ANKENY, Iowa --Casey’s General Stores Inc. has purchased five convenience stores in Wisconsin from Frawley Oil Co., which is effectively exiting retailing. The stores are in Whitewater, Delavan, Elkhorn, Fort Atkinson and Jefferson, Wis.
Frawley Oil is keeping one c-store, but will be selling it and exiting the retail business entirely.
Casey’s said it expects to rebrand the five c-stores as Casey’s General Stores and that the stores will undergo improvements in coming months following the closing of the transaction.
Jack Frawley founded Frawley Oil, Whitewater, Wis., in 1948 after returning from World War II, purchasing the business from Cities Service Oil Co. (the forerunner of CITGO) and changing the name to Frawley Oil Co. He and his wife, Betty, operated the business and raised their family in Whitewater. In 1974, their son Mike began working for the family business. Frawley Oil continued to service the area with fuel delivery but expanded into the tire and service business and then into the c-store business and operated their CITGO-branded locations in Jefferson and Walworth counties.
Mike Frawley, now president of Whitewater-based Frawley Oil, said he will miss the employees and customers he has known over the many years from operating the c-stores, and he hopes customers will continue to patronize the new owners. He said the decision to sell the stores was “bittersweet,” and he plans to concentrate his efforts on the company’s fuel and lubricant distribution business in Southeastern Wisconsin.
Terry Monroe of American Business Brokers & Advisors, Effingham, Ill., and Bill Fecht of WJF Services Inc., Normal, Ill., provided merger-and-acquisition (M&A) advisory services to Frawley Oil.
Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey’s has more than 2,000 c-stores in 15 mostly Midwestern states, located primarily in towns with populations of 5,000 or fewer people.
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