Ronson petrol purchase nears OK
Gerald Ronson’s deal to acquire petrol stations from Total and sell some to Shell is close to clearing its final competition hurdle. Ronson’s Snax 24 forecourt business, alongside Investec and Grovepoint Capital, made the deal for Total UK’s assets in June under the name Rontec. At the time, Rontec said it would end up operating 556 sites across the UK, owning 238 of these outright and selling 254 to Shell. The Office of Fair Trading approved the purchase from Total last month, and said yesterday the sale to Shell will be considered for clearance now that Shell has offered to sell some sites to overcome local competition issues.