< Return to News

March Business Update from Jim Gauker

February income results were encouraging as we beat budget for the second month in a row due to cost reductions and strong performances from our propane and Riverton farm store businesses. 

Our more competitive fuel pricing has led to an increase in fuel volumes in gas, diesel, and bulk fuels.  

To help serve our members and the basin community as a whole:

o   Leased the Greybull Tire Store, 2nd month in operation

o   We finalized a lease for our Basin Farm Store with MTR Ranch Supply.  MTR will open this location very soon in April.

We continue to pay down our debt, we are going to liquidate all assets/property we are not using or will not use going forward.

o   Property Updates:

We have accepted an offer to sell the Worland Tire Store

We have the Worland Farm Store listed with Kitty Mortimer at McGarvin & Taylor Real Estate in Worland.

We are in preliminary discussions with an interested party to sell the buildings at our Buffalo location.  These discussions include the continuation of operating our fuel pumps, propane, and bulk fuels by Big Horn Coop.

o   Non-Inventory Assets:

We held an auction with Big Iron which completed on March 19 with much success.  The goal was and will continue to be, to sell assets we do not use to generate cash and pay down debt.

We will be conducting a second auction soon once we have determined what needs we will have from a fleet standpoint in the future to determine what vehicles we can put on auction among many other items from closed locations (pallet racking, shelving, etc.).

o   Inventories

We conducted our first closed location inventory sale at Worland on Saturday, March 15.   We enjoyed much success from this sale but were grossly unprepared for the volume of customers we experienced.   This volume of customers also led to the complications of not having items priced before the sale.  My deepest apologies to everyone that showed up to the store and the long waits and uncertainty of prices prior to getting up to the cash registers.

Our next closed store sales will be on Saturday, April 5 at our Greybull Store; Saturday, April 26 at our Powell Store, and Saturday, May 17 at our Buffalo Store.  We will be better prepared for these sales.  Greybull and Powell sale hours will be 9:00 am – 3:00 pm.   The Buffalo sale will begin at 10:00 am and end at 3:00 pm.

We appreciate everyone’s support, and we will continue to strive to meet and/or exceed your expectations as we navigate this Coop back to profitability.