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- 04 Feb
Another c-store chain goes bankrupt and sells off all assets
The State College PA based Uni-Mart chain of c-stores bankruptcy was finalized with the selling off of its physical assets to 26 distinct parties as reported here in the local Central PA newspaper Centre Daily Times. The vast majority of Uni- Mart’s assets — 144 of 204 locations — were sold to Kwik Pik LLC, an affiliate of Lehigh Gas, based in Bethlehem. The remaining 60 properties were sold to 25 other buyers.
In 1972, Henry D. Sahakian founded Uni-Mart as a division of Unico Corporation, a family-owned real estate company. That same year, Henry opened his first convenience store in State College, Pennsylvania. Over the next 15 years, Uni-Mart grew and became one of the most successful chains in the Northeast. In December 1986, with 208 stores in operation, Uni-Mart was spun off from Unico and became a publicly traded company on the American Stock Exchange. In July 2004, Uni-Mart finalized a merger and once again became a private company.
In 2004 and 2005, the corporation entered into a “dealerization plan,” following its reorganization as a private enterprise.
However, the dealerization plan ultimately landed the company in a class action lawsuit in 2007, when lessees of 170 stores filed against Uni-Mart, claiming it had committed fraud by failing to provide critical financial information as part of the business transactions. The suit was settled 10 months later, in 2007, for $2 million.
Seven months after the settlement, the c-store chain filed for bankruptcy protection on May 29, 2008. At the time of its filing, the company listed more than $28.5 million owed to its top 30 creditors.
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