LANCASTER, S.C. -- With the sale of its five locations to GPM Investments LLC, Crenco Food Stores Inc. has exited the convenience-store business. As reported in a CSP Daily News Flash, GPM Southeast LLC, a subsidiary of GPM Investments, has taken ownership of the four c-stores with fuel and one truckstop with fuel in South Carolina under the Crenco Food Stores banner.
The locations are all high-volume and highly profitable stores in northern South Carolina, with three stores in Lancaster, one store in Rock Hill and the truckstop in Richburg. All of the stores sell Exxon-branded gasoline and assorted convenience merchandise.
As part of the transaction, GPM Southeast is acquiring a fee-simple interest in three stores and will be leasing one store and the truckstop from Crenco’s parent company, Crenshaw Oil Co. Inc., under a long-term lease agreement.
Harold Crenshaw Sr. formed Crenshaw Oil in 1970, and Harold “Hal” Crenshaw Jr. acquired control of the company from his father in 2010. In 2017, the South Carolina Association of Convenience Stores named Crenco its Retailer of the Year.
Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., Richmond, Va., provided merger and acquisition advisory services to Crenco Food Stores and Crenshaw Oil Co. The services included valuation advisory, marketing the business through a confidential, structured sale process and negotiation of the sale transaction and leases.
This acquisition will further develop GPM's existing portfolio in the Southeast, the company said. The company, also based in Richmond, operates or supplies fuel to stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
With the planned addition of E-Z Mart stores in second-quarter 2018, GPM will widen its reach to about 1,400 c-stores. It ranked No. 6 in a year-end update of CSP’s2017 Top 202 list of the largest c-store chains in the United States.
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