United Pacific

United Pacific, through its retail and wholesale fuel distribution network, has established itself as one of the largest independent owners, operators and suppliers of gas stations and c-stores in the western United States. It offers motor fuel products under the 76, Conoco, Phillips 66, Shell and United Oil flags in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Colorado.

Fortress Investment Group created Long Beach, Calif.-based United Pacific from the purchases of United Oil Co. and Pacific Convenience & Fuels in 2015. United Pacific is now owned by SoftBank Group Corp., a Tokyo-based telecom holding company and investment firm that acquired it from New York-based Fortress in 2017.

In July 2020, United Pacific acquired 95 retail locations from Platinum Energy, mostly in Southern California. The acquisition marks 507 locations for United Pacific, including 451 company-operated stores and 56 fee-operated locations operating under several retail brands, including We Got It! Food Mart, My Goods Market and Rocket.

In late 2020, United Pacific announced that it would add CBD Wellness Centers to 350 of its c-stores in a partnership with KushCo Holdings, a provider of products and services to the cannabis and CBD industries.

United Pacific uses social media to reach new customers, showing photos and location information, as well as highlighting product promotions. Social-media marketing enables the chain to be more aggressive with its signage, especially at the point-of-purchase. As a force in metro markets such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, the chain's stores are known to have competitive pricing on gasoline, tobacco and energy drinks. Social media is also United Pacific's most prominent employee recruitment tool.

For benchmarking purposes, store counts are as of Jan. 1, 2021.