Circle K's Canadian owner seeks to buy rival Japanese-owned 7-Eleven

Aug. 19 (UPI) -- The Canadian owner of Circle K is seeking to buy Japanese-owned 7-Eleven, a rival convenience store operation, in a "friendly" offer.

Alimentation Couche-Tard, known as Couche-Tard, on Monday announced it wants to acquire all the shares of Seven & i Holdings, which owns 7-Eleven. Financial terms were not revealed.

7-Eleven has more stores than Circle K worldwide, including in the United States.

Couche-Tard Inc. in a news release "confirms that it recently submitted a friendly, non-binding proposal to Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd. The company is focused on reaching a mutually agreeable transaction that benefits both companies' customers, employees, franchisees and shareholders. There can be no certainty at his stage that any agreement or transaction will be reached."

Seven & i Holdings, which also owns Denny's Japan restaurants, the Ito-Yokado supermarket chain and its own bank, also said it received the "confidential, non-binding and preliminary proposal" and has formed a special committee of the Board of Directors led by Chairperson Stephen Hayes Dacus to review the proposal.

"Consistent with its obligation to act in the best interest of its shareholders and other stakeholders of the company, the special committee intends to conduct a prompt, careful and comprehensive review of the proposal, the company's stand-alone plans and other alternatives for enhancing corporate value, after which a response will be made to ACT," the company said.

Shares of Seven & i Holdings closed up 22.71% to 2,161 in Tokyo on Monday, pushing the company's market value above $38 billion. Couche-Tard dropped 2% to $81.93 on the Toronto market, with a market cap of $57.63 billion.

The Japanese government made it harder for companies to ignore unsolicited offers as a way to boost foreign investment into the country.

7-Eleven traces its origins to Dallas in 1927 as Tote'm Stores and the name was changed in 1946 to reflect the company's hours of operation as 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week

Late Japanese entrepreneur Masatoshi Ito turned it into a global brand. He opened the first one there in 1974.

The combined entity would control almost a fifth of the U.S. convenience store market, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData.

He told CNN that concentration "will almost certainly attract" scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission.

Couche-Tard operates 7,230 Circle K stores in the United States, and a total of 16,700 stores in 31 countries and territories, with approximately 13,100 offering vehicle fuel. Approximately 149,000 people are employed throughout its network.

Seven & i Holdings operates 9,402 7-Eleven stores, as well as Speedway gas stations, in the United States. There are 83,000 stores around the world with 135,332 workers.

The company bought Speedway from Marathon Oil for $21 billion in 2021. In 2018, there were 3,923 Speedways.

7-Eleven slowly started rebranding many Speedway products in November 2021

In 2021, Couche-Tard failed to buy the Carrefour supermarket chain in 2021 when the French government blocked the deal.