FRISCO, Texas -- A new company, Cal’s Convenience Inc., has acquired the 207 Stripes convenience stores in West Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma that were not part of the $3.1 billion deal between Sunoco LP and 7-Eleven Inc., according to the Press-Reporter. The company has entered into a commission-agent agreement with Sunoco “to own and operate the business” of the stores, effective April 1, Jack Whitney, president and CEO of Cal’s Convenience, Frisco, Texas, told the newspaper.
"Cal’s Convenience Inc. has entered into a master lease and a master commission agent to own and operate the convenience-store business at those stores," a Sunoco spokesperson told CSP Daily News. "Stripes LLC has granted Cal’s a sublicense to use the Stripes and Laredo Taco Company brands pursuant to Stripes’ license agreements with 7-Eleven Inc."
Whitney is the former vice president of retail operations for Sunoco and Stripes. He previously was vice president of store operations for CEFCO Convenience Stores, Temple, Texas, and was a division vice president at The Pantry before it was acquired by Alimentation Couche-Tard.
In early April, Dallas-based Sunoco announced that it had completed the conversion of the 207 retail sites to a single commission agent. With this conversion complete, Sunoco's transition out of the majority of its convenience-store operations in the continental United States is “effectively complete,” it said.
Under the commission-agent model, Sunoco owns, prices and sells fuel at the sites, paying the agent a fixed cents-per-gallon commission.
Sunoco continues to own about two-thirds of this portfolio in fee and will receive rental income from the commission agent, who will conduct all operations related to the convenience store and any related restaurant locations.
The move follows the sale of most of its company-operated retail outlets to Irving, Texas-based 7-Eleven, which closed on the acquisition of about 1,030 Sunoco c-stores in 17 states, mainly in Texas, New York and Florida, in late January.
Sunoco will continue to operate sites along the New Jersey and New York toll roads, along with its retail operations in Hawaii. Following the 7-Eleven and commission-agent deals, Sunoco will have about 80 company-operated sites (including 54 Aloha Petroleum sites in Hawaii), about 400 commission-agent locations, about 2,700 dealer locations (including 979 7-Eleven sites) and about 3,800 distributor locations, according to the company. It distributes motor fuel to about 9,200 convenience stores, independent dealers, commercial customers and distributors in more than 30 states.
7-Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 63,000 c-stores in 18 countries, including 10,900 in North America.
7-Eleven ranked No. 1 on CSP's 2017 Top 202 list of the largest c-store chains in the United States. Ahead of the 7-Eleven deal, Sunoco ranked No. 6 on the list. Click here to read "Ranking the Top 40 C-Store Chains: A Year-End Review."
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