BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- Kwik Pik LLC, an affiliate of Lehigh Gas Corp., Bethlehem, Pa., has been selected as the stalking horse bidder in the Uni-Marts bankruptcy asset sale, Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., Baltimore, said. A motion to approve Kwik Pik as the stalking horse has been filed in the Delaware District of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
State College, Pa.-based Uni-Marts Inc., which has 210 convenience stores, filed for bankruptcy in late May 2008. A purchase contract between Uni-Marts and Wayne, Pa.-based Atlantis Petroleum previously selected to complete the acquisition [image-nocss] of the assets expired without a transaction being consummated. Uni-Marts elected to remarket the assets or equity of the reorganized debtor in a process managed by Richmond, Va.-based Matrix.
Tri-Color Holdings LLC, also based in State College and the majority owner of the Uni-Mart chain, was not approved by the court as the stalking-horse bidder. (Click here for CSP Daily News coverage.)
A hearing to approve the Kwik Pik motion is scheduled for Sept. 3, 2009. Additionally, the last date for submitting bids has been extended to Sept. 16, 2009, with a live auction to follow a week later on Sept. 23, 2009.
The Kwik Pik agreement provides for a purchase price of $10 million for the Ohio assets and $6.7 million for the assets located in Pennsylvania and New York. The sale procedures in this case allow bidders to bid on the entire company, groups of assets and on individual stores. Under the agreement approximately 70 of the assets in Pennsylvania and New York will be offered to individual store buyers if offers meet certain value requirements without any "all or none" restrictions.
Tom Kelso, a managing director of Matrix, said, "The Kwik Pik agreement provides the debtor with a high degree of flexibility that provides the opportunity to truly maximize the value of the assets in an auction process where single assets and smaller groups of assets are available for sale."
Asset purchase agreements for single assets and smaller groups of assets are available for prospective buyers through Matrix. Only qualified bidders, those that have fulfilled the bid requirements as defined in the court approved auction procedures and submitted offers by the bid deadline of Sept. 16, 2009, will be invited to attend the auction on Sept. 23, 2009.
Matrix's Energy & Multi-Site Retail Group provides transactional advisory services to companies in the downstream energy and multi-site retail sectors. It provides advisory services to complete merger and acquisition transactions, private debt and equity raises, corporate restructurings and corporate valuation and long-term planning engagements. Matrix Capital Markets Group is a leading middle-market investment bank headquartered in Richmond, Va. It focuses on providing merger and acquisition and financial advisory services for corporate and privately held companies, including sales and divestitures, staged liquidity transactions, management buyouts and debt and equity placements.
Click herefor previous CSP Daily News coverage of the Uni-Marts bankruptcy.
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