Love's Travel Stops Completes Acquisition of EZ GO Convenience Stores

OKLAHOMA CITY — Love's Travel Stops officially picked up EZ GO convenience stores from Carey Johnson Oil Co. Inc.

As part of the transaction, Love's acquired six travel stops located on Oklahoma turnpikes and five on the Kansas turnpike, in addition to 11 c-stores in Oklahoma and Nebraska. This is the first time Love's footprint will include locations on a turnpike, and is part of the company's commitment to add stores in areas of high demand.

"We are excited to add locations in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska and welcome nearly 400 new team members to the Love's Family of Cos.," said Shane Wharton, president of Love's. "The opportunity to expand into serving commercial and casual customers on the two state turnpikes supports our strategic priority of pursuing adjacent acquisition opportunities.

"In addition to being family-owned, we share a similar culture with the seller in that we operate on a customer-centric model focused on an extensive assortment of products, superior customer experience and inviting environment," he added.

For professional drivers, the EZ GO turnpike locations include amenities such as parking, diesel and DEF. Retail operations encompass groceries, beverages, snacks, tobacco, gifts, fresh food, dispensed beverages and other consumer goods. Additionally, EZ GO shares space with numerous franchise food concepts, and owns and operates the restaurant concept Back Forty Barbecue at two locations.

EZ GO turnpike locations are expected to be rebranded to Love's in the next 12 months. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Downstream Energy Group provided exclusive merger and acquisition advisory services to Carey Johnson Oil Co. during the transaction.

Carey and Mary Lou Johnson founded the petroleum distribution business in Lawton, Okla., nearly 60 years ago. They developed the EZ GO convenience store concept in 1981.

Oklahoma City-based Love's Travel Stops operates a travel stop network of more than 610 locations in 42 states, in addition to 22 EZ GO locations.

Love's offers more than 430 truck service centers, which include Speedco and Love's Truck Care locations. Love's and Speedco combined is the largest oil change, preventive maintenance and total truck care nationwide network with more than 1,500 maintenance bays and 1,200 emergency roadside vehicles available for customers.

The travel center operator recently launched an ambitious five-year plan to spend more than $1 billion on updates to 200 locations.