Global Partners LP (NYSE:GLP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Eric Slifka: Sure. Greg, it’s Eric Slifka. Just I’d say it continues to be very active. There’s lots of opportunities out there, whether it’s terminals, whether it’s retail, it’s just finding the ones that fit us best and then trying to go after them and be the successful winner. I’d say, and I’ve said this in the past, the good news is we don’t win every one. So I think that tells us that we’re not overpaying, and we’re in the right zone. But we continue to work hard to look at deals and be competitive and the ones where we can bring the most value to are likely the ones that were going to be the winners of, right? In terms of multiples, maybe they were off a little bit. I wouldn’t say that it sort of depends on the assets, right? But as usual, there always seems to be bidder who may think it fits them a little bit better and maybe they’re willing to pay another half a turn or a turn more, right? So it really depends on the assets.

Gregg Brody: When you say it’s off a little bit, are you saying valuations are lower? Or…

Eric Slifka: Yes. I think yes. I mean I think it’s — I think cost of the money is higher and that people have to have more discipline right? And even longer-term financing is more expensive too. And that has to get baked in. I think it’s hard to pretend that your cost of interest isn’t higher. And so most of the competitors that are acquirers, they’re borrowing money right? And they may not even be borrowing it from banks, right? So they’ve got more expensive money. And that has to depress multiples a little bit, right? But once again, it depends, right? Because everyone’s got a slightly different set of economics and somebody could say, “Oh, we’re going to stretch a little for this because for them, it’s really not a stretch. It just looks into the market, right. Because they have more value that they can bring to a particular transaction.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Tyler Rakers with Stifel.

Tyler Rakers: Tyler Rakers on for Selman. Could you guys share some color as to the GDSO volumes being a little down year-over-year, just given the acquisitions made during that period.

Gregory Hanson: Yes. We were 1.2% down year-over-year, Tyler, on a total basis. As Mark mentioned, we’ve seen diesel off year-over-year, as I think a lot of the other industry participants have seen. We also — it was not a great quarter from a weather traffic standpoint up here in the Northeast. And can’t quantify how much that played a role, but definitely was a very wet June for us. And I think it rained — we had a rainy day every weekend of June. So that factors in. I think, overall, we’re pretty happy where volumes are overall. Could they be better? Definitely they could be better. But I think gasoline demand is still decent out there.

Mark Romaine: Yes. Let me just clarify the comment I made earlier with regard to gasoline demand and specific to — with the comments I made were specific to our company-operated stations, right? So where we — and I think part of that is got to do with — when you talk about volume and margin, I think part of that is due to how we’re running our sites, the quality of sites that we run and the experience that we create for the . So I just want to clarify that if those comments on volume were specific to our company operated sites.