ARKO Corp

Overview

Based in Richmond, VA, ARKO Corp. is a leading independent convenience store operator and, as of December 31, 2023, we were the sixth largest convenience store chain in the United States (“U.S.”) ranked by store count, operating 1,543 retail convenience stores. As of December 31, 2023, we operated our stores under more than 25 regional store brands that have been in existence for an average of approximately 50 years, which we consider “a Family of Community Brands.” We leverage their long-term community involvement, highly recognizable brands and customer loyalty in their respective markets. While maintaining established diversified store brands, our stores derive significant value from the scale, corporate infrastructure and centralized marketing programs associated with our large network, including a common operating platform and a loyalty program network that we use as a platform for promotions and marketing initiatives throughout our convenience stores. Our fas REWARDS® loyalty program with approximately 2.0 million enrolled members is available in the majority of our stores and offers exclusive savings on merchandise and gas to our enrolled members.

We are also a leading wholesale distributor of motor fuel, and as of December 31, 2023, we supplied fuel to 1,825 dealer locations. Additionally, we operate a fleet fueling business that included, as of December 31, 2023, the operation of 298 proprietary and third-party cardlock locations (unstaffed fueling locations) and issuance of proprietary fuel cards that provide customers access to a nationwide network of fueling sites.

We are diversified geographically and, as of December 31, 2023, operated in the District of Columbia and in more than 30 states in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwestern, Northeastern, Southeastern and Southwestern U.S.

We have achieved strong site count growth over the last decade, primarily by implementing a highly successful acquisition strategy. From 2013 through 2023, we completed 25 acquisitions, and our site count has grown from 320 sites in 2011 to 3,666 sites as of December 31, 2023.We believe that our acquired locations combined with our scalable infrastructure create a strong platform for future growth within the highly fragmented convenience store industry through both strategic acquisitions and organic growth. With approximately 69% of the convenience store market composed of chains with 50 or fewer locations as of December 2022, we believe that there is ample opportunity to continue to consolidate. We have traditionally acquired our stores in smaller towns that have lower concentrations of national-chain convenience stores. Approximately 45% of our retail stores are in cities with populations of fewer than 20,000 people, and approximately 24% of our retail stores are in cities with populations between 20,000 and 50,000 people. We believe that our focus on secondary and tertiary markets allows us to preserve “local” brand name recognition and align local market needs with capital investment.

Corporate Information

ARKO Corp. was incorporated under the laws of Delaware on August 26, 2020 for the purpose of facilitating the business combination of Haymaker Acquisition Corp. II, a Delaware corporation, and ARKO Holdings Ltd., a company organized under the laws of the State of Israel. Our shares of common stock, $0.0001 par value per share (“common stock”), and publicly-traded warrants are listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbols “ARKO” and “ARKOW,” respectively.

We own, indirectly, 100% of GPM Investments, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company that was formed on June 12, 2002, which we refer to as GPM, and which is our primary operating entity.

Our Business Segments

Our primary business is the operation of convenience stores, and we generate a significant portion of our revenue from the retail sale of products and the fuel at our stores. Consequently, our retail stores generate a large proportion of our profitability. We intentionally focus our marketing and merchandising initiatives at our retail stores to offer our customers an assortment of products with an attractive value proposition. Our retail store offering includes a wide array of cold and hot foodservice, beverages, cigarettes and other tobacco products, candy, salty snacks, grocery, beer and general merchandise. We have foodservice offerings at approximately 1,260 retail stores, which include hot and fresh grab-n-go foods, deli, fried chicken, bakery, pizza, roller grill items and other prepared foods. In 2024, we launched an extensive new pizza program that offers private label pizza, at an attractive value of $4.99 for enrolled loyalty members, which is currently offered at more than 1,000 stores as take-and-bake from the freezer, and currently available at approximately 225 of those stores also as fresh and hot pizza either whole or by the slice. We supplement our foodservice offering with approximately 150 quick service major national brand restaurants. Additionally, we provide a number of traditional convenience store services that generate additional income, including lottery, prepaid products, gift cards, money orders, ATMs, gaming, and other ancillary product and service offerings. We also generate revenues from car washes at approximately 95 of our locations. Almost all stores sell fuel, and we had 70 electric vehicle (“EV”) chargers at 19 stores as of December 31, 2023.

We operate our stores under more than 25 regional store brands (which we consider “a Family of Community Brands”), including 1-Stop, Admiral, Apple Market®, BreadBox, Corner Mart, Dixie Mart, ExpressStop®, E-Z Mart®, fas mart®, fastmarket®, Flash Market, Handy Mart, Jetz, Jiffi Stop®, Jiffy Stop, Li’l Cricket, Market Express, Next Door Store®, Pride, Roadrunner Markets, Rose Mart, Rstore, Scotchman®, shore stop®, Speedy’s, Town Star, Uncle’s, Village Pantry® and Young’s.

Our acquired brands have been in existence for an average of approximately 50 years, and their names are highly recognizable to local customers. By maintaining the regional store branding of our acquired stores, we believe we retain the goodwill associated with the respective brands’ long-term community involvement. Concurrently, our Family of Community Brands benefits significantly from being part of a leading convenience store operator given their access to:

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Centralized merchandising, marketing and procurement programs;

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Fuel price optimization and purchasing functions;

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Common loyalty program under the name fas REWARDS®;

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A comprehensive portfolio of fuel brands with strong consumer recognition through national advertising;

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Common IT and point-of-sale platforms; and

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Centralized environmental management and environmental practices.

For the year ended December 31, 2023, the retail segment generated total revenues of approximately $5.8 billion, including approximately $1.9 billion of in-store sales and other revenues. Gross profit dollars from in-store merchandise accounted for 53.4% of our gross profit dollars from our retail segment for the year ended December 31, 2023. In addition, the retail segment sold a total of more than 1.1 billion gallons of branded and unbranded fuel to our retail customers.

The wholesale segment supplies fuel to dealers, sub-wholesalers and bulk and spot purchasers, on either a consignment or cost plus basis. The wholesale segment adds significant fuel volumes to the Company’s robust retail fuel sales, which we believe enhances our purchasing power for our entire platform, including our retail segment, and improves our competitiveness as an acquirer of choice.

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Consignment contracts — 288 sites as of December 31, 2023. In arrangements of this type, we own the fuel until the date of sale to the final customer (the consumer), and the gross profit created from the sale of the fuel is allocated between us and the dealer based on the terms of the relevant agreement with the dealer. In certain cases, gross profit is split based on a percentage and in others we pay a fixed fee per gallon to the dealer.

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Fuel supply contracts (“Cost Plus”) — 1,537 sites as of December 31, 2023 plus bulk and spot purchasers. In arrangements of this type, the dealer purchases the fuel from us. We make final sales to dealers (referred to as a “lessee-dealer” if the dealer leases the station from us or an “open-dealer” if the dealer controls the site), sub-wholesalers and bulk and spot purchasers on a fixed-fee basis. The sales price to the dealer is determined according to the terms of the relevant agreement with the dealer, which typically reflects our total fuel costs plus the cost of transportation and a margin, with us generally retaining any prompt pay discounts and rebates, largely eliminating our exposure to commodity price movements.

For the year ended December 31, 2023, the wholesale segment sold 969.3 million gallons of fuel (approximately 43.2% of our total gallons sold in 2023), generating revenues of approximately $3.1 billion.

We added our fleet fueling segment as part of our acquisition of certain assets from Quarles Petroleum, Incorporated (“Quarles”) in July 2022 that included 184 cardlock locations, and we added an additional 111 cardlock locations in our 2023 acquisition of the GASCARD fleet fueling operations of WTG Fuels Holdings, LLC (the “WTG Acquisition”), one of the largest fleet fueling operations in West Texas. The fleet fueling segment includes the operation of proprietary and third-party cardlock locations (unstaffed fueling locations) with sales to commercial and municipal entities, and issuance of proprietary fuel cards that provide customers access to a nationwide network of fueling sites. Fleet fueling complements our retail and wholesale segments, from which we believe we can grow and expand our fleet fueling segment. Commercial companies using the Quarles fleet cards have gradually shifted from the proprietary fleet card useable only at Quarles-branded locations to the “Universal” fleet card which is a cobranded with Voyager (U.S. Bank) and which can be used at more than 230,000 fleet fueling sites.

Diesel fuel accounts for approximately 82% of our fleet fueling sales, and, as opposed to retail volumes, commercial volumes have been less impacted by retail fuel consumption trends. Within our fleet fueling segment, we generally achieve fuel margins that are higher than those in our wholesale segment. The lack of on-site labor required to run these sites also generally offers us compelling economics.

As of December 31, 2023, we operated 298 cardlock locations, and, for the year ended December 31, 2023, the fleet fueling segment sold 140.8 million gallons of fuel, generating revenues of approximately $538.8 million.

The GPMP segment engages in the wholesale distribution of fuel to substantially all of our sites that sell fuel in the retail and wholesale segments and a limited number of third-party dealers and bulk purchasers. GPM Petroleum LP (“GPMP”) sells fuel at GPMP’s cost of fuel (including taxes and transportation) plus a fixed margin and charges a fixed fee primarily to sites in the fleet fueling segment which are not supplied by GPMP. We own 100% of the general partner of GPMP and, as of December 31, 2023, 99.8% of the GPMP limited partner units. As of the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, we own all of the GPMP limited partner units.

Growth Strategy

We believe that continuing to execute on our organic and inorganic strategies provides a significant opportunity to increase our sales and profitability. We constantly monitor macroeconomic factors such as interest rates, material costs, product availability, construction industry pricing, and the availability and cost of labor, and we closely analyze key performance indicators to calibrate our strategies between organic and inorganic initiatives, as described in further detail below.

Organic Growth Opportunities

Our current organic strategies are focused on improving the performance of our retail stores through enhanced marketing and merchandising initiatives across our brands, such as our loyalty program, which deepens our relationship with our customers, expanding our foodservice offering to meet our customers’ needs and enhancing our existing retail store base.

Foodservice Opportunity. Our current foodservice offering, which varies by store, primarily consists of hot and fresh grab-n-go foods, deli, fried chicken, bakery, pizza, roller grill items and other prepared foods. We have historically relied upon a limited number of franchised quick service restaurants and in-store delis to drive customer traffic. As a result, we believe that our under-penetration of foodservice presents an opportunity to expand foodservice offerings and margin in response to changing consumer behavior. In the third quarter of 2023, we created and filled a new role at GPM, Senior Vice President of Food Service, to evaluate our current foodservice offering and to expand our company-wide, cross-functional food strategy to position our stores as a food destination for our customers, scaled across our Family of Community Brands. In 2024, we launched an extensive new pizza program.

Other Enhanced Marketing Initiatives. We pursue numerous in-store sales growth and margin enhancement opportunities through marketing and merchandising initiatives across our expansive footprint, including, among others:

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Using customer centric data-driven decisions to expand our six core destination merchandise categories, which are packaged beverages, candy, salty snacks, packaged sweet snacks, alternative snacks and beer. These categories represented approximately 53% of our merchandise contribution for the year ended December 31, 2023. Because our core destination merchandise categories represent a high concentration of our merchandise contribution, we focus on marketing and merchandising initiatives within these categories because we believe that they will have the greatest impact on our performance. In 2023, we updated approximately 310 of our stores with expanded core categories.

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Development and strengthening of customer relationships through our fas REWARDS® loyalty program, which offers enrolled loyalty members in-store exclusive promotional pricing, in-app member only HOT deals not available in stores, order and delivery, age verified offers on tobacco and alcohol, and a store locator with current gas prices at stores close to members. In the first quarter of 2023, we launched a new enhanced fas REWARDS app to better connect with and understand our customers. Currently, approximately 2.0 million customers are enrolled in our fas REWARDS® loyalty program.

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Continued expansion of the use of third-party delivery services, such as DoorDash and GrubHub, currently offered at more than 1,300 of our stores.

Remodels, Raze-and-Rebuilds and New-to-Industry Opportunities. We believe that we have an expansive, embedded opportunity to enhance our existing store base through several organic growth initiatives, including full and functional remodels, raze-and-rebuild and new-to-industry opportunities. In 2023, we continued to upgrade existing stores through functional remodels, such as adding bean-to-cup coffee offerings (added into more than 390 stores), roller grills (added into 47 stores), enhanced dispensed beverage offerings and our successful grab-n-go and freezer strategy. Further, in 2023, we opened three new Dunkin’ stores and one new Pride location, and we are planning three new-to-industry stores in 2024.

Inorganic Growth Opportunities

Our inorganic strategies focus on growing our store base in existing and contiguous markets through acquisitions.

Pursue Acquisitions in Existing and Contiguous Markets. We have a dedicated in-house M&A team that focuses on identifying, closing and integrating acquisitions. As an experienced acquirer, we have demonstrated our ability to generate strong returns on capital and meaningfully improve target performance post-integration through operating expertise and economies of scale. We believe that our business model provides us with strategic flexibility to acquire chains with retail, dealer and cardlock locations. We believe that our scale has enabled us to become a formidable industry player, enhanced our competitiveness, and positioned us as an acquirer of choice within the industry. As a “super-jobber” wholesaler, we believe we are better positioned to gain and renew supply contracts from dealers in addition to convenience store and wholesale fuel portfolios, and we incentivize our wholesale sales staff based on renewals. Additionally, we believe we can grow and expand the Company’s fleet fueling platform through further acquisitions, including in conjunction with our retail and wholesale acquisitions.

Additionally, as part of our post-acquisition process following the integration of our systems, we implement our store planograms and merchandise assortment in newly acquired stores and expand category footages where necessary in order to improve the performance of acquired stores. We believe our significant size and scale aids our efforts to successfully deploy our organic growth strategies in our acquired assets, which we anticipate will result in value accretion.

EV Opportunity. As part of our overall EV strategy, we pursue grants and subsidies across our footprint to expand our EV charging capacity. As of December 31, 2023, our total EV charging network consisted of 70 charging stations installed at 19 stores across 11 states. We have several potential grants that we are pursuing. Our goal is to offer EV drivers the convenience and amenities they seek in a charging destination away from their homes, at areas where we identify the demand.

Suppliers

In 2023, we purchased merchandise inventory from two primary wholesale distributors, Core-Mark and Grocery Supply Company, as well as approximately 850 direct store delivery supplier distributors. We leverage our relationships to generate economies of scale across our store base.

We purchase motor fuel primarily from large, integrated oil companies and independent refiners under supply agreements. In addition, we purchase unbranded fuel from branded and unbranded fuel suppliers to supply 267 unbranded retail fueling locations and 298 cardlock locations. As of December 31, 2023, approximately 82% of our retail fuel locations sold branded fuel. We sell branded fuel under brand names including, among others, Valero®, Marathon®, BP®, Exxon® and Shell® brand names. In addition to driving customer traffic, we believe that our branded fuel strategy enables us to maintain a secure fuel supply.

Competition

We operate in the highly competitive retail convenience market, which includes businesses with operations and services that are similar to those that we provide, primarily the sale of convenience items and motor fuels. We face significant competition from other large chain operators, such as: 7-Eleven/Speedway; Circle K; Casey’s; Murphy USA; Quik Trip; Royal Farms; Sheetz; and Wawa. We believe that convenience stores managed by individual operators who offer branded or non-branded fuel are also significant competitors in the local markets in which we operate. Often, operators of both chains and individual stores compete by selling unbranded fuel at lower retail prices relative to the market. We believe that the primary competitive factors influencing the retail segment are: site location; competitive prices; convenient access routes; the quality and configuration of the store and the fueling facility; the range of high-quality products and services offered; a convenient store-front; cleanliness; branded fuel; and the degree of capital investment in the store.

The convenience store industry is also experiencing competition from other retail sectors, including grocery stores, large warehouse retail stores, dollar stores and pharmacies. In particular, dollar stores (such as Family Dollar and Dollar General) and pharmacies (such as CVS and Walgreens) have expanded their product offerings to sell snacks, beer and wine and other products that have traditionally been sold by convenience stores, while grocery and large warehouse stores (such as Costco and Wal-Mart) have expanded their fuel offering adjacent to their stores. In smaller towns and more rural areas, we primarily compete with other local convenience stores, local or regional grocery stores, and to some extent, restaurants, and in more heavily populated areas, we often compete with local retailers as well as major national grocery chains, national drug store and warehouse retail stores brands like those mentioned above, traditional convenience stores, expanded fuel stations, and discount food retailers.

The wholesale business is also competitive. In the wholesale segment, we supply fuel to third-parties both at sites owned or leased by dealers, sites that we own or for which we have a long-term lease, and bulk and spot purchasers. For sites that we do not own or lease, in the renewal of contracts we compete with refiners that distribute their own products, as well as other independent third-party motor fuel distributors. Wholesale fuel distributors typically compete by offering shorter contract commitments, lesser collateral requirements and larger incentives to enter into contracts.

In order to mitigate this competition, we typically offer our dealers competitive pricing within the framework of our existing fuel supply agreements, such as those we have with Valero, BP, Shell, Motiva, Marathon and ExxonMobil, with the advantage that we distribute fuel sourced from a number of major oil company suppliers which allows us to approach a wide variety of branded and unbranded dealers in order to offer a variety of alternative supply arrangements.

Cardlocks compete against retail gas stations, especially those with a significant number of diesel pumps, however, we believe that our cardlock footprint allows for easier access and more efficient fueling for commercial vehicles than traditional retail fueling locations. Site growth in the fleet fueling segment is driven by commercial customers outsourcing the provision of on-site fleet fueling. The primary competitors for third-party sites are companies that provide delivered fuels, with national, regional and local companies offering this service. We believe that we are well positioned in the industry because we combine the ability to utilize our proprietary cardlock sites with our fleet card product sales.

We believe that the primary barriers to entering our industry are the significant financial strength required to enter into agreements with suppliers of fuel products and competition from other fuel companies and retail chains.

Environmental and Other Government Regulations

Our operations are subject to numerous legal and regulatory restrictions and requirements at the federal, state and local levels. With regard to fuel, these restrictions and requirements relate primarily to the transportation, storage, and sale of petroleum products, including stringent environmental protection requirements. In our wholesale and GPMP segments, we are also subject to the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, which is a federal law that applies to the relationships between fuel suppliers and wholesale distributors, as well as between wholesale distributors and dealers, regarding the marketing of branded fuel.

With regard to non-fuel products, there are legal restrictions at the federal, state and local levels in connection with the sale of food, alcohol, cigarettes and other tobacco products, menu labeling, video retention, money orders, money transfer services, gaming, lottery, and ephedrine. Also, regulatory supervision is exercised by health departments at the federal, state and local levels over the food products that are sold in our stores.

With respect to data collected by us or on our behalf, including credit card information and data related to loyalty customers, we are subject to federal, state and local requirements related to the possession, use and disclosure of personally identifiable information, including mandated procedures to be followed in the event a data breach were to occur.

We hold various federal, state, and local licenses and permits, some of which are perpetual, but most of which must be renewed annually. These include general business licenses, lottery licenses, licenses and permits in connection with the sale of cigarettes, licenses in connection with the operation of gaming machines, licenses in connection with the sale of alcoholic drinks, licenses and permits that are required in connection with the sale of fuel, licenses that are required for the operation of convenience stores and licenses to sell food products.

EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, is a global standard for credit cards that use computer chips to authenticate and secure chip-card transactions. The liability for fraudulent credit card transactions shifted from the credit card processor to us in October 2015 for transactions processed inside the convenience stores and shifted to us in April 2021 for transactions at the fuel dispensers.

Our operations are subject to federal and state laws governing such matters as minimum wage, overtime, working conditions and employment eligibility requirements. Proposals have emerged at local, state and federal levels to increase minimum wage rates.

With respect to environmental regulations, we are subject to local, state and federal laws and regulations that address our properties and operations, including, without limitation the transportation, storage and sale of fuel, which have a considerable impact on our operations, including compliance with the requirements and regulations of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and comparable state counterparts. We are required to comply with the following regulations, among others: the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980; the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act; the Clean Air Act; and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act.

The EPA, and several states, have established regulations concerning the ownership and operation of underground fuel storage tanks (“USTs”), the release of hazardous substances into the air, water and land, the storage, handling disposal and transportation of hazardous materials, restrictions on exposure to hazardous substances and maintaining safety and health of employees who handle or are exposed to such substances. These regulations require UST owners to demonstrate that they have the financial capacity to pay for environmental cleanup associating with USTs. Several states in which we conduct business have state-sponsored trust fund programs that allow for the sharing and reimbursement of the costs of corrective measures incurred by UST owners. In addition, we are subject to regulations regarding fuel quality and air emissions.

We are committed to compliance with all applicable environmental laws and regulations. We allocate a portion of our capital expenditure program to compliance with environmental laws and regulations and environmental remediation and such capital expenditures were approximately $4.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, and we anticipate expenditures of approximately $9.3 million for the year ending December 31, 2024. Our environmental department maintains direct interaction with federal, state and local environmental agencies for each state in which we operate. As part of our environmental risk management process, we engage environmental consultants and service providers to assist in analyzing our exposure to environmental risks by developing remediation plans, providing other environmental services, and taking corrective actions as necessary.

Human Capital

As of December 31, 2023, we employed 13,481 employees, with 11,960 employed in our stores and 1,521 in corporate and field management positions. To build, and continually improve upon, our corporate culture, we emphasize core values such as integrity, teamwork, and customer focus communicated through various channels such as training programs, internal communications, and employee feedback.

We value our employees and believe that communication, training, and employee development are key elements of our performance. We feel that improving the skills of our current staff through training increases productivity and boosts our bottom line at a fraction of the cost of hiring new employees. We offer training based on our employees’ specific job requirements and employee levels using our new Learning Management System (LMS) designed for delivering online training modules. These include, but are not limited to, a series of short online modules that are completed upon hire and some that are repeated annually to promote consistent compliance. Additionally, our store managers or our Regional Training team conduct on-the-job training activities that we have developed. We continue to refine these training activities, add new training programs for store and district managers, and focus on leadership and other “soft skills.” Our Regional Training team conducts the Company and industry-specific training to ensure store management is well-versed in the latest operating policies, standards, and techniques. Training varies based on employee level, but generally focuses on customer service, safety, compliance, environmental issues, and regulations, as well as our operations and policies. We help identify clear career paths to retain current employees and attract new employees by encouraging them to grow with the Company through educational training programs, matching employees with their interests or identifying a career trajectory other employees have taken.

Our experienced store managers and our regional trainers conduct the training of store managers from acquired sites in a classroom setting pre- and post-acquisition, as well as on-the-job training that extends several weeks once the acquisition is complete.

We have communication vehicles allowing us to send company information and reminders to targeted levels of employees, to keep them informed and improve efficiency, particularly during key times throughout the year such as the 100 days of summer. Employees may also communicate anonymous feedback to the Company, which assists our efforts to improve processes and programs for future and existing employees.

We seek to recruit and retain qualified personnel to work in our stores. Wage rates in the markets in which we operate, including voluntary increases in wages because of current labor market conditions, have increased our costs associated with recruiting and retaining qualified personnel, and may continue to do so in the future. We look to promote employee retention by providing attractive employee benefits such as medical, dental, 401(k) retirement plan and insurance. We believe our benefits offerings are competitive in the markets in which we operate.

We evaluate wages and other opportunities available to employees within our markets, and, as applicable, grant sign-on, retention, referral and other bonus opportunities to our employees based on their respective roles. By researching and understanding hiring trends, we have adopted mobile technology to simplify the application process and we have invested in additional recruiting resources and implemented virtual recruiting and interviewing methods. We have also deployed enhanced recruiting techniques to optimize the selection of our talent pool. As of December 31, 2023, none of our employees were represented by a labor union or have terms of employment that are subject to a collective bargaining agreement. We consider our relationships with our employees to be good and have not experienced any work stoppages.

Intellectual Property

We rely on trademarks that we own and trademarks we license from third-parties to protect our brands and identify the source of our goods and services. We have registered or applied to register many of our trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. We license various marks in relation to the branded fuels that we supply, including “ExxonMobil,” “Marathon,” “BP,” “Shell,” and “Valero.” In our quick service food offerings, we license trademarks such as “Subway” and “Dunkin’” to use at our applicable franchised or licensed outlets. We also license the “Jetz” trademark for use at certain of our convenience stores in Wisconsin.

We rely on other forms of intellectual property to help establish and maintain our competitive advantage, including proprietary software, trade secrets and other proprietary and confidential information. We receive confidential information from our franchise and fuel supply partners, and use it in the operation of our stores under agreements that we have with our partners. We also rely on our own proprietary and confidential information, including trade secrets and a limited amount of proprietary software, to conduct our business and preserve our position in the market. As a key part of our broader risk management strategy, we use access controls and contractual restrictions in an effort to prevent unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary or confidential information.

Environmental, Social and Governance

As a leading operator of convenience stores and gas stations, we are focused on integrating Environmental, Social and Governance principles that are aligned with our long-term business strategy. Our second Sustainability Report issued in 2023 included a description of our baseline governance framework, environmental initiatives and social responsibility initiatives. Our Sustainability Report is available on our website at www.arkocorp.com. The information related to Environmental, Social and Governance on our website, including our Sustainability Report, is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part hereof or incorporated by reference into this or any of our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

Available Information

We are required to file annual, quarterly and current reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. Information that we file with the SEC is available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. We also make available free of charge on or through our website, at www.arkocorp.com, our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and all amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is electronically filed with the SEC. The information on our website is not, and shall not be deemed to be, a part hereof or incorporated into this or any of our other filings with the SEC.

Use of our Website and Social Media to Distribute Material Company Information

We use our website as a channel of distribution for important Company information. We routinely post on our website important information, including press releases, investor presentations and financial information, which may be accessed by clicking on the News & Events, Company Info, and Governance sections of www.arkocorp.com. We also use our website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding our Company in advance of, or in lieu of, distributing a press release or a filing with the SEC disclosing the same information. Therefore, investors should look to the News & Events, Company Info, and Governance sections of our website for important and time-critical information. Visitors to our website can also register to receive automatic e-mail and other notifications alerting them when certain new information is made available on our website. Information contained on, or accessible through, our website is not a part of and is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We encourage investors, the media and other interested parties to review the information we post on our website, together with the information we file with the SEC and announce via press releases, conference calls and webcasts.