Yesway raises an additional $235 million to accelerate its growth

The new capital will be used to rebrand, expand and pursue more acquisitions for Yesway and Allsup chains.

Yesway, one of the fastest growing convenience store operators in the United States, has completed the private placement of an additional $235 million of equity. The new capital will be used to fund an extensive raze-and-rebuild and store remodel campaign across the portfolio and pursue complimentary acquisitions.

With the new funding they target the further expansion of the Yesway/Allsup's brand presence. Brookwood Financial Partners, the private equity firm that founded Yesway, was the sole private placement agent for the offering. In total, Brookwood has raised over $642 million in equity capital for its Yesway affiliate in addition to arranging over $237 million in sale-leaseback proceeds.

“As part of our integration of Allsup's, we have identified over $135 million in real estate capital projects within the portfolio, including razing and rebuilding 27 existing Allsup's stores, performing targeted upgrades to over 100 additional Allsup's stores, converting several existing Yesway stores in Texas to the Allsup's brand, significantly upgrading many of our existing Yesway-branded stores and adding new to market stores in communities which we have determined could benefit from an Allsup's store,” explained Tom Trkla, Yesway's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Over the past several years, Allsup's has completed over 100 raze and rebuilds of existing Allsup's convenience stores, increasing the store size from an average of 2,400 square feet to over 4,800 square feet and allowing for an expanded selection of in-store merchandise and private label product offerings and, in most cases, an increase in the number of diesel and gasoline fuelling stations.

"We are also pleased to announce that we recently completed over $7 million in technology upgrades to all Allsup's stores, including the installation of a state-of-the-art PDI back office software system,” said Trkla.