Stewart’s Shops is seeking a buyer for five convenience stores as part of an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to facilitate the closing of the acquisition in December of Jolley Associates.
Stewart’s Shops signed an agreement in September to buy the assets of St. Albans, Vermont-based Jolley Associates, including 45 Jolley convenience stores—38 in Vermont, five in New York and two in New Hampshire. The deal also included petroleum products company S.B. Collins and heating oil business Clarence Brown.
Stewart’s Shops is No. 23 on CSP’s 2024 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by number of company-owned retail outlets. Jolley Stores is No. 148.
The companies did not disclose the terms of the deal, but the price was large enough that it surpassed the FTC’s new premerger notification filingsthreshold, Robin Cooper, spokesperson for Stewart’s Shops, told CSP Daily News. According to the agency, that threshold is $126.4 million for 2025.
“The majority of this acquisition was all brand-new territory,” he said. “But there are a couple areas where there was a little overlap.”
To comply with the FTC, Stewart’s Shops is looking to sell five stores that are too close to new or existing locations—three Jolley Stores (in Queensbury and Plattsburgh, New York, and Manchester, Vermont) and two Stewart’s Shops (in Queensbury and Rouses Point, New York).
“We started marketing them over the last month. There's been quite a bit of interest,” Cooper said. “We’ve got people that are interested in a couple locations and there’s quite a few parties that are interested in in all five locations. So we’re in the early second stage of our vetting of people that are interested, and we’re shooting for a May target date that we're hoping to have, a deal or deals lined up.”
All remaining Jolley stores will be rebranded as Stewart’s Shops, Cooper said. The schedule is open ended, though, and it depends on “as soon as we can get our logistics lined up to get our product to these areas, because it’s new territory for us,” he said. A few could be razed and rebuilt. “It’s a matter of getting approvals on whether they knock down and rebuild or whatever But that's part of our capital expenditure plan—how quickly we can get things moving and get them converted,” said Cooper, “how quickly you can get the permits for the planning and zoning approval process.”
He said it will be a multi-year process, but many are on the schedule for conversion this year. Customers will see Stewart’s products start to show up inside before changes on the outside once it expands the delivery routes to include the Jolley locations.
Founded in 1945, Ballston Spa, New York-based Stewart’s Shops is an employee- and family-owned convenience-store chain with approximately 360 locations in upstate New York and southern Vermont.
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