3 Big Numbers is a weekly column that looks at a few key details from around the c-store industry.
It’s been an interesting week for c-store M&A. While Oxxo parent company FEMSA shared further plans for the stores it has been slowly integrating for the past year, Sunoco prepared to take ownership of Parkland Corp. and United Fuels Midwest stepped out of the retail business entirely.
In this week’s “3 Big Numbers,” we take a closer look at these three convenience store M&A deals that are at different points in their journeys.
180
The number of days it took for Sunoco to close its acquisition of Parkland.
Sunoco announced its $9.1 billion purchase of Parkland on May 5. Parkland’s shareholders approved the deal in June, and since then we’ve been waiting for the deal to be finalized.
That announcement is expected to come sometime today. Given that the closing happens as expected, that wait is finally over after 180 days.
With Parkland finally in Sunoco’s hands, the c-store industry continues to wonder what the future holds for those 699 underperforming U.S. stores. We’ll probably have to wait a bit longer to see if Sunoco plans on running the retail arm of its acquisition for a while or if there’s about to be a whole lot of stores on the market. But since we’ve waited this long, we can hold out a bit longer.
571
The number of stores with fuel that Oxxo has in Mexico.
While Oxxo is re-evaluating and rebranding the more than 200 stores it bought from Delek last year, it’s also starting to open fuelless c-stores in the United States.
Fuel-free sites are Oxxo’s main focus, which may suggest another reason the company is being so methodical about its U.S. rebrands. Although it has tens of thousands of sites globally, only 571 of those sites in Mexico have fuel, according to FEMSA’s 2024 annual report.
So while Oxxo has plenty of experience to help it run the new fuel-less locations, it has substantially less for the more than 200 U.S. locations that sell gas. No wonder it’s taking things slow and steady.
13
The number of stores United Fuels Midwest sold earlier this week.
While Oxxo is working on its rollout in the United States and Sunoco is buying a whole bunch of sites, a smaller retailer in the Midwest, United Fuels, is going in the opposite direction. The company sold its eight c-stores and five travel centers to a combination of Casey’s General Stores, Staples Oil and an undisclosed third company.
United Fuels is not the only smaller retailer getting out of the c-store business this year. With both customers and retailers getting squeezed on all sides, companies without the economy of scale are finding it harder to keep up.
We’ve seen more than a dozen smaller companies sell to larger competitors already this year, and with pressures like SNAP cuts, government shutdowns and continuing tariff strife, there may be more before 2025 is through.
