Alimentation Couche-Tard has spent nearly a year courting Seven & i Holdings Co., the Japanese conglomerate with thousands of 7-Eleven locations and a broader portfolio of supermarkets, food producers and financial services companies. Couche-Tard, which is based in Laval, Que., and owns Circle K and Ingo, ended its overtures Wednesday, accusing its takeover target of a “persistent lack of good faith engagement.”
Couche-Tard claims talks were one-sided and unproductive
Couche-Tard said it repeatedly sought a friendly dialogue with Seven & i’s founding Ito family but alleges it was not open to any conversation about the proposal of ¥2,600 (C$24.04) per ordinary share in cash. The Canadian company further charged that in meetings that were “tightly scripted” and ran for half the allotted time, management also wasn’t willing to address basic questions about industry dynamics.
“There has been no sincere or constructive engagement from 7&i that would facilitate the advancement of any proposal, contrary to comments made publicly by 7&i representatives, including in the July 11, 2025 earnings call in which 7&i noted it is ‘seriously’ considering our proposal,” Couche-Tard executives said in a letter sent to Seven & i’s board and released to media.
Seven & i argued back that it had “consistently engaged in good faith and constructively” with Couche-Tard. “While we are disappointed by ACT’s decision, and disagree with their numerous mischaracterizations, we are not surprised,” the company said in a statement.
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A missed chance at creating a global retail giant
Had the deal progressed, it would have handed Couche-Tard a dominant position in the global convenience store game. Its network already covers 29 countries and more than 17,000 stores. By comparison, Seven & i’s website operates about 85,800 stores, has about 157,177 employees and counts 63.6 million customer visits per day.
When a deal between the two was first bandied around last year, Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said 7-Eleven’s 14.5% market share made it the biggest operator in the convenience retail store space, while Couche-Tard’s banners held about 4.6%. “Combining the two would produce an entity that controls almost a fifth of the market,” he wrote in an email at the time.
The public first learned Couche-Tard had made a friendly offer for Seven & i last August. The financial terms were never revealed until a month later, when Seven & i said its board of directors unanimously concluded Couche-Tard’s initial offer was not in its shareholders’ best interests because it was “opportunistically timed and grossly undervalues” the business.
Regulatory roadblocks and market volatility clouded takeover talks
That October, Seven & i received a revised pitch from Couche-Tard. Media reports suggested the new offer valued Seven & i at US$47 billion, about 22% higher than the offer of $38.6 billion Couche-Tard made in August. The Japanese company appeared to be poised to rebuff that offer as well, when a member of the Ito family put forward a new management buyout proposal.
