With the breakup and sale of MAPCO Express Inc. to Majors Management and Alimentation Couche-Tard, Compañía de Petróleos de Chile S.A. (COPEC), a subsidiary of holding company Empresas Copec S.A., Santiago, Chile, has exited the U.S. convenience-store market it entered about seven years ago.
A major player in South America and Central America, COPEC has the largest c-store network in Chile and more than 50% of gasoline market share with approximately 700 company- and dealer-operated service stations, 100 Pronto-branded c-stores and 200 Punto-branded c-stores. It also has a majority ownership stake in Organización Terpel S.A., Bogota, Colombia, which has approximately 2,000 Terpel-branded gas stations in Colombia and 200 c-stores in Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico under the Altoque and Deuna brands.
MAPCO History
MAPCO was founded in 1981 with the acquisition of 255 Delta gas stations in Tennessee, and it grew through acquisition. It merged with pipeline company Williams in 1998. In 2001, Delek U.S. Holdings Inc., Brentwood, Tennessee, acquired MAPCO Express Inc., with 198 stores, from Williams Express Inc. for $162.5 million, snatching it away from Durham, North Carolina-based Convenience U.S.A. Inc., which already had been announced as the buyer.
Other acquisitions included:
- In 2001, 36 stores in Virginia from East Coast Oil Corp. for $40.1 million.
- In 2003, seven retail stores from Pilot Travel Centers for $11.9 million.
- In 2004, Williamson Oil Co. Inc., with 89 stores in Alabama and a wholesale fuel operation, for $19.8 million and assumed debt of $28.6 million.
- In 2005, 21 stores and four dealer-operated stores in the Nashville, Tennessee, area from bp Products North America Inc. for $35.5 million.
- In 2006, 43 stores located in Georgia and Tennessee from Fast Petroleum Inc. for $50 million.
- In 2007, 107 stores in northern Georgia and southeastern Tennessee from Calfee Co. of Dalton Inc. for $71.8 million.
In 2016, COPEC entered into an agreement with Delek U.S. Holdings Inc., Brentwood, Tennessee, for COPEC, through its U.S. subsidiary Copec Inc., to acquire 100% equity interest in MAPCO Express Inc. for $535 million and MAPCO’s estimated cash on hand and working capital adjustment, totaling approximately $16.3 million.
“We know that it is a task of great magnitude,” Lorenzo Gazmuri, general manager of COPEC, said at the time of the acquisition. “But … we have had the opportunity to learn more about the local team. and we are convinced that it will be a successful process. For COPEC, it means learning from a culture with different characteristics, and at the same time transforming all the experience and added value developed in Chile into an asset for our performance in the most competitive market in the world. Without a doubt, this is one of the great challenges in the history of the company.”
MAPCO in 2016 had 348 corporate-owned c-stores operating primarily in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, with additional presence in Arkansas, Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi. It operated stores under the MAPCO Express, MAPCO Mart, East Coast, Fast Food and Fuel, Favorite Markets, Delta Express and Discount Food Mart. It also provided fuel to 142 dealer locations.
COPEC built a new headquarters for MAPCO in Brentwood.
“We have been in a period of transition and growth focusing on establishing a new people-first culture that will enable MAPCO to be an industry innovator and a brand our guests can trust,” CEO Frederic Chaveyriat said in 2018.
Under COPEC, MAPCO in 2021 began revamping its store design with a new open floor plan, new technology options and more as part of its “Store of the Future” concept for new and rebuilt stores. It also recently partnered with technology company Grabango, Berkeley, California, to begin adding checkout-free operations to its c-stores.
New Ownership
The latest deal brings that period of MAPCO’s history to an end.
In an April 27, 2023, letter to Chile’s Commission for Financial Markets, Eduardo Navarro Beltrán, general manager of Empresas Copec, said, “The indirect subsidiary of Copec Inc. has informed Empresas Copec that … it has reached an agreement with Circle K Stores Inc., a subsidiary of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., and Mr. Marvin Hewatt and Dustin Hewatt, majority shareholders of Majors Management, to sell 100% of the shares of Mapco Express Inc.”
The transaction price is approximately $725 million, according to the letter, and the completion of the deal is subject to customary adjustments and approvals. The companies expect that the transaction will close “during the last quarter of this year.”
- Alimentation Couche-Tard is No. 2 in CSP’s Top 40 update to the 2022 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by total number of retail outlets. Mapco is No. 27. Watch for the full 2023 ranking in June.
Based in Franklin, Tennessee, MAPCO has 304 locations in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi.
The transaction with Majors Management includes the MAPCO brand and convenience-store chain in the southeastern United States, mostly in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia, as well as the MAPCO My Rewards loyalty program.
Couche-Tard is acquiring 112 of the MAPCO company-owned and -operated sites predominantly in Tennessee and Alabama, but also in Kentucky and Georgia. The transaction also includes surplus property and a logistics fleet.
Majors Management, Lawrenceville, Georgia, is an owner, developer and operator of convenience stores and a distributor of branded motor fuels. Majors Management and its affiliates supply fuel to more than 1,400 convenience stores. It partners with petroleum brands including Marathon, BP, Shell, Chevron, Exxon, CITGO, Mobil, Texaco, Valero, Phillips, Sunoco, 76 and Alon. Markets include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Maine and Michigan.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard’s 24-country global c-store network includes more than 7,100 in the United States, primarily under the Circle K and Holiday Stationstores banners. Couche-Tard’s total worldwide network consists of approximately 14,300 mostly Circle K-branded c-stores.