Wheels Still Turning on C-Store Mega-Merger

Canada-based c-store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. Laval, Que.) put out a news release on June 25 about its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results. The release has just over 10,000 words, but made zero references to the biggest event in that period – AC-T’s proposal last August to buy industry leader 7-Eleven of Japan.

The reason for the silence, C-Store Dive reports: both parties signed a non-disclosure agreement on May 1. But that didn’t stop financial analysts who track the company’s performance from asking about the status of that proposal in their call with AC-T executives the day after the year-end results were posted.

In that call, C-Store Dive noted, AC-T President and CEO Alex Miller said the companies have outlined “what we believe is a clear path to U.S. regulatory approval,” and that Couche-Tard is working with Seven & i’s [the Tokyo-based parent company of 7-Eleven] special committee overseeing the deal on the timeline for when talks should close.

But Miller declined to comment when an analyst asked what the likelihood is of a deal coming to fruition. “With Seven & i, we are engaged,” Miller said. “We’ve signed the NDA. We are engaged in diligence. We are engaged in management meetings. We are engaged on the divestiture.”

This would be a David-buys-Goliath deal; AC-T’s Couche Tard and Circle K brands operate a total of about 17,000 stores, while Seven & i runs roughly 86,000 locales under the 7-Eleven banner.