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The Teamsters Take on Big Convenience Store Deal

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Published in The New York Times DealBook

Months into a contract dispute with Marathon Petroleum, the Teamsters union is objecting to the company’s $21 billion deal to sell its Speedway convenience store business to the owner of 7-Eleven, DealBook is the first to report. Its effort is in part a bet on the Biden administration being tougher on antitrust and more favorable toward unions — and pits the union against Elliott Management, the huge hedge fund that helped make the proposed sale possible.

The Teamsters asked the F.T.C. to pause review of the deal. In a letter sent today to the agency’s acting chairwoman, Rebecca Slaughter, the union requested that the agency wait for one of two things:

There are other issues at play. Marathon has locked out 200 union workers at a refinery in Minnesota. And unions have had an often tense relationship with activist hedge funds like Elliott, whom they have accused of calling for layoffs that affect union members. (In its letter to the F.T.C., the Teamsters union criticized what it called “Elliott’s singular desire to liquidate Marathon’s assets to fund enormous share buybacks and special dividends.”)

But the agency is already far along in its review. Marathon executives, who hope to close the deal by the end of the first quarter, confirmed on a call with analysts last month that they had responded to a second request for information from the F.T.C. and were working on solutions. (The proposed buyer of Speedway, Seven and I, is reportedly looking to sell up to 300 gas stations to ease the agency’s concerns.)