Westchester County Business Journal 4/30/12

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WESTCHESTER COUNTY

BUSINESS JOURNAL

YOUR only SOURCE FOR regional BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com

April 30, 2012 | VOL. 48, No. 18

OFFERS MADE AS TRIALS NEAR IN SHELL STATIONS CLASH BY JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com

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Thinking smaller • 2 Brian Kaminer, co-chairman of Slow Money NYC, in Armonk.

Westchester businessman in a regional Shell gas stations venture that has been entangled for the past year in heated personal disputes and lawsuits between managing partners recently proposed buyout options to his rivals to settle their differences. At the same time, Sammy El Jamal, whose partners seek to oust him from their service-station businesses in New York and Connecticut, said in private emails that he has changed attorneys and has “continued stalling in the courts” to “just buy time” to reach an outcome that will redeem his reputation and keep him in the gasoline industry. El Jamal’s rambling emails – variously threatening, cajoling, boasting, aggrieved, peace-tendering and cryptic in their references to “investigations” of parties to the lawsuits and their family members and associates – were presented as exhibits in state Supreme Court this month by attorneys for his legal rivals, Leon Silverman and James A. Weil, managing members with El Jamal of NY Fuel Distributors L.L.C. and affiliated companies. Silverman is

Contractors vie for $500M in bridge-related opportunities BY PATRICK GALLAGHER pgallagher@westfairinc.com

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or LLF Construction Services Inc. and owner Leonardo Fabio, the Tappan Zee Bridge rebuilding project is more than just another contracting opportunity. “If I get a good portion of the Tappan Zee, we would definitely be set for the next five years,” Fabio said. He is not alone. White Plains-based LLF Construction Services is one of hundreds of minority and women-owned businesses,

chairman of Silverman Realty Group Inc. in White Plains. Weil is a Scarsdale investor and the financial chief of the Shell business whom El Jamal is separately suing for libel and slander. El Jamal this month told his partners he is willing “to sever ties without further embarrassment” and “stop the unnecessary spending of legal fees” for an $8.39 million cash buyout. According to court documents, he invested about $2 million in the $43.3 million deal in 2010 to acquire 43 Shell service-station properties or leases in Westchester, New York City and Long Island from a Shell Oil Co. subsidiary.

“If and when you exercise the right to purchase the New York business from me at $8.2 million at a steal price, I will allow you to be called the thief legitimately like I was called a thief in the newspapers.” — Sammy El Jamal, NY Fuel Distributors managing member

disadvantaged business enterprises and small businesses that will be vying for $500 million in subcontracting opportunities when the bridge rebuilding contract is awarded later this year. Nearly 1,000 people from at least 18 states attended an April 20 summit at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Tarrytown that was designed to introduce various business owners to the four finalist teams who are bidding on the contract to rebuild the bridge. Under an agreement negotiated between those teams

As a reverse option, El Jamal proposed to purchase at a 5 percent premium the assets of investors looking to get out of the Shell venture, using a high-interest, five-year mortgage from the sellers to finance the deal. “Please understand that my current credibility and borrowing power has been completely destroyed for the meanwhile by one single man, our fellow investor James A. Weil,” El Jamal noted with his purchase offer. The Shell deal that involved El Jamal, Silverman, Weil and three other investors was negotiated by El Jamal, the

Bridge, page 6

Shell, page 6

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in theThings industry as a serviceCheers • 4 only partner experiencedGood • 51 station owner and operator in Westchester and the Hudson Valley and as president of Wholesale Fuels, a fuel distributorship based in Thornwood. (In the fight for control of the companies, the 37-year-old El Jamal, according to his emails, has been forced to work from a satellite office in a Silverman-owned office building in downtown White Plains.) El Jamal was the only personal guarantor on a $33-mil-


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