The network includes convenience food stores, car washes and other customer-driven offerings. Shell has invested in fuel products and technology, site image and customer offerings over the last few years in order to provide the optimal shopping experience, said David Saint-Laurent, [image-nocss] Calgary, Alberta-based Shell Canada Ltd.'s general manager of retail.
Shell's five cardlock joint ventures sites and 190 Shell-branded reseller sites are excluded from this opportunity.
The number of Shell-branded retail sites in Quebec and the Maritimes is not changing at this time, Shell spokesperson Stephan Dolan told Reuters. "The intention is for the sites to remain Shell-branded," he said.
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard didn't respond to Reuters' request seeking comment. But the chain is known as an acquirer, and most notably attempted recently to acquire Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's General Stores Inc.'s network of about 1,600 stores.
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of the Couche-Tard quest for Casey's.)
Industry observers say Couche-Tard is Shell's logical choice, according to the Reuters report.
"They are the big player; anyone else other than them would be a surprise," Robert James David, associate professor of strategy at McGill's Desautels Faculty of Management, told the news agency. He said a strategic partnership would give each side what it wants. Shell would gain help operating convenience stores, while Couche-Tard would continue to beef up as it moves to double its size within five years.
Many of these partnerships are quietly completed before being announced, said the report. Shell may have gone public this time either to generate a bidding war or because a deal hit a roadblock, David added.
"All of this is signaling. When they go with a press release that is a bit ambiguous, it's like dating."
Other potential names that have surfaced are Loblaw's, Canadian Tire and Ultramar. None responded to Reuters' requests for comment. Shell's desire to maintain its branding could kill any deal, the report added.
Yan Cimon, associate professor of strategy at the University of Laval, said Shell is making the change to concentrate on its brand and its upstream activities in petroleum and gas extraction. He told the news agency that Couche-Tard is a good fit because the two companies are already partners in the United States. But the location of the stations will be a key factor in the type of buyer.
Cimon added that Shell will probably have to be flexible with Couche-Tard or other potential buyers or may find itself in same situation as last year when it couldn't find a buyer for its Montreal refinery.Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard currently operates a network of 5,904 convenience stores, 4,178 of which include motor-fuel dispensing. The stores are operated by 12 business units, including nine in the United States covering 42 states and the District of Columbia (primarily under regional divisions of the Circle K brand), and three in Canada covering all 10 provinces (primarily under the Mac's brand).London-based Royal Dutch Shell plc is incorporated in England and Wales, has its headquarters in The Hague. Shell has been operating in Canada since 1911 and employs approximately 8,000 people across the country. A leading manufacturer, distributor and marketer of refined petroleum products, Shell produces natural gas, natural gas liquids and bitumen, and is Canada's largest producer of sulfur. Shell is one of Canada's oil sands developers and operates the Athabasca Oil Sands Project on behalf of the joint venture partners.
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