Adrian Portelli wrapping a former Shell site in LMCT+ branding is easy to dismiss as celebrity billionaire noise. For commercial property, it is actually the most interesting service station story of 2026.
The deal
The first LMCT+ branded servo is taking shape at the corner of Gower Street and Plenty Road in Preston, Melbourne's inner north. Portelli has acquired the freehold, rebranded, and publicly flagged a rollout of up to 50 sites nationally. LMCT+ members get a fuel discount at the bowser. Non-members pay retail.
It is not really a servo. It is a member acquisition asset wrapped in a 24/7 forecourt.
Why Preston stacks up
The instinct is to question the location. The fundamentals say don't. Corner sites at major arterial intersections in Melbourne's middle ring are some of the most defensible service station investments in the country. JLL retail investment senior analyst Dom McGrath noted Bell Street alone carries more than 40,000 vehicles a day - exactly the exposure fuel retail needs. Postcode prestige is almost irrelevant. Visibility, traffic count and access are everything.
What makes this different
Three things break the traditional service station property model.
Portelli owns the operation, not just the land. He has taken on operational risk directly rather than signing a lease with a major wholesaler.
The revenue model is subscription, not margin. Every discounted litre is a customer acquisition cost into a higher-margin subscription business - not a loss on fuel.
The brand is the asset. LMCT+ sites derive value from foot traffic into a proprietary loyalty ecosystem. That is closer to how you would value a gym rollout than a fuel asset.
If this scales to 50 sites, the sale-and-leaseback opportunity down the track is exactly the kind of inventory the institutional market is chronically short of.
Three takeaways
For servo freehold owners: a new, well-capitalised entrant puts a floor under valuations and creates a fresh bidder on any site coming to market.
For agents: the buyer pool just got deeper. Anyone with a credible off-market service station freehold in Victoria should be making sure LMCT+ knows about it.
For developers: servo operators with national rollout mandates are paying competitive numbers for well-located corner freeholds, often with flexible fit-out terms. The feasibility may beat a marginal mixed-use scheme in the current construction cost environment.
The bottom line
Portelli's LMCT+ offer is not really a petrol offer. It is a subscription business using fuel as a customer acquisition channel, funded by proprietary real estate. Preston is move one. Where move two lands is the question worth watching.
Either way, the Australian service station market just got more interesting than it has been in a decade.
Ready Media Group operates Commercial Ready and Development Ready, Australia's leading platforms for commercial property and development site listings. Visit commercialready.com.au and developmentready.com.au.
