Dive Brief:
- Alimentations Couche-Tard, parent company of Circle K, is selling 25 Mac’s, Circle K and Couche-Tard convenience stores in Canada, according to an emailed press release from NRC Realty and Capital Advisors, the firm handling the marketing and sale of these locations.
- The sites, six of which also sell fuel, can be found in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan.
- This continues a shuffle for Couche-Tard, coming about a month after it announced it is selling 68 U.S. stores and a few weeks after it announced plans to build 500 new stores by 2028.
Dive Insight:
The locations will be sold without the convenience store brands attached and do not come with fuel supply agreements. The sites could be “of interest to individual operators and smaller businesses,” said Evan Gladstone, NRC’s executive managing director, in the press release.
NRC has handled multiple sales for Couche-Tard over the past few years. Bids on the properties are due by Jan. 9, 2024. Founded in 1989, NRC has also worked with several other c-store and fuel retailers, including 7-Eleven, Sunoco, BP and Global Partners.
These adjustments to Couche-Tard’s footprint are coming as the company begins to pursue its five-year strategic plan. The 500 new stores are part of that plan, with the expected locations split between two store types: a “standard” format, with a 5,200-square-foot store and high-speed diesel fuel; and a newer “core” prototype, which is used for rural locations and features a 3,900-square-foot store.
The company will also be implementing more QSRs and a new high-speed diesel fuel offer. Couche-Tard expects to achieve $500 million in incremental EBITDA with the new sites by 2028.
While it has been selling stores in the last month, Couche-Tard has been on the buying end of M&A for much of 2023. The convenience retailer has picked up 112 Mapco sites, 45 Big Red Stores locations and the 11-store Dion’s Enterprises chain so far this year.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates more than 5,700 c-stores in the U.S. It is the second-largest c-store company in North America behind 7-Eleven.
