Mr. Lube Canada is selling 23 of its 24 corporate stores to five franchisees so it can focus on being a better franchisor, according to company president Stuart Suls.
“We’re going to be entirely franchised,” Suls told Business in Vancouver November 3. “We have one corporate store which we’re piloting in Edmonton. It’s a bit of a different offshoot for what we’re doing. We believe we can be a better, more efficient franchisor if we don’t run corporate stores.
Nine of the 23 corporate stores being sold are in B.C. Four separate franchisors are stepping in to buy those locations, Suls said.
The expected closing date for the transactions is November 30, with all stores moving over to the franchisees for operations on December 1.
Suls told BIV in September (See Stuart Suls' profile "Smooth moves" – issue 1090; September 14 -20) that he aims to triple the size of his 102-location oil change franchisor within the next five years.
“We’re going to expand through organic growth and building flagship stores [and] potential acquisitions of other chains of varying sizes,” Suls explained. “We will also enter partnerships with large landowners such as Loblaws or Home Depot, which have multiple sites across Canada. Instead of me finding one site at a time, we’re trying to find a partner who will not be invested in this, who will say, ‘I’ve got 30 sites in Canada or 80 sites in Canada.’”