Earle Gregory sells final forecourt to up and coming Shinon Group

A couple of former petrol station colleagues who have gone on to purchase sites at a rate of more than one a year since 2021, have bought Earle Gregory’s last remaining site, and their fifth, in their 30s.

Earle, who remains in the industry working closely with Colin Duckworth on buying and selling property, says that he saw “a bit of myself” in the pair – Suvarnan Sivapatham, aka Swan Siva aged 38, and Sajeev Gowrinathan, 31, who have ambitious growth plans.

Like them, Earle took over his first site when he was young, aged just 21 in 1980. He gradually built up a network of 18 locations in his forecourt heyday from 1995 to 2017, with former business partner Keith Gratrix.

Earle sold his last site Ansdell Filling Station for more than £2 million. He says that while he could probably have achieved more he was impressed with his buyers’ outlook and wanted to help them on their growth path. “They’re really nice lads, with ambitious plans, and I’m made up for them,” says Earle.

The Texaco petrol station at Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool in Lancashire is one of the easiest to run, says Earle, who has owned the site for over 20 years. It has a shop turnover of around £6,000 a week and a fuel volume of 2.6mlpa, from its four dual pumps with 24 nozzles.

The site also has a jet wash bay, and a rollover car wash.

“It’s in a lovely part and has no trouble from its excellent staff, it has very few drive-offs and when customers do leave without paying they come back,” says Earle. “It’s nice to be able to help some young lads, enthusiastic about the industry coming through. They are already busy re-arranging the shop.”

The new owners, who trade as Shinon Group, are planning to double the size of the 1,000sq ft shop and to move from a Costcutter to Budgens fascia. As part of the refit they will introduce County Choice food to go, Cook frozen meals, a new coffee, milkshake and slush machine.

They plan to replace the pumps, and to move the jet wash bay and car wash to make space for more parking and electric vehicle charging next year. A laundry machine, and parcel lockers will also be introduced.

Swan and Sajeev, who met around seven years ago, completed on the deal at the end of October, just weeks after acquiring their fourth site. This Texaco forecourt at Knowsley, in Merseyside, is closed for renovation including turning the non-branded shop into a Londis and updating pumps.

Based in Chester, their other sites are all in Cheshire, including their first forecourt purchase in Tarvin in 2021, Congleton, acquired in 2022, and Tarporley in 2023. The pair, who have been funded by HSBC, now want to continue growth at a pace of three forecourts a year, as well as taking on convenience stores without fuel.

Swan says that they have a strong working relationship, with him being the practical part of the partnership and Sajeev bringing creativity. The combination has certainly proved to work with their first site, Greenacre Garage in Tarvin, seeing shop sales increase tenfold since they acquired the BP site, and fuel volume having doubled.

He says they would consider further acquisitions within two hours of their existing sites. “We are hoping to be major forecourt players and have 15 sites in three years.”