Situation
Croix Oil Company (“Croix” or the “Company”), headquartered in Stillwater, Minnesota, was a leading Minnesota and western Wisconsin petroleum marketer with operations primarily in the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area.  The Company was a fuel distributor for BP, ExxonMobil, and Marathon and was a SuperAmerica and Circle K franchisee.

Croix grew rapidly since the early 2000s through single site acquisitions, new-to-industry builds, and the acquisition of approximately one-third of BP’s stations in the Twin Cities in 2006.  At the time of the transaction, the Company consisted of 13 owned and operated convenience stores, five owned dealer sites, three owned commissioned agent sites, and approximately 70 supply contracts.

The Company’s President, Mark Ogren, and his family sought to exit the convenience store and petroleum marketing business to diversify their wealth and focus on other business and real estate ventures.

Objective
To customize, execute, and complete a confidential sale process in a way that would allow the Company’s shareholders to realize maximum after-tax value upon the sale of the Company’s retail and wholesale assets.

Solution
Matrix provided Croix with merger and acquisition advisory services, which included valuation advisory, marketing the business through a confidential, structured sale processes, and negotiation of the transactions.

Multiple offers were received, and ultimately a bifurcated sale of Croix’s convenience retailing assets to a subsidiary of Andeavor and its wholesale fuel assets to a subsidiary of Molo Petroleum, LLC (“Molo”) was pursued to yield maximum after-tax value to the Company’s shareholders.

Matrix assisted in the negotiation of the two separate asset purchase agreements and coordinated the due diligence processes and the multiple closings.

The primary transactions with Andeavor and Molo closed in September 2018 with a final real estate closing with Molo in October 2018.