Monday, March 22, 2021
Casey’s to Acquire 49 Sites From Couche-Tard
Deal part of Couche-Tard’s intention to divest 355 locations following strategic review
Source: CSP Daily News
By Greg Lindenberg, EditorLAVAL, Quebec, and ANKENY, Iowa — As part of a decision following a strategic review to divest 355 sites in North America, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. has agreed to sell 49 sites in Oklahoma to Casey's General Stores Inc. for $39 million in an all-cash transaction.
The transaction includes 46 leased and three owned properties. Casey’s will supply these stores by the company’s new distribution center in Joplin, Mo., it said.
Couch-Tard has also retained real estate advisory firm NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC, Chicago, to coordinate the sale of 306 additional sites across its North American network. The initiative includes 269 sites across 25 states in the United States and 37 sites across six provinces in Canada, with an average store size of approximately 2,600 square feet and an average lot size of 29,500 square feet. Of the 306 sites, 122 are fee-owned and 184 are leased, while 238 properties sell fuel and 68 are convenience only.
“The decision to divest select stores fits within the company's network optimization strategy and follows a comprehensive and uniform network planning process that began in the fall of 2020,” said Brian Hannasch, president and CEO of Couche-Tard. “Through this process, we have identified sites that no longer fit our strategic objectives, either from a brand perspective or from a regional scale perspective. Concurrently, we have identified many opportunities to expand our footprint through new store builds and will continue to allocate capital to upgrade the size and scale of our locations, improve store layouts, and allow for the best utilization of our ‘Fresh Food, Fast’ program as well as other initiatives which improve the customer journey.”
The stores are all being offered with or without fuel supply and without convenience-store brand.
“These stores are being offered in packages, grouped primarily by geography, and provide many excellent opportunities for regional and local players to acquire attractive properties,” said Evan Gladstone, NRC’s executive managing director. "The packages are further subdivided into smaller pools. Offers will be considered for a single package, multiple or all packages, a single pool or any combination of pools. Offers on individual stores, or less than all of the stores in a pool, will not be considered, except for a small number of stores which are offered as a single-site pool."
Matrix Capital Markets Group Inc., Richmond, Va., acted as financial advisor to Couche-Tard on the Casey's transaction, which the companies expect to close by July 31, 2021.
Casey’s, based in Ankeny, Iowa, operates more than 2,200 c-stores in 16 states.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard's network includes 9,261 c-stores in North America, with more than 7,100 in the United States under the Circle K and Holiday Stationstores banners and approximately 2,100 in Canada under the Circle K, Mac's and Couche-Tard banners. In Europe, under the Circle K and other banners, Couche-Tard operates a retail network in Scandinavia, Ireland, Poland, the Baltics and Russia including 2,722 stores and unmanned automated fuel stations. And under licensing agreements, more than 2,220 stores operate under the Circle K banner in 15 other countries and territories (Cambodia, Egypt, Guam, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Jamaica, Macau, Mexico, Mongolia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam), which brings Couche-Tard’s worldwide total network of approximately 14,200 mostly Circle K-branded c-stores.
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To see a list of convenience stores and gas stations for sale, click here.