BRADLEY, Ill. -- With the sale of all five TD Pete’s gas and convenience stores in northeastern Illinois to TravelCenters of America, TD Pete’s founders Brian Rogers and Perry Denault, who have been working together for 26 years and have been partners since they opened TD Pete’s in 2000, are exiting the convenience-store business.
“We have been blessed to employ a loyal team that represented the Shell and Dairy Queen brands with honor,” said Rogers. “We thank them both and our customers. It’s been a privilege to serve and support the communities we’ve been a part of our entire lives.”
Downstream Energy Partners LLC, Chicago, provided merger and acquisition advisory services to Bradley, Ill.-based TD Pete’s.
“TA has acquired a quality chain of stores in a location strategic to their growing Midwest footprint,” said Steve Griffin, managing partner of Downstream Energy Partners. “Mr. Rogers and Mr. Denault have built an exceptional company.”
TA has not yet announced the deal. Over the last year or so, the company has been expanding into the convenience-store channel with a series of acquisitions to augment its core Minit Mart c-store network.
The company began this expansion when it purchased 31 Minit Mart stores in the Bowling Green, Ky., area in 2013. During first-quarter 2015, it acquired 26 convenience stores in three separate transactions including 19 Best Oil Little Stores in March 2015, mostly in Minnesota. In May 2015, it acquired 19 convenience stores principally in Kansas and Missouri from Overland Park, Kansas-based Gas-Mart USA. It acquired 33 c-stores in Illinois with the purchase of Gardner, Ill.-based MKM Oil Co.’s Fast N Fresh chain.
During the company’s second-quarter 2015 earnings call in Aug. 2015, CEO Thomas O’Brien said that TravelCenters of America agreed to acquire 123 additional convenience stores in six separate transactions through the end of the year.
Among these were seven Stop-A-Sec convenience stores in Wisconsin from Luck, Wis.-based Seck Enterprises and 10 c-stores in Ohio that it acquired in December from Stop’n Go of Medina Inc., Medina, Ohio.
“Our convenience-store portfolio will have grown from 34 locations principally in one state at the beginning of the year to over 200 locations in 11 principally Midwest states,” said O’Brien at the time.
In early January, TA acquired of four Meiners’ Market c-stores in Kansas and Missouri from Meiners Corp.
TA is rebranding all of the convenience stores it has been acquiring to its Minit Mart brand, as well as the c-stores at its travel centers.
TravelCenters of America, Westlake, Ohio, is a leading travel center business in 43 states and Canada operating under the TA and Petro Stopping Centers brands. With more than 250 full service locations off interstate highway exits, TA and Petro Stopping Centers offer customers diesel and gasoline fueling services, more than 500 full- and quick-service restaurants, 24-hour convenience stores, heavy-truck maintenance services, RoadSquad Connect 24/7/365 emergency roadside service, Reserve-It truck parking reservations and other services within large, high traffic facilities. TravelCenters also operates approximately 200 gas stations and convenience stores under the Minit Mart brand name.
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