7-Eleven Parent Company on Canadian Takeover Bid: Um, No

Offer 'grossly undervalues' Japanese firm, committee chair says
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 19, 2024 8:38 AM CDT
Updated Sep 6, 2024 6:11 AM CDT
Canadian Company Wants to Buy 7-Eleven
A 7-Eleven store in midtown Manhattan.   (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
UPDATE Sep 6, 2024 6:11 AM CDT

7-Eleven's Japanese parent company has rejected a takeover bid that would have created the world's fourth-biggest retail company. Stephen Dacus, chair of a committee of independent directors tasked with considering Alimentation Couche-Tard's bid for Seven & i, said the Canadian company's bid is "opportunistically timed" and "grossly undervalues" the firm, the Globe and Mail reports. He said the committee had decided the bid from Couche-Tard, owner of convenience store chains including Circle-K, was not in shareholders' best interests. The deal would have been the biggest-ever foreign-led acquisition of a Japanese company, reports the New York Times.

Aug 19, 2024 8:38 AM CDT

One foreign retail giant hopes to buy 7-Eleven from another foreign retail giant. Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard has made an offer to current owner Seven & i, which is based in Tokyo, reports the Guardian. The 7-Eleven chain began in Texas and now has more than 84,000 stores around the world, including 13,000 in the US and 22,000 in Japan. The offer values the chain, famous for its Slurpees and Big Gulps, at $38 billion, per Reuters.

Seven & i will formally review the offer, and while Reuters suggests it has a strong chance of being rejected, "the bid nonetheless emphasizes the growing attractiveness of Japanese assets that were long shunned," it says. Japan's stock market has been one of the world's strongest the last two years, the outlet notes. As for ACT, based in Montreal, it already runs more than 17,000 stores worldwide under the Circle K and Couche-Tard brands, per the BBC. (More 7-Eleven stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X