Love is the co-founder of Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores, a US fuel and consumer products business. The Oklahoma City-based company operates a diversified chain of convenience stores, gas stations and logistics operations. It has more than 600 locations in 42 states and annual revenue of about $26.5 billion.
Love's fortune derives from Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores, which operates fueling stations and convenience stores across the U.S., as well as commodity and fuel transport businesses. The company has more than 600 locations in 42 states, according to its website.
This analysis assumes that the business is wholly-owned by the Love family and attributes Judy Love full-ownership to reflect her status as co-founder and family matriarch.
The company had revenue of $26.5 billion in 2022, according to Forbes. Revenue is compared to the average enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-Ebitda multiple of three publicly traded companies: Murphy USA Inc, Casey's General Stores Inc and Marathon Petroleum Corp.
Brett Dawson, a spokesperson for Love's Travel Stops, didn't respond to requests for comment on the net worth calculation.
Judy Love was born in Oklahoma City in 1937. She met her soon-to-be husband, Tom, when studying at Oklahoma State University, and the two married in 1960. A aspiring entrepreneur, Tom Love acquired the lease to a gas station in an abandoned building in the city of Watonga for $150 a month in 1964.
With Judy working as bookkeeper, Tom began to grow the lone gas station into a network and expanded into food in 1972 with the opening of an on-site convenience store. A spike in oil prices due to the OPEC embargo a year later further emphasized the need to diversify.
The company changed its name from Musket Corporation to Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores in 1986. Over the next few decades, the business grew to include roadside-assistance hubs, fast-food franchises, hotels and a compressed natural gas-provider. The business had more than 550 locations in 41 states in 2021, according to its website.
Judy ceased working full-time at the company in 1975 in order to go back to college to study interior design. An active philanthropist, she serves on the board of a half-dozen Oklahoma nonprofits. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Heritage Association's Hall of Fame in 2010 and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Oklahoma City University in recognition of her charitable activities.
Tom Love died in March 2023 in his hometown of Oklahoma City after an extended illness, according to a company statement.