Ambitious industry newcomer Roadside Real Estate is acquiring Hills, the Top 50 Indie which has a portfolio of 12 petrol stations and a convenience store.
The businesses exchanged contracts on Friday evening, in a deal worth £28.6m net and expected to be complete this spring. It will increase Roadside’s network to 20 sites and will give it a foothold in Cumbria, with the additional forecourts spanning from Carlisle in the north to Whitehaven in the south.
It will also bring Roadside closer to its ambition of becoming one of the Top 10 Indies, building a “scalable, energy forecourt and convenience retail business in the UK”.
Christie & Co, which brokered the deal for the BP/Spar sites, says that the transaction reflects strong buyer demand for “high-performing, regionally clustered petrol station businesses with secure property backing and clear growth potential”.
It represents a “continued appetite for well-located forecourt and convenience businesses with strong underlying trading and genuine opportunities for growth”, says Christie & Co’s Steve Rodell, managing director – Retail & Leisure.
He describes the business – previously owned by the Hill family for three generations – as ”robust”, with a secure property base on plots of land an average of half an acre in size.
Roadside was one of 13 groups to bid in the confidential marketing campaign “giving choice and deal certainty to the Hill family and shareholders, which were important factors through the deal management phase,” says Rodell. He worked on the sale with his colleagues Andrew Birnie and Josh Haines.
Abingdon-based Roadside has been on an acquisition trail of premium sites since purchasing its first forecourt, a Sainsbury’s site in Coventry in July 2025. It then bought the six Gardner Retail forecourts in a £17.8m deal which completed with the Southwest of England business earlier this year. And in February it acquired DA Roberts’ high fuel volume site Grindley Book Garage, near Whitchurch, in Shropshire.
Roadside Group chief executive officer Charles Dickson says that the Hills business, part of the Hoch Group, has opportunity for development. “Hoch Group is a high-quality portfolio with unrealised potential and underscores management’s commitment to creating shareholder value through the identification and delivery of operational and financial synergies derived from a scaled portfolio,” he says.
Christie & Co director, Andy Birnie who has known the Hill family and fellow directors for many years, adds: “I am so pleased we have delivered this deal for the family, Michael Collin and Michael Gatty. They were patient and trusted our advice and were an absolute pleasure to work for.”
Hoch Group says it was grateful for Christie & Co, the Burnetts legal team and accountants Saint & Co for their “strategic advice, market insight, and hands-on management throughout the transaction to exchange of contracts”.
