Pilot merger
In July 2009, Pilot Travel Centers agreed to acquire Flying J's travel stops.[10] As part of the deal, Pilot will keep the Flying J name on existing locations as opposed to converting them to the Pilot brand, while the in-house Flying J restaurants will be replaced by national chains like Denny's.[11] The merged entity is called Pilot Flying J.
In June 2010, Flying J put forth a Chapter 11 plan to repay all creditors in full from the proceeds of the sale of its 250 travel plazas to Pilot, for a combination of cash and stock valued at $1.6 billion. Under Flying J's plan, its lenders and creditors will be paid in cash, and its owners, whose numbers include members of the company's founding Call family, will retain all the equity in a scaled-down Flying J. As of July 2010, hearings on the plan continue under Judge Mary F. Walrath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware.[12] Flying J's oil and refining, banking, and insurance businesses will remain separate from the combined Pilot Flying J.[13] To avoid confusion with the merged travel center business, Flying J Inc. renamed itself FJ Management Inc..[1] Since the merger, Pilot Flying J has continued to open new locations with the Flying J name (in addition to the Pilot name), bringing in locations with the Flying J brand that had no association with the legacy Flying J before the merger.
To settle antitrust concerns, six Flying J locations as well as 20 Pilot locations were sold to Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores on June 30, 2010.[14]
On October 3, 2017, it was announced that Berkshire Hathaway would acquire a 38.6% stake in Pilot Flying J, with plans to increase the stake to 80% by 2023. The Haslam family's stake (Pilot's Founders[15]) will be reduced to 20% at that time, while FJ Management will sell its stake altogether.[2]
