FEATURE
FUELED BY GROWTH Already an active acquirer, Refuel has its sights set on at least tripling its current store count By Danielle Romano REFUEL OPERATING CO. LLC is making a name for itself as one of the fastest-growing convenience store retailers in the United States. What began as a single-store operation in 2010 has grown into a network of 172 c-stores spread out across a five-state footprint. The Charleston, S.C.-based operator secured the No. 50 spot on the 2021 Convenience Store News Top 100 ranking.
“We love what we do. This is a great business to be in. Our mission is to continue to enjoy the industry and continue to grow,” Refuel CEO Mark Jordan told Convenience Store News. Jordan isn't a stranger to the convenience retailing industry. After working for Road Ranger, a Rockford, Ill.-based travel center chain, he opened his first c-store in his native Charleston, S.C., in 1998, and subsequently four more. In 2005, he sold the five sites to The Pantry Inc. Five years later, Jordan founded Refuel with a focus on high-quality, high-traffic, strategic locations. The company had expanded to five locations when, in 2016, Jordan met Travis Smith, who today is Refuel's chief development officer.
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Together, the duo found complementary and synergistic ideas for how to drive innovation and growth. Refuel's acquisition-based strategy is designed to roll smaller c-store properties into a larger entity, achieving the advantages of enhanced operational efficiency, scale and brand-building across a wider geographic footprint. Armed with this strategic vision and approach to the business, Refuel entered into a partnership with First Reserve, a global private equity investment firm focused exclusively on energy, in May 2019. Coming together as FR Refuel, the combined entity absorbed Jordan's original Refuel operation and brought enhanced capitalization to support an aggressive, acquisition-based growth strategy.
