 500 stores in three to five years.”
Sixpoint Partners, an investment bank focused on the middle-market private-equity industry, facilitated the fundraising and the closing of the private equity fund that previously funded Refuel Operating Co. The Refuel c-store business was previously held in a private-equity fund called First Reserve Fund XIII, which had numerous holdings. Now it is held in a newly formed fund that is dedicated solely to Refuel’s growth.
The reorganization and $511 million investment changes the complexion of the types of acquisitions Refuel can look at, Jordan said. Refuel can now consider larger deals and buying many stores at a time.
“I would expect to see us grow from 175 stores to 300 to 500 stores in three to five years.”
“That is very different than the first store deals we looked at,” he said, adding the company won’t limit the kind of deals it looks at based on store count.
Jordan and partner Travis Smith joined with First Reserve to form Refuel in April 2018 with the intention of focusing on acquisitions. Jordan said they were pleasantly surprised to find an even stronger market for acquisitions than they originally expected. The pandemic also sped up some retailers’ interests in selling, he said.
“We’re excited about 2022; we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Jordan said. “We’re looking at a lot of deals right now, and new builds and acquisitions, and looking to increase our store count.”