Applegreen buys into 23 plaza forecourts in US

Applegreen will pay $37.6m (€33.5m) to acquire a minority stake in a group of 23 forecourt-fuel plazas in Connecticut highways between New York and Boston in the US, in a small transaction that nonetheless underlines its plans to expand out its operations in the US.

When it sold its shares at €3.80 for the first time on the Irish stock market over four years ago, Applegreen had downplayed its ambitions in the US where it had a small operation, focusing instead on the opportunities to expand its network of fuel-and-food forecourts by building out new sites through acquisitions in Ireland and the UK.