An attorney for Irish retailer Applegreen has sent a cease and desist letter to the chief executive of Waltham-based fuel supplier Global Partners in the latest heightening of tensions between the service-plaza rivals.
The two companies have been engaged in a media and government relations war since June, when the Massachusetts Department of Transportation picked Blackstone-backed Applegreen over Global for a lucrative 35-year redevelopment lease for the state’s 18 highway service plazas. Now, a legal battle has launched — as well as dueling websites, Applegreen’s TelltheTruthGlobal.com and Global’s “Massachusetts Deserves Better.”
Global already filed a freedom of information lawsuit against MassDOT, accusing the state agency of not being forthcoming with all public documents pertaining to the bid process. (MassDOT says the opposite is true.)
Now, Applegreen is striking back with a cease and desist letter to Global chief executive Eric Slifka, delivered by email on Friday, saying the company should stop making fraudulent, libelous, or disparaging statements about its rival for the service plaza contract or Applegreen might take legal action to seek damages or injunctive relief.
“We feel at this point, the time has come to correct the record and call them out and put them on notice that they can’t keep talking like this about us, about our partners, about some of the individuals they’ve targeted,” Applegreen chairman Bob Etchingham said. “It’s time for this to stop.”
Global Partners chief legal officer Sean Geary responded with a statement saying the company has been consistently calling for MassDOT to be transparent about “why a foreign, private-equity-owned operator was chosen despite submitting a bid worth $900 million less in guaranteed rent.” Massachusetts residents, Geary added, deserve honesty and accountability, not to mention the best value for their tax dollars. “Applegreen cannot hide from the truth, and we are not persuaded by threats aimed at concealing facts,” Geary said.
Global is the incumbent, to a large extent: It currently runs the gas stations and convenience stores at the 11 Mass. Pike plazas, as a subtenant of McDonald’s and Gulf, and operates the services outright at four other plazas.
The two sides have disputed how much money their respective bids bring to the state. An analysis by KPMG, an adviser to MassDOT in the process, shows Global’s bid would bring $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion to the state in revenue over the life of the contract, compared with $623 million to $994 million for Applegreen’s bid.
However, Applegreen would invest $750 million in capital improvements, including full replacements of nine of the 18 service-plaza projects, while Global would invest just over $500 million, per KPMG’s analysis. (Global says this comparison is misleading and fundamentally flawed because the cap-ex numbers that KPMG relied on were preliminary, nonbinding estimates.)
No one disputes that the Global bid is potentially more lucrative, though each side offers its own estimates of the differential between the two. MassDOT officials said they picked Applegreen in part because of its demonstrated track record with service plaza redevelopment, aggressive three-year timeline for reconstruction, and more impressive capital investment; they also expressed skepticism at Global’s ability to deliver on the higher rent it has offered.
Etichingham said final lease negotiations are in the works, with a plan to wrap them up by early November. General contractor Suffolk Construction, he said, is slated to start working on the first service plazas in January, with plans to redo six each year for the next three years.
“It’s an aggressive program,” Etchingham said. “We’ve got the people with the experience and expertise. We’ve been working with Suffolk for well over a year. Our designs are very well developed.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.