Local firms lose out in €50m 'Irish' service stations revamp

Executives at Topaz Energy played the Irish card strongly on Wednesday as they unveiled plans for a €50 million revamp of the Statoil and Shell network service stations here.

There would be no more "silo management" from Europe for the Irish forecourt operations, as previously practised by Shell. This would be an Irish-owned fuel company, managed locally and perfectly attuned to the needs of consumers here.

This raised a few eyebrows at Irish signage companies who lost out on the lucrative contract to manufacture and erect the new branding material.

A number of Irish signs groups pitched for the contract - thought to be worth more than €15 million - but lost out to Hawes Signs from the UK.

One Irish company is even believed to have gone to the trouble of doing up a dummy forecourt in Dublin. "So much for looking after your own," said one disappointed industry figure.

A Topaz spokesman said the group made a "commercial" decision based on two factors: cost and an ability to execute the rollout quickly. Twelve stations a week are being rebranded.

It said Irish "partners" would be used by Hawes in terms of signage erection.

Separately, Topaz has split out its properties from the fuel side of the business. The company-operated sites (about 250 garages are independently owned) are now controlled by an entity called Resource Property Investment Fund plc. This will operate as a separate company from Topaz Energy, which will retail and distribute fuels.

Both have identical shareholder registers. Topaz is controlled by Ion Equity and is backed by private investors including Denis O'Brien and hotelier Gerry Barrett.

Documents filed with the Com-panies Office show that 97 sites have been hived off, many of them held on long leases. Topaz declined to put a value on its property assets and said the move was not a signal that it planned to offload any of the sites.

The fuel group has netted about €80 million from selling eight prime sites around the country since buying Shell in 2005 and Statoil the following year.

Topaz said sites at Tyrellstown in Dublin, Mullingar and Portlaoise were under review. It opened at Dublin Port and Citywest this week.