It’s a perfect corporate match: Sunoco wants to focus on fuel and get out of the convenience store business, while 7-Eleven’s parent company wants to expand in the United States. In a $3.3 billion deal, Sunoco will hand over 1,110 stores, and 7-Eleven will buy fuel for them from Sunoco for the next 15 years.
Seven & i Holdings (that’s how they write it), the Japanese parent company of 7-Eleven, is cutting back on its businesses in Japan that aren’t convenience stores, and looking to expand in the United States. It has been buying up smaller convenience store chains, according to The New York Times, but the Sunoco deal is its biggest acquisition ever.
“The U.S. convenience store market has growth momentum. We see opportunities there,” Ryuichi Isaka, the president of Seven & i, said at a press conference in Tokyo, according to Reuters.
7-Eleven has 8,700 convenience stores in the United States, including franchisees, and the company previously stated plans to expand to 10,000 stores in the U.S. by 2019. This deal puts the chain just a few hundred short of that goal.
The deal includes only stores owned by Sunoco LP, and doesn’t include stores under the APlus brand that are run by franchisees. The companies expect the deal to close by the end of the year.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist