Pilot Co. is closing its international oil trading business in order to focus on its Pilot Flying J travel centers, according to a Reuters report.
The Knoxville, Tennessee-based convenience-store company, owned by Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway, “has let go of almost all employees running international trading,” said a Reuters report, citing two sources. “It will devote resources to growing its own North American businesses, instead of trading.”
The move ends “an excursion into the trillion-dollar global market to refocus on its Pilot Flying J service stations and truck stops in the U.S.,” the news agency reported, citing three sources.
Pilot Co. is No. 15 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. convenience-store chains by store count.
“Pilot remains confident in our energy strategy,” Gary Hoogeveen, president of Pilot Energy, said in a statement provided to CSP. “Our core capabilities are focused on delivering reliable fuel supply to our travel centers and wholesale customers across North America.”
Pilot started international trading after Berkshire Hathaway in 2017 took a 39% share in Pilot from the Haslam family, Reuters said. Pilot, which became fully owned by Berkshire Hathaway in January 2024, in the last few years hired energy traders “to build up trading operations,” the report said.
When Berkshire Hathaway’s ownership of Pilot grew to 80% in 2023, Pilot started cutting its energy trading operations, letting go 15 employees, according to Reuters. “Since then, Pilot's appetite for the risk attached to international oil trading has tapered,” the report said. “The company let go of most of its international oil and fuel traders over recent months.”
The Haslam family, which includes Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, in 2017 sold 38.6% of Pilot to Berkshire Hathaway for $2.8 billion and, in January 2023, 41.4% for more for $8.2 billion.
The deal closed after the two sides earlier in January 2024 resolved a lawsuit concerning how Berkshire accounted for the value of Pilot stores.
The lawsuit, filed in October 2023, accused the conglomerate of using improper accounting to devalue the Haslams’ remaining 20% stake in the travel center company. This would have led to a much lower price Berkshire would pay to acquire the family’s remaining 20% stake in Pilot Travel Centers.
The companies did not disclose the details of the settlement.
At the time, Pilot released a statement saying that on behalf of the company and the Haslam family, it was “pleased to announce that it has reached an agreement to fully settle the Delaware litigation between the company and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Pilot Travel Centers LLC and National Indemnity Co., including the dismissal of all claims and counterclaims against each other.”
Berkshire Hathaway released a similar statement.
The counterclaim is in reference to Berkshire Hathaway in November countersuing, accusing Jimmy Haslam of “promising secret payments to staff that would inflate the price Berkshire would have to pay for the Haslam family's 20% stake in truckstop operator Pilot Travel Centers,” according to Reuters.
Pilot Co. is the largest operator of travel centers in North America, with more than 750 locations across 44 states and six Canadian provinces, selling about 14 billion gallons of fuel a year and about $3 billion in food and merchandise.
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