Dive Brief:
- Reliance Fuel acquired The Store from Teach Schierl Companies on Dec. 20, the companies announced late last month. This 24-site acquisition brings Reliance Fuel to Wisconsin for the first time.
- The sites will be slowly rebranded to Fuel On Wisconsin and will continue using their current Loyalty Rewards Plus loyalty program, according to the announcements. All store employees kept their jobs in the transition.
- The Store has had a tumultuous couple years, with Team Schierl’s convenience stores caught up in Mountain Express’s bankruptcy in August of 2023.
Dive Insight:
The acquisition by Reliance Fuel marks a new chapter for The Store. Team Schierl entered into a sale-leaseback with Mountain Express in 2022, then ended up buying back the intellectual property for The Store for $1 million in September 2023 after a bankrupt Mountain Express began to liquidate its assets.
The Store faced closure in July when the landlord decided not to renew leases. In the end, “[five] of the locations were closed and then the building and property owner found a long term tenant to take over operations,” a spokesperson from Team Schierl said in an email.
Reliance Fuel's acquisition encompasses 24 locations, of which four were closed at the time of acquisition but are expected to reopen, a spokesperson from the company said in an email. Those sites are expected to reopen once the rebranding and renovations are complete.
The Wisconsin locations will join Reliance’s 35 c-stores in Pennsylvania and one site in South Carolina. Very little is expected to change at the acquired stores aside from their branding, according to the announcement, with Reliance noting in its announcement that “we have joined forces with the exact same team that currently oversees The Store locations, vendors, and day-to-day operations.”
