View original article here.
Transaction includes S.B. Collins wholesale and Clarence Brown fuel oil businesses
By Greg Lindenberg on Dec. 16, 2024
Stewart’s Shops Corp. has acquired the retail convenience store, wholesale dealer and residential heating oil businesses of Jolley Associates LLC and S.B. Collins Inc. Jolly Associates operates 45 convenience stores in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York. S.B. Collins delivers gasoline and diesel to dealers in those three states.
Stewart’s Shops first announced the deal in late September.
Founded in the early 1920s by St. Albans, Vermont, businessman Stephen Brooks Collins, S.B. Collins is a family-owned petroleum distributor that has been serving its community and surrounding area in Vermont for more than 100 years.
In 1963, Emanuel (Pete) Jolley purchased SBC from Stephen Collins and continued to grow its operations. In 1976, Pete Jolley’s sons, Bob and Bruce, expanded the family business by converting company-owned, full-service locations into convenience stores. They established a new partnership, Jolley Associates, to operate the stores under the c-store brand name, Short Stop, and in 2001, the company underwent a storewide branding initiative that incorporated the Jolley logo. In 2011, SBC diversified its portfolio further and purchased Clarence Brown Inc., a family-owned heating oil delivery business in the region based in St. Albans, Vermont.
The late Robert (Bob) Jolley and his wife Mary Ellen were instrumental in growing the retail side of the business, and over the last decade-plus, has operated under the leadership of Bruce Jolley as president, Samantha Peake as CFO, Shawn Bartlett as general manager of Jolley Associates, and Steve Smith as general manager of S.B. Collins Inc.
Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., Richmond, Virginia, advised Jolley Associates and S.B. Collins on the sale. Matrix provided merger-and-acquisition (M&A) advisory services to SBC, which included valuation advisory, marketing the enterprise through a confidential, structured sale process and negotiation of the transaction. Spencer Cavalier, co-head of Matrix’s Downstream Energy & Convenience Retail Investment Banking Group; Sean Dooley, managing director; and John Mickelinc, senior associate, managed the transaction.
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.
Founded in 1945, Ballston Spa, New York-based Stewart’s Shops is an employee- and family-owned convenience-store chain known for its milk, ice cream, coffee, Easy Food meals and other convenience items. There are 357 Stewart’s Shops in upstate New York and southern Vermont.