Topaz was an Irish

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

retail chain owned by the Canadian multinational,

Couche-Tard Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., or simply Couche-Tard, is a Canadian multinational operator of convenience stores. The company has 15,000 stores across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuani ...

, which had a presence across the

island of Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...

. The legal entity was formed in 2005 and previously traded under the

Statoil Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state owned enterprise, state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with ad ...

and

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard ou ...

brands, until 2008 when the Topaz brand replaced both in Ireland. In June 2018, The Topaz brand was replaced by

Circle K Circle K Stores, Inc. is a Canadian chain of convenience stores headquartered in Laval, Quebec, Canada. It is owned by the multinational company Couche-Tard. Founded in 1951 in El Paso, Texas, the company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1 ...

History

The company was formed by Ion Equity in 2005 as a vehicle to take over part of the Irish operations of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

plc (the filling station and home heating operation, Irish Shell Limited) as well as the Irish operations of

. This was controversial in itself, as the Competition Authority, which must approve large

mergers and acquisitions Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...

, failed to take a decision on the takeover of Statoil's assets within the time frame allowed, thus automatically approving the deal. This was the first time this had happened in the Authority's history. The company was slow to reveal its branding strategy, continuing at first to trade under the Shell, Statoil, and Fareplay brands. However, beginning in March 2008, Topaz began replacing both these brands with its own. The Fareplay brand, which Topaz owns worldwide rights to, has also been retired and replaced with a number of Topaz convenience store brands including Topaz Restore, Topaz Express and later Re.Store. As of 2012, Topaz operated 118 Company Owned Company Operated (COCO) sites in the Republic of Ireland and 1 site in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland Billionaire

Denis O'Brien Denis O'Brien (born 19 April 1958) is an Irish billionaire businessman, and the founder and owner of Digicel. He was listed among the World's Top 200 Billionaires in 2015 and was Ireland's richest native-born citizen for a period of several ye ...

owned Topaz, having bought €300 million of its loans from

Irish Bank Resolution Corporation The Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) was the name given to the entity formed in 2011 by the court-mandated merger of the state-owned banking institutions Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society. Following a High Court ord ...

(IBRC). In May 2014, O'Brien appointed former

Taoiseach The Taoiseach is the head of government, or prime minister, of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The office is appointed by the president of Ireland upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann (the lower house of the Oireachtas, Ireland's national legisl ...

Brian Cowen Brian Bernard Cowen (born 10 January 1960) is an Irish former politician who served as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil from 2008 to 2011. Cowen was elected to Dáil Éireann in 1984, for the constituency of Laois–Offaly and served in a ...

to the board of Topaz to join himself, his nephew (who is also CEO of Smiles Dental), Sean Corkery (CEO of O'Brien's

Siteserv Actavo, formerly Siteserv, is an industrial and engineering services company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. It has several divisions which provide events management services, modular buildings, scaffolding, fencing, safety equipment and telecommu ...

), Lucy Gaffney (chairperson of O'Brien's Communicorp) and Colm Doherty (former managing director of

Allied Irish Banks Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. is one of the so-called Big Four commercial banks in Ireland. AIB offers a full range of personal, business and corporate banking services. The bank also offers a range of general insurance products such as home, trav ...

). In December 2014, Topaz's parent company Kendrick Investments announced it would buy all of

Esso Esso () is a trading name for ExxonMobil. Originally, the name was primarily used by its predecessor Standard Oil of New Jersey after the breakup of the original Standard Oil company in 1911. The company adopted the name "Esso" (the phonetic p ...

's Irish operations. Profits at Topaz increased during O'Brien's first year of ownership. In December 2015 it was announced that Topaz was being sold to

Alimentation Couche-Tard Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., or simply Couche-Tard, is a Canadian multinational operator of convenience stores. The company has 15,000 stores across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuani ...

, with the deal closing in spring 2016. Subsequently, most of the Denis O'Brien connected Directors retired from the Board and the CFO Niall Anderton was appointed as CEO. Topaz also introduced the Miles fuel brand in 2017, this was in all Topaz petrol stations by August 2017. In 2018, the Topaz brand was retired in favour of Alimentation Couch-Tard's international company

in April 2018. As of 16 November 2018, the Nutgrove Topaz station still existed, although this has changed to Circle K. In 2019, the company was acquired by DP world for a deal worth $1.1 billion.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.topaz.ie/home.aspx Oil companies of the Republic of Ireland Defunct energy companies of the Republic of Ireland