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Dive Brief:

Sunoco is expected to terminate each of Parkland Corp.’s executive officers who remain with the company once its proposed acquisition of the Canadian c-store retailer closes, Sunoco said in an SEC filing on May 6. Parkland President and CEO Bob Espey has already announced he would resign by the end of 2025 or once Parkland closes its strategic review. However, other executives such as Marcel Teunissen, president of North America; Donna Sanker, president of international; CFO Brand Monaco and several others remain. Sunoco has offered few details on how it plans to run SUNCorp, the publicly traded company it intends to form once the $9.1 billion deal closes.

Dive Insight:

Although plans can change at any moment, Sunoco appears intent on running SUNCorp with its own people. The removal of Parkland’s leaders will also include its board of directors, as only one of its current members — whom Sunoco has not yet named — is expected to join SUNCorp’s newly formed board for 12 months once the deal closes, according to the SEC filing.

Representatives from both Parkland and Sunoco did not respond by press time when asked to clarify why Parkland’s executives are set to be terminated, as well as if a top leader for SUNCorp has been chosen.

Espey announced his resignation in mid-April about a week after Parkland’s largest shareholder, Simpson Oil, launched a takeover attempt of the retailer’s board in a bid to restructure the business. He will leave Parkland after leading the retailer and oil company since 2011. On Monday, he called the proposed sale to Sunoco a “significant milestone.”

If Parkland’s shareholders approve the deal next month, SUNCorp will become the largest independent fuel distributor in the Americas, with an enterprise value of about $25.5 billion, the companies said this week. It remains unclear how the deal will impact Parkland’s convenience retail network which, as of March, included 645 convenience retail sites in the U.S., about 200 of which Parkland directly operates. The retailer also has over 2,300 sites in Canada, and operates nearly 800 of them.

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