Petroleum Transport Co. Inc. acquires Pope Transport

Petroleum Transport Co. Inc. has acquired E.J. Pope & Son’s fuels transportation business, Pope Transport. Matrix Capital Markets Group advised on the sale.

Pope Transport operates a fleet of nearly 50 tractors and 90 trailers, serving as a common carrier for customers throughout Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

“It is a truly bittersweet day for me after a lifetime in our family’s petroleum business,” says Judson Pope, president of Pope Transport. “We started the common carrier business in the early ’80s with three trucks and three drivers and ended our run with over 50 trucks and 90 drivers. Over the years, our family has been fortunate to work with many wonderful long-term employees and business friends. It is their friendship and those relationships that I am going to miss the most. Spencer Cavalier, the Matrix team and Lee Hodge have been great advisers on both of our business transactions. They worked tirelessly representing our company. I think PTC will continue the family tradition established by the Pope team for many years to come.”

E.J. Pope & Son is a third-generation, family-owned and -operated business in Mt. Olive, North Carolina. The company was founded in 1919 by Emmett Pope as a coal-hauling business, and in 1938 home heating oil distribution was added to its service offerings.

Pope opened its first Handy Mart convenience store in 1975 and grew the brand into a regional chain serving communities across eastern North Carolina. In the early 1980s, the company established Pope Transport to provide fuel-hauling services to its company-operated stores and third-party customers in the region. Current leadership sold 36 Handy Mart convenience stores to GPM Investments in 2021.

With the sale of Pope Transport to Petroleum Transport Co. Inc., the Pope family marks its full exit from the fuels industry.

Matrix provided merger and acquisition advisory services to Pope, which included valuation advisory, marketing the businesses through a confidential, structured sale process and negotiation of the transaction.

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