Forest company buys 15 more Apple Markets

By Bryan Gentry

Published: June 26, 2008

The Apple Market convenience store signs common in Central Virginia will soon be raised in Kentucky as well.

Workman Oil Company in Forest has bought a chain of 15 stores in eastern Kentucky. The sale closed on May 20 and the company announced the sale this week.

The purchase brings the total number of Workman Oil employees to 550.

Workman Oil Company locally operates the Apple Market stores and Forest Mini-Storage.

Warner Hall, president of Workman Oil Company, said the acquisition is a big step for the business.

“In our industry, what’s been happening over the last few years is, expenses have just continued to rise and rise and rise,” he said.

He mentioned credit card fees, the price of gas and real estate taxes. “All the costs associated with running a convenience store are going up,” Hall said.

“We felt like we needed to either sell out, or we needed to get bigger to spread our costs over a larger number of stores,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Thomas family in Beattyville, Ky., was looking to sell their chain of 15 stores.

Barbara Thomas, who was part owner in Thomas Investments, said they wanted to sell the business and retire. Her husband’s health has declined and their sons did not want to take over the company, she said.

But they didn’t want just any buyer. Thomas said they wanted someone who would hire the company’s 225 employees and honor the company’s commitments to suppliers.

Hall and Robert Workman Jr., Workman Oil’s CEO, heard about the Thomas Investments stores through a brokerage firm. They went to visit the stores.

Thomas said they liked that Workman Oil was a family-owned operation, run by two brothers-in-law.

“They were very receptive to keeping an office here,” Thomas said. “They were very receptive to keeping our employees out at all the stores, as well as our service people. We just felt like it would be a good fit.”

“We have good stores with good volumes,” she said. “They’re not changing everything in them, they’re just improving on them.”

Hall said the group of stores is a six-hour drive away, and “we wish they were right next door.” But since the stores are close to each other, field supervisors will manage them, he said.

The Kentucky stores will be renamed Apple Market, Hall said.