RICHMOND, Va. --GPM Southeast LLC, a subsidiary of GPM Investments LLC, has taken ownership of five convenience stores with fuel in South Carolina under the Crenco Food Stores banner.
This acquisition will further develop GPM’s existing portfolio in the Southeast, the company said.
A second-generation, family-owned convenience-store business, Lancaster, S.C.-based Crenco Food Stores was named the 2017 South Carolina Retailer of the Year by the South Carolina Association of Convenience Stores.
Crenco Food Stores, led by owner Hal Crenshaw Jr., has been in business for nearly 40 years. Crenshaw is the son of the late Harold Crenshaw Sr., who founded the Crenshaw Oil Co. and helped his son, Hal, and daughter, Jodie Elliot, start the food stores, said a report by The Herald.
"We are very excited about these five Crenco Food Stores. Hal Crenshaw and his employees have been dedicated to making their customers feel like the No. 1 priority. We plan to continue serving their customers with the same dedication and enthusiasm,” said Arie Kotler, CEO of GPM. “Bringing these employees into the GPM family was very important to our leadership team, and we look forward to our continued development as we grow through acquisitions.”
Richmond, Va.-based GPM is the largest privately-owned company in the convenience-store channel of business. With the planned addition of E-Z Mart stores in second-quarter 2018, GPM will widen its reach to about 1,400 c-stores. The company 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.
GPM 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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