Retail/Wholesale: ARIE KOTLER

Arko Corp., a holding company for the nation’s sixth largest convenience store chain, Richmond-based GPM Investments LLC, made the Fortune 500 for the first time in 2022, ranking No. 498.

That’s an especially significant achievement considering the company began trading on the Nasdaq at the end of 2020.

Kotler, a native of Israel who has lived in the United States since 1997, founded GPM in 2003 only to sell the company a few years later. When he heard the business was struggling, Kotler repurchased control of GPM in 2011. In 2020, Arko Holdings Ltd. combined with Haymaker Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, to create Arko Corp., a U.S.-listed public company.

Driving growth seems to be a focus for Kotler and Arko, which has successfully completed 21 acquisitions since 2013.

Today, the company boasts more than 3,000 locations and over 11,000 employees. Arko Corp. reported full-year net income of $59.4 million in 2021 compared with $30.6 million in the previous year. In 2021, Arko sold the land on which its convenience stores and gas stations sit to Oak Street for $1 billion in a leaseback deal in which GPM will own and operate the businesses.

In July, Arko acquired Fredericksburg-based Quarles Petroleum, one of the East Coast’s largest fleet-fueling cardlock operators, for $170 million.