Dive Brief:
- BreakTime Corner Market (BTCM) has agreed to acquire 39 Minit Mart convenience stores across central and northern Illinois from EG America, a spokesperson from EG America confirmed to C-Store Dive.
- Once the deal closes, BTCM is expected to rebrand the stores to its BrakeTime banner and change the merchandise assortment, the spokesperson said. The deal netted EG Group, EG America’s parent company, $38 million, according to the company’s latest quarterly trading update.
- The deal marks a grand entrance into Illinois for BTCM, whose only location in the Prairie State currently is in the small town of Tilton, about 145 miles south of Chicago, a spokesperson from BTCM said.
Dive Insight:
Founded in 2004, Houston-based BTCM has quietly grown into a significant c-store player through a series of acquisitions. Other notable purchases it’s made in recent years have included 48 c-stores from CEFCO in 2022 and 23 Loaf ‘N Jug sites from EG America this past summer.
BTCM now owns and operates more than 300 gas and convenience stores and travel plazas under the BrakeTime and Corner Market brands across several states.
BTCM will retain all Minit Mart employees once the deal closes, EG America’s spokesperson said. The acquisition is expected to finalize by the end of the month, according to EG Group’s quarterly trading update.
“This acquisition is a tremendous strategic fit as we expand our presence in Illinois and the broader Midwest,” Usman Bashir, president of BTCM, said in a statement to C-Store Dive.
Westborough, Massachusetts-based EG America has sold over 150 c-stores and executed sale-leaseback deals for hundreds of others since the start of 2023 to help EG Group pay down debt.
Some of its company-operated divestitures over the past year have included its two deals with BTCM, as well as the sale of 89 Minit Mart locations across Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri to Casey’s General Stores through two separate deals.
EG Group shared in its trading update that besides its latest sale to BTCM, it also sold 19 Minit Mart stores this month across Kansas and Missouri to an undisclosed buyer for $21 million. EG America’s spokesperson said they could not disclose the buyer of those locations, but added that it is not Casey’s General Stores.
