Stamford invest firm acquires energy companies in U.K., South Carolina

Stamford”™s First Reserve, a global private-equity investment firm exclusively focused on energy, has acquired Britain”™s Weir Flow Control and two companies in South Carolina.

The South Carolina deals involve Mt. Pleasant’s Refuel Inc. and Hartsville’s West Oil Inc., retail fuel distribution and convenience store chains that together total 31 sites. The result will be the creation of a retail fuel distribution investment platform in the southeastern U.S.

Financial details of the transactions, which are expected to close in the first half of 2019, were not disclosed.

Meanwhile, First Reserve is paying $359.1 million to buy Weir Flow Control, a designer, manufacturer and aftermarket services provider of engineered valves and pumps used in energy and broader industrial applications, from The Weir Group PLC. That deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019, subject to certain antitrust approvals and other customary closing conditions.