CST Brands

The company was created on May 1, 2013, when Valero Energy Corporation decided to spin off its retail operations in an effort to focus on refining. On August 6, 2014, CST Brands agreed to buy Lehigh Gas GP LLC, the general partner of Lehigh Gas Partners LP (LGP), from Lehigh Gas Corp in a cash and stock deal. CST Brands also acquired the associated Incentive Distribution Rights of LGP. The deal closed on October 1, 2014 and LGP changed its name to CrossAmerica Partners LP, trading under the ticker symbol "CAPL".

On August 22, 2016, Alimentation Couche-Tard, parent company of Circle K, entered a merger agreement with CST to acquire over 2,000 of its locations in an all cash deal worth $4.4 billion (~$5.48 billion in 2023), including net debt assumed. The transaction officially closed on June 28, 2017. Stores under the former CST brands including Corner Store, Flash Foods, and Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes were converted and remodeled to the Circle K brand.

Overview

CST operated over 1,000 Corner Store convenience store locations in the United States, including Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona and California. On November 4, 2014 it was announced that CST Brands would acquire assets of Nice N Easy Grocery Shoppes, a New York-based company with over 30 company operated stores in its network. In November 2015, CST agreed to purchase Flash Foods from the Jones Company, a Waycross, Georgia-based convenience chain with 164 stores with retail fuel operations in Georgia and North Florida.

In Canada, CST sold Ultramar fuels through over 840 retail sites in Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and eastern Ontario. Additionally, the company is one of the largest retail distributors of home heating oil in Eastern Canada. The network includes 80 card lock sites located along natural trucking routes or industrial parks that allow trucking and commercial fleets to buy fuel 24 hours a day. Following the 2016 purchase of CST by Couche-Tard, most of its Ultramar operations were acquired by Parkland Corporation; 36 locations were retained by Couche-Tard, and converted to Irving stations with Circle K.

CST employed approximately 12,000 people throughout the Southwestern United States and Eastern Canada, including over 400 at the CST Headquarters in San Antonio, Texas and over 250 at the CST Regional Office in Montreal, Canada.