RICHMOND, VA – January 3, 2011 – Matrix Capital Markets Group, Inc. (“Matrix”) announced today the successful closing on the sale of select retail assets of Lehigh Gas Corporation, a petroleum marketer and convenience store operator in the Northeast. The assets, located in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey include both company-operated and dealer-operated stores.
These sales are part of Lehigh’s ongoing efforts to rationalize its existing assets as part of its overall plan to continue growth through opportunistic acquisitions. Matrix executed a structured and customized marketing process for the assets, which yielded multiple competitive offers that provided Lehigh Gas with an array of options to maximize the value of the assets. In all, 40 stores will be sold. Twenty-five (25) of the stores were purchased by Sunoco on December 22, three (3) stores were sold to individual dealers, and closings on the remaining twelve (12) stores will occur over the next few weeks. Joe Topper, CEO of Lehigh Gas, commented on the transaction, “I appreciate Matrix’s strategic review of our business and management of the sale process, which has helped us achieve greater enterprise value.”
Tom Kelso, Managing Director and head of the Energy and Multi-Site Retail Group at Matrix, who managed the transaction said, “We were honored to be selected by Lehigh Gas to handle these transactions. We enjoyed working with Joe Topper, Lehigh’s CEO, Dave Hrinak, Lehigh’s President, and their management team in helping to achieve Lehigh’s goal of monetizing assets in order to reinvest the capital and grow in their core markets.” Matt Murphy, Senior Associate with Matrix, who co-managed the transaction added, “The quality and positioning of Lehigh’s assets combined with the exceptional way these stores were managed created a very attractive opportunity and were the driving factors in achieving an extremely successful result.”
To learn more about Lehigh Gas Corporation, visit http://www.lehighgas.com