Kwik Pik, an affiliate of Lehigh Gas Corp., Bethlehem, Pa., successfully bid for 113 of the Uni-Mart stores in Pennsylvania and New York for approximately $4.6 million, and another 25 stores in Ohio for $10 million. The remaining 68 stores in Pennsylvania and New York were split among 25 individual bidders [image-nocss] for bids ranging from $1,000 to $531,000.
The auction, managed by Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., was held in Wilmington, Del., on September 23 and featured organized competitive bidding that lasted nearly 15 hours, with more than 200 participating bidders.
Kwik Pik's stalking-horse bid, which was approved by the Delaware District of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in August, established a $16.7 million purchase price for Uni-Marts' 206 real-estate assets. The final purchase price for the assets of approximately $19.6 million represents a 17% improvement to the stalking-horse bid.
Kwik Pik won the auction for the Ohio assets for $10.0 million, while Kwik Pik and 25 other successful bidders combined to push the value for the Pennsylvania assets to $9.6 million, which represents an improvement of 43%. In addition to the cash proceeds, successful bidders are assuming a substantial portion of the debtor's liabilities, which further improves the value to the debtor's estate.
Smaller bid winners included:
Paresh and Hitesh Patel, who bought nine stores. Inderpal and Gurpreet Singh, who bought six stores. 3 Man Corp., which bought six stores. Dilip Patel, who bought five stores. Khalid Ajmal, Zafar Iqbal and Pervez Chatha, who collectively bought five stores. Inderjit Jassal, who bought four stores. MJ Mini Mart, which bought four stores. Tarun, Ashok and Chirag Patel, who bought four stores. Other buyers included:
Rajendra Patel; and Shah and Shah Ent. LLC, three stores each Breaktime USA Inc.; Maulik Patel; and Superior Petroleum, two stores each Garden State Inc.; Pramod Patel; R and D LLC; Reid Petroleum Corp.; Sandeep Mundi and Rajan Sharma; Govinder, Terlochan and Ater Singh; Pinto Soin; Donald Trubic; Viking of Olean; Wyoming Food Mart LLC; and Xpress Fuel Properties, one store each. The sales are subject to the approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and are expected to close during the middle of November. Attempts to contact Kwik Pik for comment were unsuccessful at press time.
Filing for bankruptcy provided Uni-Marts LLC the ability to pursue a dual path to maximize returns available to its creditors as well as explore opportunities to sell the stores, the company said in May 2008.
"The overall condition of the economy, aggressive competition in the areas in which we operate, increased fuel and other inventory prices and other matters outside our control have reduced the company's cash reserves, which prevented us from executing our business plans and tightened our operating margins," said Henry Sahakian, Uni-Marts founder and CEO, in a press release.
Richmond, Va.-based Matrix Capital Markets Group provides transactional advisory services to companies in the downstream energy and multi-site retail sectors.(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of Uni-Marts.)
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