AmeriStop Sale Details Not Final

By Mehgan Belanger

CINCINNATI -- A bid procedures hearing yesterday in the Federal Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Ohio failed to finalize sale details for 26 locations of the 135-unit AmeriStop convenience chain, which is being operated by Dallas-based turnaround firm CRG Partners Group LLC.

The hearing could not be complete because the judge did not rule on some objections, Rob Carringer, managing partner for CRG Partners, told CSNews Online. However, he added that the objections did not have to do with the proposed due dates -- store bids on Feb. 7, an auction on Feb. 14 and the sale hearing on Feb. 20.

CSNews Online reported yesterday that CRG Partners -- appointed in October to operate the chain -- is selling the entire chain through the Chapter 11 process, and was advocating to push back the sale schedule into February from January, in an effort to sell all the stores at once.

"The hearing relates to 26 stores. Ultimately, we'll be selling everything. We hope to get everything into the same schedule to sell it all at once," he told CSNews Online last week.

The 26 AmeriStop sites are Shell-branded and all have convenience stores with beer licenses; some have car washes, according to Carringer. Ten of the stores are located between Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, north of Interstate 70, while the remainder are located in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky areas.

In addition, another bid procedures hearing will take place on Monday to finalize sale details for other stores in the AmeriStop chain. While Carringer could not provide the exact number of stores that hearing will address, he did tell CSNews Online the hearing would include details for the sale of other assets that were a part of AmeriStop.

Parties interested in acquiring the sites can contact Carringer at (214) 215-6882, or e-mail [email protected] to be added to the bidder list.

CSNews Online originally reported on Sept. 12 that Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge William Mallory appointed a third-party receiver to handle AmeriStop's affairs after the company's president, Don Bloom, resigned from his post. When AmeriStop's parent company, Petro Acquisitions, announced it was filing for Chapter 11 on Oct. 17, CRG was selected to sell the chain. Later, the receiver quit and a new receiver was put in place, and CRG gained the role of operator.

AmeriStop's troubles stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Walnut Investment Partners, a Cincinnati-based venture capital fund that owns 45 percent of Petro Acquisitions. The suit claimed Petro Acquisitions failed to pay its share of an investment deal.

However, this was not the only lawsuit the company faced. A lawsuit in Butler County Common Pleas Court alleged that Petro Acquisitions owed KeyBank $500,000 -- a loan it took out for Liberty Distributing Co., which it failed to pay.

Additional problems were occurring at the store level. In early September, CSNews Online was the first to report that the chain was suffering from two separate problems that had caught the eye of local media. A number of AmeriStop franchise locations saw gas deliveries from the parent company stop because those operators had not yet signed lease agreements and were not making deposits.

In addition, a separate issue over contracts with Coca-Cola was also plaguing the chain, which saw Coke products disappear from the shelves. As a result, 25 franchisees representing 44 stores are suing the chain, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

An "informal agreement" was reached that allowed franchisees to use store cash to pay for deliveries as they arrived so the stores can stay stocked and open, Marcia Andrew, the lawyer representing the franchisees, told the newspaper.

X
This ad will auto-close in 10 seconds