Imperial Trading Wraps Up Deal for City Wholesale

ELMWOOD, La. — Imperial Trading Co. LLC completed the acquisition of certain assets of City Wholesale on April 14.

Based in Birmingham, Ala., City Wholesale is a third-generation wholesale distribution company that has operated for 97 years and services more than 1,100 convenience retail, educational and hospitality locations across Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to add approximately $150 million to Imperial Trading's previous $3 billion in annual revenues, according to media reports.

The City Wholesale team, including the founding Dichiara family, will continue to operate and manage the company's distribution warehouse in Birmingham.

"We are happy to add the talented management team led by the Dichiara family, employees and an Alabama distribution center to the Imperial-SAS distribution network to better service our customers in the Alabama and Florida region," said Wayne Baquet, president and CEO of Imperial Trading.

[Read more: ​Refuel Selects Imperial Trading & S. Abraham & Sons as Exclusive Wholesaler]

The merger will allow City Wholesale the opportunity to purchase products in greater quantities in order to eliminate many of the supply chain issues that the industry has experienced over the last three years, according to Imperial Trading. Additionally, it gives City Wholesale the opportunity to share best practices across a multitude of retail outlets to enhance growth for all locations.

"This will be our first distribution center in Alabama, and it will allow us to cover the whole state of Alabama and also better support Florida and parts of Tennessee," Baquet said. "It's always better to have more distribution centers, especially when you're covering rural areas."

Imperial Trading is a fourth-generation, family-owned, 107-year-old convenience store wholesaler headquartered in Elmwood, as well as the fourth-largest wholesaler in the United Statues with six distribution centers serving 5,500 convenience stores from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. It is also parent company to Grand Rapid, Mich.-based S. Abraham & Sons, a grocery distributor servicing convenience, grocery, drug, campus retail and small-format stores.