Petroleum Distributors Are On Fire In Quebec

For some time now, it seems that not a month has passed without a petroleum distributor in Quebec buying another, merging, announcing a major transaction or expanding its retail network.

See for yourself:

  • In August of last year, the Alberta oil company Parkland swallowed 500 Ultramar gas stations under the banner Dépanneur du Coin and Dépan Express at a cost of $ 965 million CAD (source : La Presse). This transaction alone adds to the company an annual sales volume of 3 billion liters of gasoline per year.
  • Then, a few months later, Filgo and Sonic, two petroleum distributors and convenience store operators, finalized their merger to create the Filgo-Sonic Group, which now has 264 gas stations, 33 corporate convenience stores, 46 depots and card locks and 166 distributors and delivery agents. Incidentally, the first SuperSoir Sonic depanneur with gas has just been unveiled in Rimouski: the Dépanneur Jessop just joined the banner after having dropped its Esso banner;
  • The Groupe Harnois is not to be outdone, as it participated, together with Couche-Tard, in the acquisition of 36 Esso gas stations with a Marché Express convenience store banner, a transaction financed to the tune of $ 45 million by the Fonds FTQ Construction and the Caisse de dépôts et de placements du Québec. Through this transaction, the annual volume of Esso gasoline sold by the company increases to 630 million liters of gasoline and the total volume of its entire gas brand porfolio now reaches 1.6 billion liters. That came a year after Harnois took control of the 142 gas stations of Pétroles Therrien (the locally well-known Pétro-T).
  • Then, the year 2017 began with the acquisition by the Crevier Group of the 33 Gas-O-Bar service stations located in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, absorbing a regional brand that has more than 45 years of history. Crevier is also pursuing the development of its own corporate banner of convenience stores with a quite distinctive design, namely Crevier Express;

That’s way more than $ 1 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions in Quebec in less than a year in which approximately 6 billion liters of gasoline sold per year have changed hands (according to our estimates). These transaction have not been initiated by multinational oil companies, but fast growing and highly dynamic regional petroleum distributors.

Certain common features emerge that may explain these transactions:

  • The new generation at the helm of the Harnois family: Luc, Serge and Claudine (source: CNW)

    In the case of the Crevier / Gaz-O-Bar and Harnois / Pétroles Therrien transactions, the companies purchased had succession issues (see here on Gaz-O-Bar and here on Pétroles Therrien) while the purchasing companies have already managed their succession succesfully and are now being run by the second or third generation of owners;

  • In the case of CST / Parkland and Esso / Harnois, transactions, they stem from the trend by multinational oil companies to divest themselves of their retail operations, a major trend that dates back several years and to which Petro-Canada remains the exception so far;
  • In the case of the Filgo and Sonic transaction, it is a winning marriage of diversified corporate cultures between, on the one hand, a hyper-dynamic Beauceron company and, on the other hand, a giant and extremely diversified cooperative. Both have a lot to gain from each other.

The other regional petroleum distributors such as F. Dufresne and Paquet et Fils will surely not remain still for a very long time.

It is safe to assume that we will hear about them soon enough because they too are hitting the gas!

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