Circle K’s parent Alimentation Couche-Tard has completed its acquisition of True Blue Car Wash LLC, including 65 car wash locations in Arizona, Texas, Illinois and Indiana.
“We see this acquisition as a natural extension of our current car wash business of more than 2,500 locations and a part of our commitment to lead and innovate in a fast-growing segment that meet our customers’ mobility needs,” Brian Hannasch, president and CEO of Couche-Tard said in a third-quarter fiscal 2023 conference call March 16. “Adding True Blue's high-quality car wash sites has already presented compelling opportunities for cross promotion and loyalty building, which began immediately under close and 32 days after close, we're very pleased with the early results."
True Blue Car Wash, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, has 170,000 fast-pass subscription members, the company said. It washed 10 million cars in 2022 and reported a 45% growth rate in total cars washed from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2021. Its express tunnel car washes are located in high-traffic areas in Arizona and Texas under the Clean Freak brand and in Illinois and Indiana under the Rainstorm brand.
Besides True Blue’s existing locations and plans for development, Counche-Tard was interested in True Blue’s talent, including its chief executive Stuart Crum, who was asked to stay on and is expected to lead the team as it integrates with Circle K, which also has car washes at many of its convenience-store locations.
True Blue was expanding, Hannasch said, “with a strong pipeline of future new industry sites planned and under development,” Hannasch said. Crum is an industry veteran who has led convenience-store and fueling center operations for decades, along with Jiffy Lube and Bridgestone, before accelerating True Blue Car Wash.
Crum attended Tulsa University on a football scholarship and was a placekicker in the NFL before serving for 28 years in the fueling retail industry, at Texaco, Caltex and Shell, according to Tulsa University alumni website TUAlimni.com. He oversaw convenience stores and gas stations in 38 countries before being named president of Shell’s Jiffy Lube business in 2011, Tulsa said. He subsequently led Bridgestone’s U.S. retail tire business, including 2,300 locations and 23,000 employees, the alumni post said. At True Blue, he helped to perfect the monthly subscription model and express service lanes and oversaw locations that served over 100 customers per hour.
True Blue offers customers an unlimited monthly car wash membership, which has become increasingly popular in the car wash industry. Its “wash menu” of unlimited monthly wash packages ranged in price from $20 per month for a basic wash and dry to $35 per month for a deluxe wash with tire and wheel scrub, hot wax, conditioners and ceramic coating. A basic single wash starts at $8, while a top-tier single wash is priced at $20.
- Alimentation Couche-Tard is No. 2 on CSP’s 2023 Top 40 update to the 2022 Top 202 ranking of convenience store chains by store count. Watch for the full 2023 Top 202 in June.
The multinational giant also has agreed to acquire 975 car washes in Europe as part of its proposed acquisition of TotalEnergies for about $3.3 billion. The transaction still needs regulatory approvals. The proposed takeover of 2,193 convenience-store and fuel-center sites includes 1,195 in Germany, 566 in Belgium, 387 in Netherlands and 45 in Luxembourg. Of those sites, 68% are company owned and 32% are dealer owned. About 40% include car washes.
Couche-Tard also is buying and selling c-stores in North America. On Feb. 27, it acquired Big Red convenience stores in the United States. This month, it sold 52 and fuel-station locations to comply with the Competition Bureau of Canada to close on its acquisition of the Wilsons gas station network.