Three-Station Gas & Convenience Portfolio, Cherokee County TX with Real Estate

$3.5M

Revenue

$1.8M

SDE

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a three-site gas station and convenience store portfolio in Cherokee County, Texas, sold as a package that includes all three operating businesses plus the underlying real estate (roughly 3.23 acres and about 16,619 square feet of buildings constructed between 2015 and 2019). The combined operation generates approximately $3.5 million in annual inside merchandise sales at a reported 35% margin, moves about 1.37 million gallons of fuel annually, and layers on diversified income from lottery commissions, ATM fees, supplier rebates, and skill-game machines. Reported adjusted EBITDA is about $1.84 million, with base EBITDA before adjustments near $1.62 million.

The seller frames this as a scale play for an experienced owner-operator, a regional c-store operator, or an investment group that wants both operating cash flow and long-term real estate ownership. The buildings are newer than the typical rural Texas c-store, and the stations carry fuel-supply relationships with roughly five to ten years remaining, which matters for both margin stability and financeability. Inventory is explicitly not included in the asking price.

The pitch leans on a stated unlevered adjusted EBITDA yield of about 14.68% and an asking multiple of roughly 6.81 times adjusted EBITDA, which implies an asking price near $12.5 million for the combined business and real estate. For a buyer who can underwrite the real estate separately and execute a c-store playbook (food service, loyalty, merchandising), the modern facilities and multiple income streams make this a credible small-portfolio acquisition rather than a single-store flyer.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is anchored by real assets and multiple income streams: $1.84M adjusted EBITDA across three sites, plus lottery, ATM, rebates, and skill-game revenue that smooth the volatility of fuel margins. The 35% reported inside-sales margin on $3.5M of merchandise is healthy for the category and gives a buyer room to absorb cost inflation.
The real estate is included, newer, and owned free of the going-concern pitch: roughly 3.23 acres and 16,619 square feet of buildings built between 2015 and 2019. That means a buyer is acquiring hard collateral that supports SBA or conventional financing and provides a downside floor if operations stumble.
Fuel and convenience is genuinely recession-resistant: people still buy gas, drinks, tobacco, and lottery tickets in a downturn, and rural Texas traffic is sticky. The existing fuel-supply agreements with five to ten years remaining lock in branding and margin economics that a new entrant would struggle to replicate.
The operator advantage is concrete: three sites under one roof invite shared management, purchasing, staffing, and marketing that a single-store owner cannot capture. A disciplined operator who adds food service and a loyalty program to modern buildings can lift inside sales and margin without heavy capital.

How to improve it

Expand hot food and made-to-order food service across all three sites in the first 90 days, starting with the highest-traffic location. Food carries far higher margins than fuel and tobacco, drives repeat trips, and the modern 2015-2019 buildings likely have kitchen capacity or room to add it.
Consolidate purchasing and vendor contracts across the three stores to capture volume rebates and reduce cost of goods on the $3.5M merchandise base. Even a one to two point improvement in inside-sales margin flows almost entirely to EBITDA given shared fixed overhead.
Build a customer loyalty and app-based rewards program to convert one-time fuel stops into repeat inside-store trips. Loyalty data also lets you target promotions on high-margin categories like food, drinks, and lottery rather than discounting fuel.
Renegotiate or benchmark the fuel-supply agreements before the five-to-ten year windows shorten further, and model the branding economics at renewal. Locking favorable terms protects the largest revenue driver and removes a key refinancing risk at exit.
Audit and optimize the ancillary income lines (ATM fees, skill-game machines, lottery, rebates) that the seller lists as diversifiers. These are high-margin, low-effort streams where small placement and vendor changes can add meaningful EBITDA with near-zero capital.
Install centralized reporting and shift-level labor scheduling to manage the single largest controllable cost at a multi-site c-store operation. Tightening labor and shrink across three locations typically recovers several points of margin that an owner-operator running one register misses.
Separate the real estate into a holding entity and lease it back to the operating business at market rent. This clarifies the true operating economics, improves financeability, and creates a cleaner, more valuable asset to sell or refinance later.

Diligence notes

Scrutinize the gap between base EBITDA of approximately $1.62M and adjusted EBITDA of $1.84M: understand every add-back and whether skill-game income is legal and durable in Texas, since that category faces regulatory uncertainty. If the skill games are a material chunk of the adjustment, haircut the valuation accordingly.
Verify fuel margins and volume independently: 1.37M gallons annually across three stores is modest, so confirm the per-gallon margin, any rebate or incentive income baked into it, and the exact remaining term and branding obligations on each fuel-supply agreement. A renewal with worse economics changes the whole thesis.
Get an appraisal on the real estate separately from the business, since the asking multiple of roughly 6.81x blends operating cash flow with property value. Underwriting the land and buildings on their own tells you the real operating multiple and how much of the price is collateralized dirt.
Confirm environmental status on all three sites, including underground storage tank compliance, Phase I/II assessments, and any remediation history. Fuel-site contamination liability can dwarf the purchase price and is the single biggest hidden risk in any gas station acquisition.
Pin down inventory, which is explicitly excluded from the asking price, and quantify the additional working capital a buyer must fund at close. Also clarify the undisclosed asking price and whether any of the three stores underperform the portfolio average.
Validate the reason for sale (listed only as 'Other Interest') and whether the current owner is truly owner-operated across three sites. Understanding who runs day-to-day operations and whether key managers will stay determines the real transition risk and staffing cost post-close.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →