The company, which owns thousands of Oxxo convenience stores in Mexico, is crossing the border into El Paso and other parts of West Texas and New Mexico.
Fomento Economico Mexico (Femsa), based in Monterrey, Mexico, has agreed to buy the 249 DK convenience stores from Tennessee-based oil refineries Delek US Holdings for $385 million in cash.
DK convenience stores are located in West Texas, including 77 in El Paso, Central Texas, New Mexico and Arkansas.
The deal, announced on August 1, is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
The upcoming sale comes just 1½ years after Delek completed the rebranding of its 7-Eleven stores in El Paso to the new DK brand. The stores sell the company’s Alon-brand gasoline.
Delek has owned the convenience stores for seven years.
Along with Circle K, owned by Canadian company Alimentation Couche-Tard, and Speedway, owned by Dallas-area-based 7-Eleven Inc., the company is one of the largest convenience store operators in El Paso.
Delek officials said in a statement that they plan to enter into a contract with Femsa to continue supplying gasoline to the stores. The El Paso stores currently get gasoline from Delek’s oil refinery in Big Spring, Texas.
Femsa has long wanted to enter the U.S. convenience store market, “and this transaction represents the ideal way for us to take our first step in this attractive market,” said Jose Antonio Fernandez Garza-Laguera, CEO of Femsa’s retail business, in a statement.
According to its latest financial report, at the end of June Oxxo had 22,658 stores in Mexico, including in Juárez, and 1,022 stores in South America.
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In February 2023, Femsa officials announced a long-term plan to focus on their three core businesses: retail stores, bottling of Coca-Cola products in Mexico and eight other Latin American countries, and digital platforms based on the electronic transaction system and the Spin by Oxxo credit card.
As part of the new plan, Femsa sold its majority stake in the giant beer brewer Heineken in May 2023.
Vic Kolenc can be reached at 915-546-6421; [email protected]; @vickolenc on twitternow known as X.
