company limited by shares industry oil and natural gas founded 2005 headquarters dublin ireland area served ireland key people niall anderton products petroleum and derived products service stations convenience stores number of employees couche tard employs 21 000 people across its european network website www.topaz.ie topaz is an irish petroleum retail chain owned by the canadian couche tard group and has a presence across the island of ireland . the legal entity was formed in 2005 and previously traded under the statoil and shell brands until 2008 when the topaz brand replaced both in ireland . history edit the company was formed by ion equity in 2005 as a vehicle to take over part of the irish operations of royal dutch shell plc the filling station and home heating operation irish shell limited as well as the irish operations of statoil . this was controversial in itself as the competition authority which must approve large mergers and acquisitions failed to take a decision on the takeover of statoil s assets within the time frame allowed thus automatically approving the deal . this was the first time this had happened in the authority s history . citation needed the company was slow to reveal its branding strategy continuing at first to trade under the shell statoil and fareplay brands . however beginning in 2008 topaz began replacing both these brands with its own . the fareplay brand which topaz owns worldwide rights to has also been retired and replaced with a number of topaz convenience store brands including topaz restore and topaz express . as of 2012 topaz operated 118 company owned company operated coco sites in the republic of ireland and 1 site in larne county antrim northern ireland billionaire denis o brien owned topaz having bought 300 million of its loans from irish bank resolution corporation ibrc . in may 2014 o brien appointed former taoiseach brian cowen to the board of topaz to join himself his nephew who is also ceo of smiles dental sean corkery ceo of o brien s siteserv lucy gaffney chairperson of o brien s communicorp and colm doherty former managing director of allied irish banks . 1 in december 2014 topaz s parent company kendrick investments announced it would buy all of esso s irish operations . 2 profits at topaz increased during o brien s first year of ownership . 3 in december 2015 it was announced that topaz was being sold to alimentation couche tard with the deal closing in spring 2016 . 4 subsequently most of the denis o brien connected directors retired from the board and the cfo niall anderton was appointed as ceo . it is widely expected that the topaz brand will be phased out shortly in favour of couche tard s global circle k brand.couche tard retiring macs moniker under global rebranding plan references edit denis o brien owned topaz appoints brian cowen as director a number of o brien s other close associates have also been appointed to the board . thejournal.ie . 2 may 2014 . archived from the original on 2 june 2015 . retrieved 2 may 2014 . denis o brien owned topaz to take control of 38 esso stations . thejournal.ie . 12 december 2014 . archived from the original on 2 june 2015 . retrieved 12 december 2014 . denis o brien is making more money from his petrol stations . thejournal.ie . 18 february 2015 . archived from the original on 2 june 2015 . retrieved 18 february 2015 . topaz to be sold to canadian fuel retail business rt news . rt . ie . 2 december 2015 . retrieved 2 december 2015 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title topaz energy & oldid 738940281 categories oil companies of the republic of irelandhidden categories all articles with unsourced statementsarticles with unsourced statements from march 2014official website different in wikidata and wikipedia navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 11 september 2016 at 22 05 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view