NASHVILLE — A $1.8 billion merger involving Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bill Haslam’s family-owned Pilot Travel Centers LLC and Flying J Travel Plazas is fueling renewed criticism from other candidates over the Knoxville mayor’s company’s ties.
The Federal Trade Commission this week approved the merger after antitrust concerns it initially raised were addressed.
Pilot agreed to sell off 26 travel centers across the country, leaving the combined company with about 550 interstate travel centers catering to truck drivers and motorists. Pilot says it now is one of the top 10 privately held companies in the United States.
The merger, announced Wednesday, by Thursday prompted a multifaceted attack by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike McWherter. He said the new company, named Pilot Flying J, “is a major addition to a growing list of concerns over Bill Haslam’s oil interests.”
Mr. McWherter said Pilot now will have more than 50 percent of the U.S. travel center market and contended the merger has created an “Oil Goliath” that will cause competitive headaches for “mom and pop” truck stops.
Knoxville Mayor Haslam’s campaign spokesman, David Smith, said Mr. McWherter “is making a goofy and tired argument.”
“Growing companies should take note of his tone because any governor would be happy to have a home-grown and growing top-10 national company headquartered in their state,” Mr. Smith said.
Noting Mr. Haslam won’t release to voters his income and ownership stakes in Pilot, which he co-owns along with his father and brother, Mr. McWherter said the mayor “is afraid average Tennesseans might see him as an oil sheik rather than the common-man character he has spent millions trying to create in his television ads.”
Mr. Haslam’s GOP rivals, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, weighed in as well.
“Not sure what Bill Haslam is hiding, but the billion-dollar merger between Pilot and Flying J is yet another obvious reminder that Bill Haslam needs to be challenged on why he’s refused to be fully open and transparent about his personal finances and his many conflicts of interest with state government,” Wamp spokesman Sam Edelen said.
Ramsey spokeswoman Rachel Taylor said the mayor has helped run Pilot “by hiking prices on his consumers instead of trimming his business to accommodate the rough patch. In his first year as mayor of Knoxville, he raised property taxes on the residents there. What’s to say he won’t run our state the same way next year, given our $1.9 billion budget shortfall?”
The mayor has frequently said he will not divulge his Pilot stake because it would expose other family members’ personal finances.
He said “people understand that my income comes from Pilot.”