Christie + Co advises on £51.66 million Petrol Express sale

4 November 2008

Christie + Co has advised GNE Group on the sale of its Petrol Express business, which is one of the largest independent petrol station operators in the UK, to Leopard No. 2 Investments Limited, an investment vehicle backed by the Royal Bank of Scotland, for £51.66 million.

A subsidiary of GNE, the Petrol Express business consists of 62 petrol forecourts, which are spread across the UK and trade under the BP, Esso and Texaco brands.

GNE will use the funds from the sale of Petrol Express to pay off its debts and pay shareholders a special dividend. The company will also use the funds for investment in new projects including developing another service station network.

The sale completed on the 29th October.

David Port, Executive Chairman at GNE, said: “With the cash in GNE of approximately £15 million, after the repayment of debt, expenses and the special dividend, the board will seek to repeat its achievement of recent years by pursuing a similar strategy by investing in individual or small groups of retail petrol businesses in order to create a critical mass of quality and well run sites.”

Tony Evans, Director & Head of Retail at Christie + Co, said: “We were pleased to offer disposal advice to GNE plc. In the present market environment we are witnessing, it underpins our view that when quality opportunities present themselves there is still competitive interest to acquire.”

Leopard No.2 Investments Limited is a special purpose company incorporated in Scotland for the purpose of acquiring Petrol Express.

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For further information on this press release, please contact: Mark Wingett at Christie + Co. Tel: 020 7227 0794. mark.wingett@christie.com