Company prepares to spin off fuel stations.
Valero Energy Corp.’s board of directors has given the official OK for the company to sell or spin off its network of fuel stations, which could be worth as much as $2.8 billion, Businessweek reported.
Spinning off the retail business is one of many moves CEO Bill Klesse has made to raise shareholder value, which have included boosting the company’s dividend and promising to buy back stock, Fadel Gheit, a New York-based analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., told Businessweek. “Valero is the largest refiner in the U.S. and is by far the most undervalued,” Gheit said.
Cory Garcia, a Houston-based analyst with Raymond James & Associates Inc., estimated the worth of Valero’s retail segment—which includes more than a thousand company-owned and branded gasoline and diesel stations in the U.S. and Canada—between $2 billion and $2.8 billion.
