A hotly-contested sale of Euro Garages, is being handled by Manchester office of KPMG Corporate Finance, and is expected to be completed in February.
There are a number of suitors from both the trade and private equity interested in Euro Garages, which made pre-execptional profits of £10.5m last year.
Any buyer would have to assume £25m of debt carried by the business, giving an enterprise value of £115m.
Based in Darwen, Euro Garages, was founded in 2001 by Asian entrepreneur Zuber Issa, 35, who started off by buying three petrol stations.
It now has a chain of 70 in the north west and Midlands.
The company, among the fastest-growing private businesses in the country, is also the largest independent retailer for oil. giant BP.
A source close to the deal said: "There is much interest in this business, which has had a lot of success by buying under-performing sites and really making the assets work harder.
"They will add convenience stores, jet washes and maybe coffee shop or sandwich shop facilities to the sites, which increases footfall.
"Compared with 10 years ago there are considerably less pertrol stations than there were. One reason has been Esso's `price watch' campaign, which put petrol margins under pressure for independent traders, another factor has been the rise in property values, which made it more attractive for owners to sell garages for property development.
"Against this backdrop we are seeing more cars than ever on our roads." As well as BP garages, Mr Issa, who buys the freehold of garages sites and develops them, also operates under the Shell brand.
It is understood that Mr Issa would stay on with the business to lead a further expansion drive if Euro Garages is bought by a private equity buyer.
LDC, one of the north west's most active buyout houses, is thought to be a bidder.
KPMG has defied the difficult conditions in the credit markets to get deals away.
Last week it sold Burnley-based retailer Original Factory Shop for £68.5m.
Tweet
