"Given Casey's refusal to engage in any dialog with us, we were left with no choice but to take our offer directly to the shareholders of Casey's," Bouchard said on a quarterly earnings call with analysts yesterday. He also reiterated his desire to complete the [image-nocss] purchase of the Midwest chain. "While it remains our strong preference to negotiate a mutually acceptable transaction with the Casey's board, we are committed to pursuing a combination of our two companies."
While refusing to answer questions about the proposed purchase, Bouchardin his first public address since announcing in April the company's plan to pursue Casey'sstated his case and called Casey's to the carpet for what he called its "efforts to distract its shareholders."
On June 2, Couche-Tard commenced a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of common stock of Casey's for $36 per share in cash. The Casey's Board of Directors has twice recommended shareholders reject the offer and filed a lawsuit questioning Couche-Tard's tactics.
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage.)
"We strongly believe that a combination of Casey's and Couche-Tard is compelling and would deliver superb value to the shareholders, employees, business partners and other [associates] of Casey's," Bouchard reiterated yesterday."We strongly believe that Casey's lawsuit and claim against Couche-Tard are inappropriate and serve only to mislead the Casey's shareholders and deny them the opportunity to accept our all-cash premium offer," he added. "Why not give a choice to the true owners, the shareholders? We're remaining committed to making this combination a reality and will not be discouraged by Casey's efforts to distract its shareholders with these baseless claims."
Finally, he stated once again, "We believe our offer price represents full and fair value for Casey's. Our tender offer was commenced to allow the Casey's shareholders to decide if they wish to accept an immediate premium in cash and thereby avoid any uncertainty with respect to the future stock performance of Casey's, a decision that the Casey's board seeks to deny its shareholders."
For its part, a spokesperson for Casey'spointed to the company's response from the previous day when Couche-Tard extended its tender offer into August. "The low number of shares tendered reflects what Casey's has heard from many shareholders, that this hostile, highly conditional offer is inadequate," the company stated. "The response of our shareholders to Couche-Tard's tender offer speaks for itself. We believe that our shareholders recognize Casey's industry-leading performance and superior value potential."
Click herefor a complete report on Couche-Tard's fourth-quarter and full-year 2010 earnings.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard operates a network of 5,883 convenience stores located in 11 large geographic markets, including eight in the United States covering 43 states and the District of Columbia, and three in Canada covering all 10 provinces.
Casey's General Stores Inc., based in Ankeny, Iowa, has 1,513 corporate stores in nine states.
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