3 Big Numbers is a weekly column that looks at a few key details from around the c-store industry.
Earlier this week, we looked back at the most impactful c-store M&A deals so far this year. Today, we’re looking at the M&A landscape more broadly as businesses buckle up for the second half.
Tariffs have been looming, but experts are almost evenly split on whether they will have an impact on acquisition activity, according to a report from Goldman Sachs. So where do we stand?
In this week’s “3 Big Numbers,” we look at how M&A is shaking out in 2025.
20%
The increase in retail M&A activity year-over-year through May.
Despite the uncertainty, strategic retail M&A, which includes corporate deals and add-ons, was up 20% through the first five months of the year, according to Bain & Company’s midyear M&A report. And Bain thinks we’ll see more deals this year.
“We expect consolidation deals will continue to define the M&A market throughout 2025,” Bain said in the report.
Bain noted that some of the companies that came through the 2008 financial crisis the strongest were those that used the downturn to strengthen and expand their businesses. That means today’s uncertainty could be an opportunity for well-capitalized companies.
35.7%
The decline in c-store M&A year-over-year through mid-May.
While retail dealmaking has grown, c-stores have been notably more cautious. In fact, convenience store and fuel distribution M&A activity decreased 35.7% year-over-year through mid-May, reaching just nine announced deals, according to a report from investment banking firm Capstone Partners.
Activity has picked up a little during the summer, however. Since the start of June, notable deals have included Gill Energy buying Dutchess Terminals and its 13 retail locations, Applegreen getting the rights to remodel and run 18 travel centers in Massachusetts, Sampson-Bladen Oil Co. agreeing to acquire the 15-location Breeze Thru Markets chain and MAPCO buying 35 stores from Couche-Tard.
So there’s still hope that 2025 could outperform 2024.
$9.1 billion
The price tag on Sunoco’s deal for Parkland Corp.
In June, Parkland Corp’s shareholders voted to accept energy company Sunoco’s $9.1 billion buyout offer. Now that Alimentation Couche-Tard has withdrawn its bid for 7-Eleven parent company Seven & i, it’s quite possible this will be the biggest deal of the year.
It’s still unclear what Sunoco is going to do with the thousands of stores it’s getting in the acquisition, but the industry will surely be watching to see whether it keeps them or sparks a new round of M&A by offloading them.
Who knows? If the upward trajectory in M&A continues, maybe by the end of the year it’ll get unseated at the top of the “biggest M&A” heap
