Borrowing by small U.S. businesses hit its highest level in nearly four years in November, pointing to underlying strength in the economy.

The Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index, which measures the overall volume of financing to small businesses, surged 10.2 points to 106.4, the highest level since February 2008. The index was up 18 percent from November 2010.
“We are entering a new phase of the business cycle,” said PayNet founder Bill Phelan. “Businesses are betting on the future with increased investment spending.”
PayNet tracks borrowing by millions of small U.S. businesses and provides risk-management tools to the commercial lending industry.
The survey adds to other data suggesting the economy gathered momentum in the final three months of 2011, which should help it to better handle the headwinds from the debt crisis in Europe and fights over budget policy in Washington.
Fourth-quarter economic growth is seen exceeding a 3 percent annual pace, an acceleration from 1.8 percent in the third quarter.
The Thomson Reuters/PayNet small business lending index has some leading correlation with gross domestic product, preceding changes in the overall economy by two to five months.
“It (surge in borrowing) tells us there will be growth for at least the next quarter,” said Phelan. “There is underlying strength in the economy that is not being reported elsewhere.”
While Europe’s fiscal troubles appear not to have affected the flow of credit to small businesses, they pose a big threat to the economy’s growth prospects in 2012. Added to that is the uncertainty over fiscal policy in the United States.
The survey also found that small businesses are getting better at managing their debt, with loan delinquencies continuing to drop.
Accounts in moderate delinquency, or those behind by 30 days or more, dropped five basis points to 1.50 percent in November. Those behind 90 days or more in payments, or in severe delinquency, slipped 1 basis point to 0.39 percent.
Accounts 180 days or more, or in default and unlikely ever to be paid, fell six basis points to 0.58 percent.
“We are now in this new phase of growth and low risk. The key question is how long is this phase going to last?” said Phelan.

By Lee Enterprises Consulting | December 27, 2011

Lee Enterprises Consulting of Little Rock, Ark., the world’s largest biodiesel consulting group, recently announced its plans for expansion in 2012. The plans include expansion of the group’s services into ethanol, biomass, wind, solar and geothermal, and the addition of consultants and strategic partners.

According to the group’s principal owner, Wayne Lee, the expansion is a natural progression for the group. “We are currently the world’s largest biodiesel consulting group, and most of our consultants and strategic partners are already very involved in the other alternative fuels,” Lee said.

He added that his group’s current appraiser, environmental expert, QA experts, and grant writers have backgrounds and experience in these areas, and that the group’s larger strategic partners—Stoel Rives (legal), Christianson & Associates (accounting), IMA of Kansas (insurance), FCStone Merchant Services (feedstock financing), and Executive Leadership Solutions (staffing)—already have very significant presences in these other alternative fuels sectors.

“Our goal over the past several years has been to put together a top-notch team of the best biodiesel experts in the world,” said Lee. “I am quite satisfied that we have accomplished that goal and now address almost every need in the biodiesel sector.”  

Lee said his expansion plans stem from his belief in the harm caused by the world’s addiction to oil. “Most of the studies I have read indicate that peak oil is likely within the next 25 years,” he said. “When I see a rising oil usage worldwide, and note that more than 60 percent of the world’s oil reserves are in politically unstable areas, I am continually amazed that our elected officials have not made alternative fuels their top priority.”

Lee said that alternative fuels present a solution to many of the world’s problems—economic, environmental and security—and that the ramifications of failing to strengthen alternative fuels very quickly may be drastic. “I am a firm believer in biodiesel as the best alternative to diesel fuels and I strongly believe in its future,” Lee said. “But the overall solution to the world’s oil dependency rests with all the alternative fuels working together.” As a result, Lee wants his consulting group to be able to provide the same depth of assistance for all kinds of alternative fuels as they currently provide for biodiesel. 

Lee said that the group’s expansion into other alternative fuels will clearly involve the addition of new consultants and strategic partners in 2012 and beyond. His first goal will be to create strategic relationships with companies that are experienced and have a stellar reputation in the design and building of these other types of alternative fuels projects. “I want to be as comfortable with our ethanol, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass partners as I am of our current biodiesel EPC partner (Agri-Process Innovations of Stuttgart, Ark.),” he said, adding that he has already begun discussions among his group about potential new strategic partners, and hopes to announce the first of these new relationships early in 2012. 

“I envision a time very soon when anyone with any type of alternative fuels project can begin with a call to Lee Enterprises Consulting,” Lee said. “I believe that alternative fuels hold the keys to a better future, and I want my grandchildren to know that I helped created a better world for them.”

By: John Pletz December 16, 2011

(Crain’s) — Coskata Inc., the Warrenville-based ethanol startup, plans to raise $100 million in a public offering.

In a prospectus filed Friday, Coskata plans to sell shares to finance construction of an ethanol refinery inAlabamaand continue research and development. The company, which has 61 employees, uses patented technology developed in part at Argonne National Laboratory to ferment ethanol from non-food sources such as wood chips.

This is the second large IPO in the works from a Chicago-area alternative-energy company.

Woodridge-based Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc., a Cargill Inc. spinoff that creates chemicals used for everything from cosmetics to solvents from renewable sources such as palm oil, said in September it also plans to raise up to $100 million in an IPO.

Like Elevance, Coskata counts French energy giant Total S.A. as an investor and partner. Chicago-based law firmKirkland& Ellis LLP led the preparation of both IPOs.

The company doesn’t yet have paying customers. It lost $23.3 million through the first nine months of 2011 and expects continued losses.

Coskata already has raised $103.8 million from investors, including New York-based Blackstone Group and Khosla Funds, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based clean-tech venture-capital fund started by former Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner Vinod Khosla.

Khosla Funds owns 27% of the company; Blackstone owns 20%; Boston-based Advanced Technology Ventures owns 18%, and Cambridge, Mass.-based Great Point Ventures owns 16%.
Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20111216/NEWS01/111219822/alternative-energy-firm-coskata-plans-ipo#ixzz1igulUIWO 

Energy companies are shifting their focus away from the Middle East and toward the West—with profound implications for the companies, global politics and consumers.

Big Oil is redrawing the energy map.

For decades, its main stomping grounds were in the developing world—exotic locales like the Persian Gulf and the desert sands of North Africa, the Niger Delta and the Caspian Sea. But in recent years, that geographical focus has undergone a radical change. Western energy giants are increasingly hunting for supplies in rich, developed countries—a shift that could have profound implications for the industry, global politics and consumers.

Driving the change is the boom in unconventionals—the tough kinds of hydrocarbons like shale gas and oil sands that were once considered too difficult and expensive to extract and are now being exploited on an unprecedented scale from Australia to Canada.

The U.S. is at the forefront of the unconventionals revolution. By 2020, shale sources will make up about a third of total U.S. oil and gas production, according to PFC Energy, a Washington-based consultancy. By that time, the U.S. will be the top global oil and gas producer, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, PFC predicts.

That could have far-reaching ramifications for the politics of oil, potentially shifting power away from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries toward the Western hemisphere. With more crude being produced in North America, there’s less likelihood of Middle Eastern politics causing supply shocks that drive up gasoline prices. Consumers could also benefit from lower electricity prices, as power plants switch from coal to cheap and plentiful natural gas.

And the change is reshaping the oil companies themselves, as they reallocate their vast resources to new areas and new kinds of fuel. Working in the rich world—with its more predictable taxes and investor-friendly policies—removes some of the risks about the big oil companies that worry investors, making them less vulnerable to the resource nationalism of petrostates like Russia and Venezuela.

“A company like Exxon Mobil can eliminate the technological risk” of developing unconventionals, says Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy adviser at Rice University’s Baker Institute. “But it can’t eliminate the risk of a Vladimir Putin or a Hugo Chavez.”

This new way of looking at risk is at the heart of the transformation. International oil companies traditionally face a choice: They can either invest in oil that is easy to produce but located in politically volatile countries. Or they can seek opportunities in stable countries where the oil is hard to extract, requiring complex and expensive production techniques.

Now, in a sense, the choice has been made for them. Big onshore fields in the world’s most prolific hydrocarbon provinces are increasingly the preserve of national oil companies, state-owned behemoths like Saudi Aramco and Russia’s OAO Rosneft and OAO Gazprom. For foreign majors like Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC, their former heartlands in the Gulf sands are now largely off-limits.

Shut out of the Middle East, they have responded with a huge push into new areas, both geographic and technological. Over the past few decades, they have built vast plants to produce liquefied natural gas, or LNG. They have drilled for oil in ever-deeper waters, ever farther offshore. They have worked out how to squeeze oil from the tar sands of Alberta. And they have deployed technologies like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling to produce gas from shale rock.

Wood Mackenzie, an oil consultancy in Edinburgh, says that more than half of the international oil companies’ long-term capital investments are now going into these four “resource themes”—a huge shift, considering how marginal the companies once considered them.

There are also drawbacks to the new focus on nontraditional kinds of hydrocarbons. Environmentalists strongly oppose shale-gas extraction due to fears that fracking may contaminate water supplies, the oil-sands industry because it is energy-intensive and dirty, and deep-water drilling because of the risk of oil spills like last year’s Gulf of Mexico disaster.

There are financial considerations, too. While conventional assets are relatively easy to develop and historically have offered good returns, projects in some more technically difficult sectors—like deep-water and LNG—typically take longer to bring on-stream, and are higher cost, meaning returns are lower.

But there is an upside for the majors. “The silver lining is the shape of the profile of these projects, which is different than conventional ones,” says Simon Flowers, head of corporate analysis at Wood Mackenzie. LNG ventures, for example, can deliver contract levels of gas at a steady rate over 20 years. “So the returns may be lower, but overall you have a more dependable cash-flow stream,” he says.

By pursuing these nontraditional fuels, the oil companies are committing themselves ever more deeply to the wealthy nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Wood Mackenzie says $1.7 trillion of future value for all the world’s oil companies—52% of the total—is in North America, Europe and Australia. The consultancy has identified a “significant westward shift” in oil-industry investment, away from traditional areas like North Africa and the Middle East “towards the Brazilian offshore, deepwater oil in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa and unconventional oil and gas in North America.” And then there’s Australia, far out east, “which is in the early stages of a spectacular growth phase.”

Consider Shell. Seven years ago, the oil giant, synonymous with turbulent hot spots like Nigeria, decided to shift resources to more-developed nations that offered a friendly environment for investors and predictable tax regimes. Shell used to split spending on the upstream—the basic business of exploring for and producing oil and gas—roughly 50/50 between nations in the OECD and those outside of it. It’s now 70/30 in favor of the OECD, with the bulk going to Canada, Australia and the U.S.

“The risks in OECD are technical, but they’re easier to manage than political risk,” says Simon Henry, Shell’s chief financial officer. “In the OECD, you have more control of your operations.”

With the new turf comes a new focus: Shell will soon be producing more natural gas than oil. That might have scared investors a decade or two ago. But with gas demand set to grow strongly, especially in Asia, the future for gas-focused companies is looking increasingly rosy—especially after the Fukushima disaster, which prompted a rethinking of nuclear power in Japan and elsewhere.

Entrenching Its Position

Like Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp. is entrenching its position in the Americas, home to just over half its resource base. Its unconventional resources have grown by almost 90% over the past five years to 35 billion oil-equivalent barrels—partly thanks to its 2010 acquisition of XTO Energy, a big shale-gas player. Exxon’s U.S. unconventional production alone is expected to double over the next decade.

Some giants are looking further afield. Chevron Corp.’s three focus areas—the parts of the world that account for the bulk of its exploration budget—are the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa and the waters off western Australia.

In particular, the company has staked out a huge position in Australian natural gas; its Gorgon LNG project in Australia is one of the world’s largest. The push is based on expectations of surging demand for the fuel in Asia, largely in China, which wants to improve air quality in its heavily polluted cities by switching from coal to gas in power generation and running more commercial vehicles and buses on natural gas.

It “wasn’t a conscious decision” to move into the OECD, says Jay Pryor, head of business development at Chevron. The company doesn’t decide what projects to pursue based on where they are in the world, but on the quality of the resource, the commercial terms and the geopolitical risk. “The best rocks with the best terms are going to get the quickest investment,” he says. Money has flowed into the U.S. and Australia because they offer the best incentives to oil companies, he says.

In recent years, Chevron has also expanded into another promising part of the OECD—Europe, which some estimates suggest has shale-gas reserves comparable to those in the U.S. Chevron has picked up millions of acres of land in Poland and Romania, where it will soon be drilling for shale gas. That’s part of a wider trend: Dozens of companies are now exporting to Europe technologies used to open up shale deposits in the U.S.

Holding Back

Not all oil companies have piled into unconventionals the way Shell and Chevron have. BP, for one, has far fewer investments in tar sands and shale gas than its peers, though it has an unrivaled position in deep-water oil. That means it has less of a presence in the OECD than Shell: Its biggest projects are in poorer countries like Angola, Azerbaijan and Russia, and in recent years it has won a string of licenses and contracts in India, Iraq, Egypt and Jordan.

Yet even BP has been bolstering its position in the OECD. It said recently it was pressing ahead with a £4.5 billion ($7 billion) investment in the North Sea’s Clair oil field, part of a five-year, £10 billion program.

Still, being in the OECD doesn’t guarantee oil companies an easy ride. Operators in the North Sea were shocked earlier this year when the U.K. government suddenly increased taxes on oil producers. In France, authorities recently banned hydraulic fracturing. And in the U.S., the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, imposed after the Deepwater Horizon blowout, threw many of the majors’ plans into disarray.

But still, for the most part, the risks are much greater in the non-OECD. “The majors went to Venezuela and lost their property,” says Ms. Myers Jaffe of the Baker Institute. “They went to Russia and had to whisk their CEO off to a safe house. They went to the Caspian and realized they couldn’t get the oil out. I for one would much rather invest in a company that had 70% of its spending in the OECD.”

Mr. Chazan is a staff reporter in The Wall Street Journal’s London bureau. He can be reached at guy.chazan@wsj.com.

Three years ago, leaders in the domestic ethanol industry gathered to announce the creation of a “new, fresh, aggressive voice in the energy debate”—Growth Energy. From day one, Growth Energy’s mission has been to drive the message of ethanol forward and debunk the myths and distortions fabricated and propagated by those who seek to perpetuate America’s addiction to foreign oil.
Since inception, Growth Energy has taken great strides for our nation’s economy, our environment and our national security, but there are still a number of hurdles and challenges to overcome. In the coming years, we will build upon our successes and work to expand greater access to homegrown, renewable ethanol.

Methods to achieve this goal include four main priorities. They are:

Commercialization of E15: Today, the U.S. EPA is working toward implementation of its approval of Growth Energy’s Green Jobs petition for E15. This is one of our industry’s top priorities—expanding the market for ethanol by approving E15 in all cars built in the past decade. A full move to E15 will help our nation meet the goals of the renewable fuels standard (RFS). And by expanding the market for domestic ethanol, E15 can spur private capital investment into the development of ethanol from cellulosic biomass. With cellulosic ethanol, we can turn feedstocks, such as corn stover, citrus waste and even woodchips, into clean, renewable fuel.

Defending the RFS: The RFS was designed to set a goal of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, with the majority of that being provided by a combination of grain ethanol and cellulosic ethanol. The industry that is taking the greatest strides toward making cellulosic ethanol a commercial reality is the grain ethanol industry itself, in part because it already has access to an abundant source of biomass as feedstock.

Our industry needs to send Congress a clear message: keep the RFS intact. Weakening the RFS goals for cellulosic ethanol would not just block our progress toward a viable cellulosic ethanol industry, but it will put OPEC further in control of our economy. Changing the RFS just four years after enactment sends the wrong signal to those looking to invest in next generation fuels. A continued commitment to our nation’s renewable fuel industry will strengthen our energy security, generate more U.S. jobs that can’t be outsourced and improve our environment.

Opening the fuels market: We in the ethanol industry recognize that the decision of which type of fuel to use should be left to consumers. This means encouraging the installation of flex-fuel pumps, and encouraging the production and sale of flex-fuel vehicles so the consumer can make their fuel choice based on price and performance. An investment in ethanol infrastructure would tear the blend wall down completely and allow ethanol to compete in a fair and open transportation fuels market.

Educating the public about ethanol: Today, there are still thousands of Americans who have yet to hear ethanol’s story. The American Ethanol partnership with NASCAR is a concerted effort by those within the industry to educate consumers about the benefits of ethanol and dispel the misinformation perpetuated by the special interests that don’t want to see ethanol succeed. The effort to market ethanol through NASCAR means tens of millions of TV viewers see our industry in a positive light every race weekend, particularly as every NASCAR racing vehicle is now using Sunoco Green E15 racing fuel. By putting American Ethanol into the victory lane every race weekend, we are proving E15’s effectiveness as a fuel for every American driver.

Securing our energy future will take time, but America has the talent, ability and ingenuity to answer the economic, energy and environmental challenges we face. Growth Energy will continue to work with everyone in the industry to help achieve our nation’s energy independence goals.

Author: Tom Buis
CEO, Growth Energy
(202)545-4000
tbuis@growthenergy.org

Ft. Myers, FL (November 4, 2011) – Brian Wright, Managing Partner of Executive Leadership Solutions, announced that ELS has purchased a 25% stake in the defunct executive search firm National Executive Personnel & Marketing Group, LLC. 

Long troubled National Executive Personnel recently dissolved and the former leadership and executive recruiters have left to pursue other interest.  Beth Ann Scharrer, Trustee for The United States Bankruptcy Court, Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division offered for sale a 25% interest of the assets of NEP.

Executive Leadership Solutions was the high bidder and the purchase closed on October 21^st.

Executive Leadership Solutions purchased the interest in NEP based upon NEP’s long recognized name in the area of c-store recruitment and the opportunity to add value to its operations which at this point are virtually non-existent.   With the resources, connections and expertise of Executive Leadership Solutions now involved, Wright is hopeful that this company can in some way continue to benefit the c-store industry that once looked to NEP for expertise in recruiting and placement.  “It would be sad if this long term business in the area of c-store recruitment were to fade away into the dark night without at least some attempt to resurrect the strengths of that business.  NEP has suffered from the withdraw or lack of participation of its principals, recruiting staff  and leadership.” added Wright. 

CONTACT: ELS Managing Partner Brian Wright 800-485-9726 ext. 200 office or 239-209-4735 cell

Sending a thank you or follow-up letter is simply not on the mind of the average job seeker. Once the interviews are over, most want to move on to the next best thing: applying for another job.

Although it’s important to keep your options open during a job hunt, it’s also good to make sure you don’t forget the companies you’ve already applied to. By sending the company a simple thank you letter, you could scoot yourself right up the consideration pile. Here are seven tips to consider when writing yours:

1. Make it personal. Instead of writing a generic thank-you note that simply states, “Thank you for the interview. It was great to meet you!”, get more personal about sharing what a pleasure you had in meeting X Company’s staff and your excitement about X position. The more personal the note, the more genuine it will feel to those reading it.

2. Highlight your selling points. In the thank-you letter, you’ll want to include a few sentences that highlight your selling points. What are your main reasons for applying for the position and why do you think you’re the best fit?

3. Address a topic not discussed during the interview. If there is something unique about you professionally that you did not discuss during the interview (a skill you bring to the table, volunteering effort, board membership, award won, etc.), you could find a way to slide it into your thank-you.

4. Don’t write a book. Although you do want to make sure that your note is personal, while addressing the specifics of your interview and interest in the job, you don’t want to write multiple pages—because those people to whom it is addressed will not want to read it all. About four paragraphs should do the trick.

5. Reiterate your thanks. Yes, you’ve already said it at the beginning of the note, but it’s good to thank the addressee(s) one more time for having given you the opportunity to apply. Your gratitude could really make a difference.

6. Address it specifically. When sending a thank-you note, you don’t want to address it to a general title like “Director of Personnel”. It’s much better to address it to the person(s) who conducted your interview, as well as everyone else who helped you during your visit (don’t leave out the receptionist!).

7. Send it soon. It’s always a good idea to send a thank-you letter within 48 hours of your interview—the sooner, the better. If sending via e-mail, try to do it within a few hours. If sending via snail mail, it’s good to overnight it to ensure you don’t blend in with the pool of faceless applicants.
Having the opportunity to interview for a position is truly something to be thankful for—because not everyone will have had the same opportunity as you. So show your gratitude by sending a thoughtful letter that does a good job of selling you as the right person for the job.

Washington – American farmers and ethanol producers are both the most productive and most efficient of any across the globe. As the Renewable Fuels Association pointed out last week, American farmers are producing twice as much corn on the virtually the same acres as a generation ago. The same kind of productivity and efficiencies gains are being mirrored across domestic ethanol production as well.

In this week’s installment of the RFA’s series on efficiency, RFA Vice President Geoff Cooper takes on the critics who contend that both farming and ethanol production is simply too energy-intensive.

Critics of farmers, and by extension ethanol production, will immediately tell you that the tremendous growth in corn production is due to increased fertilizer use. As is often the case, such critics are not using facts. Data from USDA show that 2010 application rates of the three common macronutrient fertilizers (nitrogen, potassium, and phosphate) were the same–or below—the application rates seen in the early 1980s. Thus, nitrogen application per bushel of corn produced is down more than 30% since the early 1980s, while potassium and phosphate usage per bushel are down some 40%.

Likewise, according to a landmark study by the Keystone Alliance (a group including both farm groups and environmental organizations, such as Environmental Defense Fund and The Nature Conservancy) the amount of water, energy, and land required to produce a bushel of corn were substantially reduced between 1987 and 2007.
These same critics will also contend that the growing production of ethanol at the more than 200 biorefineries across the country is due to increased resource use as well. As with their “facts” about farming, such critics are not using 21st century data.

For example, the energy requirement (measured in British Thermal Units or BTUs) to produce a gallon of ethanol has fallen by 28% since 2001 to just under 26,000 BTUs. That compares to the 77,000 BTUs contained in a gallon of ethanol. Such improvements alone completely undermine and render dishonest claims that ethanol production uses more energy than it produces.

Similar reductions in electricity demand and water use have been even more impressive, with both falling 32% and 47% respectively.
“As the data clearly demonstrate, America’s ethanol producers are mirroring the efficiency gains of the American farmers upon whom they rely for feedstock,” said Cooper. “As existing processes evolve and new production technologies emerge, ethanol production in the U.S. will not only increase in volume, but also in efficiency. Without a doubt, today’s ethanol industry is high-tech and increasingly energy efficient.”

Next week, the RFA will examine the lifecycle comparison of ethanol production and oil production and refining.

Kroger convenience chain named “Best C-Store” in Sunflower State capital region

TOPEKA, Kansas — Kwik Shop has been named the “Best Convenience Store” in the Topeka, Kansas, area again this year by The Topeka Capital-Journal. The company–which said it is looking to expand–attributed the win to customer service.

“We’re all about serving the customer. Having what they want when they want to have it,” Brian Fisher, vice president of operations for the Kroger-owned convenience store chain with 10 locations in the Topeka region, told the newspaper. “Kwik Shop appreciates everyone’s faith and confidence in us, and we will continue to work diligently to offer consistency and great service in all of our stores.”

He added, “Overall, our standardization sets us apart” from the competition. “We offer consistency to the customer that our competitors do not. And we do visit our competitors. Good service, fast service and a good selection of items are what customers can expect in every one of our Kwik Shop locations.”

Over the past year, the chain has expanded its offerings at many of its locations. “We increased our fuel presence at our store near Forbes Field [the metropolitan airport],” Fisher said. “We have a new store • where we added new fresh products and a Real Time Cafe deli. The cafe follows the Dillons [a Kroger-owned supermarket chain] chicken recipes, so if you’ve had Dillons chicken, you will find it in the cafe, too. We also offer lunch specials. We also have a new store • with expanded fresh items, coffee bar, fountain drinks and a car wash. This store has a lot of energy-efficient items in the store.”

And referring to the tornado that ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, in 2007, he said, “We learned a lot from our location in Greensburg. We were one of the first to rebuild after the tornado, and we actually built a duel Dillons/Kwik Shop (click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage).

As for the future, Fisher told the paper: “We want to continue to expand our energy efficiency programs and make upgrades to our stores in Topeka. We also have a real estate professional on the lookout for places to expand. Topeka is a great area for us and there is no reason not to expand.

Cincinnati-based Kroger is the nation’s largest traditional grocery retailer, with 2,470 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 31 states under two-dozen local banners, including Kroger, City Market, Dillons, Jay C, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs and Smith’s. The company also operates 909 supermarket fuel centers and 784 convenience stores in the United States. The c-stores are in 16 states: Loaf ‘N Jug in Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming; Turkey Hill Minit Markets in Pennsylvania; Crestview, Fla.-based Tom Thumb Food Stores in Florida and Alabama; Kwik Shop in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska; and Quik Stop Markets in California and Nevada.

Separately, The Orlando Business Journal has named Atlanta-based RaceTrac Petroleum Inc. one of its “2011 Best Places to Work. The chain took an award in the “giant” (301-1,000 employees) category.

TEMPLE, Texas — In a deal that will add to its East Texas presence, Fikes Wholesale Inc., parent company of the CEFCO Convenience Stores chain, said that it has completed the acquisition of the 69-store Food Fast chain based in Tyler, Texas. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

As reported late yesterday in a Morgan Keegan/CSP Daily News Flash, Food Fast Corp. began operations in May 2003 upon the merger of several entities into FFC. It operates retail motor fuel and convenience stores throughout East Texas, as well as in Louisiana and Arkansas.

For 2007, Food Fast revenues totaled $274 million, including $60 million in merchandise sales and 80 million gallons in motor fuel sales. It employs about 500 people.

“The addition of the Food Fast team and stores will significantly enhance our presence in East Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas; while providing a contiguous bridge to our existing locations in Alabama and Mississippi,” said James Fikes, CEO of Fikes Wholesale. “The Food Fast organization shares many of our core values and ethics, as well as a passion for customer satisfaction excellence. Strategically, Food Fast is an outstanding, complimentary fit.”

He added, “This agreement also provides potential synergistic opportunities for our other Fikes Wholesale Inc. business units,” said Fikes. “These businesses include Group Petroleum Services (common carrier fuel transport fleet), Cord Financial Services (nationwide ATM provider of more than 4,500 ATMs), Fleet Express (single card solution for fuel management needs) and JF Air (charter air service).”

Temple, Texas-based Fikes Wholesale’s CEFCO operates 123 stores in Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas.