DALLAS — The owner of Irving-based 7-Eleven has rejected a buyout offer from the owner of rival convenience store Circle K.
Tokyo-based Seven & i Holdings, which owns 7-Eleven, said in a statement Friday that its board “unanimously concluded, based on the unanimous recommendation of the Special Committee, that the proposal is not in the best interests of 7&i shareholders and other stakeholders.”
“We are open to sincerely consider any proposal that is in the best interests of 7&i shareholders and other stakeholders; however, we will resist any proposal that deprives our shareholders of the company’s intrinsic value or that fails to specifically address very real regulatory concerns,” the statement continued.
Seven & i confirmed last month that it received the takeover proposal from Circle-K’s owner, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., based in Canada. Specifically, Couche-Tard offered to buy all the outstanding shares of 7&I for $14.86 each, making the potential deal valued at $38.5 billion, according to a calculation from Reuters.
7&i operates 85,000 stores worldwide and Alimentation Couche-Tard operates about 16,000 stores.
“The Special Committee believes that your proposal is opportunistically timed and grossly undervalues our standalone path and the additional actionable avenues we see to realize and unlock shareholder value in the near- to medium-term,” the letter read. “The 7& i Board believes that even if you were able to improve the value element of your proposal very significantly, your proposal does not adequately acknowledge the multiple and significant challenges such a transaction would face from U.S. competition law enforcement agencies in the current regulatory environment and provides no certainty to closing.”
WFAA has reached out to 7-Eleven for comment.
7&i operates a variety of businesses, including a supermarket chain in Japan, financial services and more. 7&i and Couche-Tard are among the largest convenience store operators.
7-Eleven was founded in Dallas as the Southland Corporation before Seven & i Holdings took over the company in the mid-2000s.