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CCPC clears acquisition of filling stations by Maxol and Circle K

CCPC clears acquisition of filling stations by Maxol and Circle K

Irish Examiner09-07-2025
The Maxol Group has been cleared to acquire three sites in Dublin bringing to 248, the number of sites and filling stations it operates in Ireland.
The Competition and Consumer Protection approved the acquisition. The three stations are currently supplied by Maxol under a fuel wholesale agreement and owned by Johnny and Susan Brady, and located at Spawell Auto stop, Templeogue, Coolquay Service Station, Dublin 11 and Crosslands Service Station in Clondalkin.
The acquisitions are part of Maxol's five-year, €175m investment strategy. Maxol acquired eight forecourts and completed 14 redevelopments last year.
Maxol CEO Brian Donaldson said the three Dublin sites will undergo a retrofitting programme, including the introduction of a Maxol Deli and ROSA Coffee stations.
'Today, more than 40% of Maxol's gross profit is generated from non-fuel services. Convenience retail, food offerings, car wash facilities, and new mobility solutions have become key drivers of our business growth," he said.
"It is our goal to have all three sites transferred and operating under the Maxol model by the end of the summer.'
Separately, the CCPC also cleared the proposed acquisition of eight Pelco-operated, Texaco-branded service stations in Dublin and Meath by Circle K.
An investigation by the CCPC found that while competition would not be substantially lessened in most areas as a result of the transaction. They said potential issues could arise in certain parts of north Dublin. Circle K holds a large share in the retail sale of motor fuels in Artane and Coolock in north Dublin, far greater than any remaining supplier there. If the transaction went ahead as proposed, Circle K's share would increase significantly.
Circle K has agreed not to proceed with the acquisition of the Pelco service station in Coolock as part of the deal and to divest the Circle K service station at 9 Beaumont Road, Dublin 9, to another operator under a long-term lease arrangement.
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Maxol CEO: ‘People in the South spend for today. They're still much more cautious in the North'
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The unification work soon began to make strides, however, culminating in a successful day in 1995 when staff from all parts of the island were brought together to celebrate the company's 75th anniversary. 'We hired a train, brought up all of our Southern colleagues and bussed them in a convoy from Belfast with all of our Northern colleagues to Down Royal races. We had one hell of a party, but the hard yards had been done by then,' he says. Not everyone bought into the new world, and some left. In time, the finance, IT and marketing departments moved to Dublin, but 'a very generous redundancy package' eased the separation. The Belfast office on the Ormeau Road, one that had been there since the early 1920s, finally closed in July 2020, reflecting, perhaps, the one third/two-thirds division of revenues between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The changes pioneered by Noonan and his colleague Paul Cran left Maxol in a better position to deal with the huge increase in competition that took place with the arrival of the UK supermarket multiples into Northern Ireland. The challenge was led by Tesco, who bought Stewarts Supermarkets in 1997. 'Then Asda came, Sainsbury's came. In a very short time, the whole geography of the Northern Ireland market was seriously impacted,' he says. The big retailers opened filling stations at their stores, offering cut-price fuels, while the rapid growth in the volume of laundered fuel illegally produced by paramilitaries 'reduced the legitimate market by 50 per cent'. The threat posed by the paramilitaries, especially the IRA – both before and after the Belfast Agreement – partly explains the departure from Northern Ireland of the big oil companies from directly owning filling stations. 'There was an awful lot of damage done to the legitimate trade, and the environment. That's why you saw companies like BP sell up, Shell sell up. They got tired, too small a market, too difficult to make money in.' Entertainer Brendan Grace in Maxol's 'Free The Nipper' TV advertising campaign, one of the most successful of the 1980s With its own stations, Maxol adopted a zero-tolerance approach: 'We had a programme called 'Fuels You Can Trust'. We then introduced spot testing. If we found that product wasn't our product, then we de-branded the station,' he explains. Today, Donaldson gives much of the credit for dealing with the illegal fuels to Peter Mandelson, who served as Labour's Northern Ireland secretary between October 1999 and January 2001. 'We did lots of deputations to secretaries of State. Then, Mandelson looked at what resources were needed by HM Revenue and Customs. Then they started getting on top of it.' 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Different planning rules impact, too, because filling station stores in the Republic must be kept below 100 sq m, unless it can be shown that a new store would not hurt existing retail nearby. 'In Northern Ireland, the stores typically are much larger,' says Donaldson, 'Some will be 300, 400 sq m. It's one of the things that we have to continue to push for change on in the Republic.' Last year, the company said it had invested €65 million across the island, including the purchase of seven stations in Leinster previously under the Circle K brand and refurbishments for nearly 20 more. In a bid to bring non-fuel revenues beyond the 50 per cent mark, new food outlets, such as Burger City, Burger King, Supermac's, and Wendy's, are, or have been, introduced. Maxol CEO Brian Donaldson at Mulhuddart - M3 service station. 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Recently, he met former minister for the environment Eamon Ryan: 'I told him that 83 per cent of all cars still being sold have some form of internal combustion engine (ICE). I drive a plug-in hybrid because I need to have that certainty. 'Yes, we have Teslas in the fleet for people who don't do as many miles. That's fine. The other thing I said is that the average life of a car is 12 years. So, there's still a long period in which those cars have to be serviced,' he says. Incentives that encouraged people 'to move from a full ICE to a hybrid, then potentially to a plug-in and then potentially to a full EV' should be considered by the Government, he argues: 'People have to have confidence.' [ If electric vehicles are the future, additional State support is required Opens in new window ] Commercial fleets have embraced EVs, but partly for tax reasons: 'But the private household, unless you're a high-income earner, is sticking with a hybrid or a plug-in. 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