In the course of our work, we research on leaders and companies predicting and surviving failures. One of our research works and the writing of a book, brought us to provide a talk at Intel University. Rise, fall and rise again is very possible - e.g. Abraham Lincoln, Donald Trump and many others that survived failures.
Today, I will provide an insight to an aggressive growing oil company that went bankrupt as part of our 1st segment in 2, for this month.
Founded in 2000 and based in Alpharetta, Ga., Mountain Express Oil Co. is one of the largest fuel distributors in the American South. Mountain Express serves 828 fueling centers and 27 travel centers across 27 states.
August 2023, Mountain Express informed its employees the cessation of business. There were no severance package or parting benefits, nor a phone call from former managers. What was shared by former employeers were: the company was a dysfunctional workplace for years, largely due to the aggressive — and unorthodox — growth strategy its former leaders implemented. On top of lack of transparency from leadership regarding its strategy and major decisions, there was unethical deal-making and financial mishandling happening behind the scenes.
“I worked harder in this job in two years than I ever worked in any job I’ve had before,” a former employee who worked in operations said. “The potential of the industry was great. But the execution of the company was terrible.”
The Super Growth Three years ago, Mountain Express received accolades for its ambitious growth strategy, including being named one of the top private companies in Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2021.
Mountain Express’ growth was spearheaded by then co-CEOs Lamar Frady and Turjo Wadud, who both joined the company in 2003 in senior management roles and became the co-owners and CEOs in March 2020.
Frady and Wadud aspired to not only grow the company’s fuel supply footprint, but take Mountain Express public and sell a billion gallons of gasoline in the process. Frady and Wadud wanted to go even bigger still, pushing into areas Mountain Express had never been before. They wanted to turn the company — which had only been a fuel supplier since it was founded in 2000 — into a full-fledged retail operator. And that's where the problem started.
In June 2021, the company entered into a $1 billion agreement with real estate investment trust Oak Street Capital — in which Oak Street would finance Mountain Express’ acquisitions of c-stores and travel centers via sale-leaseback transactions.
How the Sale-leaseback Strategy Failed
Mountain Express made sizeable profits from buying and selling locations. However, they did not conduct initial site inspections for repair needs and environmental compliance. They just weren't interested. These had caused those who operated under Mountain Express and its retail business to be not able to open even after 1 year and in some cases, the owners were issued summons by the relevant authorities. Vacant locations were just bleeding money.
Stores were undesirable and could not generate enough sale for its company-operated locations. Subtenants for sub-let stores couldn't generate enough income for Mountain Express to pay rent.
Acquiring Convenience Stores
Mountain Express acquired 25 convenience stores in Wisconsin and Michigan from convenience retailer and tire and auto services company Team Schierl Companies. It also acquired individual stores and small chains. The leadership did not acquire a retail operations mindset thus proven to be one of the main reasons to its downfall. There were attempts to integrate the business but it failed.
Acquisition decisions were often poorly planned and executed. There was a “transaction cycle missteps” by Mountain Express, including a lack of preparedness and knowledge of the assets they were acquiring.
I’m supposed to, say, integrate another 10-store chain, and everybody’s looking at each other like, ‘What’s the deal? What’s the structure?’
Retail stores were “way behind” technologically, and only one of those 50 locations ever reached brand compliance
Financial Mismanagement
Frady and Wadud — was using the business to funnel money to various entities they own. Although these entities are under the ownership of Frady and Wadud, they are not under Mountain Express’ corporate umbrella in any way,
Mountain Express was working with a small audit firm to get its finances in order, but that the audit failed due to a lack of financial records kept by Mountain Express.
A Culture of Dysfunction There was no communication structure within the organization — things did not cascade down from the top. There were multiple instances when someone who they didn’t know would show up in their office to retrieve sales information for an unknown transaction.
It was like, ‘Who are you? Oh, no, they didn’t give me the memo. I didn’t even realize those stores were being divested today,’
Team members who raised the issue of poor communication to leadership on multiple conference calls, only to be ignored.
Frady screamed and berated over things like taking their time to review company materials or financial information amid an acquisition. “It was pretty bad.” Where Next?
The two executives, Frady and Wadud are starting a new company
“It’s just such an epic failure… it’s probably one of the worst [bankruptcy] cases I’ve ever seen,”
Summary:
The main source of this article comes from C-Store. It is a compelling recollection of reasons that beset a fast-growing company.
No intention to remodel or invest in repairs after acquisitions, renting or selling locations to owners carrying products and services;
Lack of experience in new business model;
Poor leadership and communication skills;
Bad hire;
Siphoning of funds.
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