Pilot Flying J changes name to capture totality of businesses (with video)

Logo homage

Corporate initiatives branded with the logo reflect Pilot founder Jim Haslam’s first gas station in Virginia purchased for $6,000 in 1958. Pilot Company had $31 billion in revenue in 2019.

Pilot opened its first truck stop in 1981 and grew through mergers, acquisitions and organically before acquiring Flying J out of bankruptcy reorganization during the Great Recession in 2009. The two merged into Pilot Flying J in June 2010.

“We wanted a brand logo that took us back to the very beginning,” Jimmy Haslam said. 

The homage also reflects a business reality. 

“We couldn’t make money in just the travel center business, which is why in 2016 and 2017, the company began looking into the energy side of the business,” Haslam said.

“There’s a finite number of truck stops you can have in the U.S. and Canada,” he said. “The growth may be coming to an end.”

But Pilot is still committed to retail with plans to open 20 new stores and execute 30 new diesel marketing agreements this year.

“We think we can do that again in 2021 and 2022, and we’ll see after that,” Haslam said.

Petroleum focus

In 2017, Pilot Flying J hired Shameek Konar, a former Goldman Sachs commodities executive, as chief strategy officer. Later the same year, Pilot Flying J sold 39% of the company to Warren Buffett’s private equity giant Berkshire Hathaway for a reported $2.8 billion.

Konar, operating out of Houston, supervised the purchase of approximately 14 petroleum and related businesses in 2019, moving the company into oil field services and expanding the hauling of crude oil and water produced from fracking.

Over the last two years, Pilot Company has invested to build a comprehensive service model focused on supply, logistics, oilfield services and wholesale marketing.

“We see and look at opportunities every week,” Haslam said. “We do not expect the same kind of frenetic activity that we had in 2019.”

As a “super jobber,” Pilot Company also supplies more than 11 billion gallons of diesel, bio-diesel, diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) and gasoline through its retail chain and wholesale business annually. The average price for a gallon of diesel is reflected at SONAR DTS.USA.

Future state

The new corporate identity foreshadows the future when the Maggelet family, which owned Flying J, exits the business leaving the brand intact. Berkshire Hathaway will become the majority owner of Pilot in 2023 when it purchases an additional 41% of the company.

Other than giving consent, Berkshire had nothing to do with the name change, Haslam said.

“They totally leave you alone,” he said. “They are great partners with a reputation for being hands-off and allowing current management to run the company.”

After 2023, “this family will still have 20% of a pretty big company.”