The new site greets visitors with the following message: "Welcome to our website, SupportCaseys.com. You can find here information pertaining to Casey's General Stores Inc. and our annual meeting of shareholders to be held on September 23, 2010. [image-nocss] The votes of Casey's shareholders are very important at this pivotal time in the company's history. As you may know, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. is attempting to replace Casey's board with its hand-picked slate of nominees. We believe Couche-Tard's nomination of an opposition slate is solely an attempt by Couche-Tard to advance its proposal for a business combination with Casey's. Under the leadership of our current board, Casey's is already creating far greater value for shareholders than is reflected in Couche-Tard's offer."
It added, "We urge all Casey's shareholders to vote for Casey's board nominees using the white proxy card that they have received from Casey's. You can find voting instructions, biographies of our directors, relevant letters to shareholders and other useful information on this website. We encourage you to read all the materials carefully. Thank you for your support."
The company's main site is www.caseys.com.
In April, Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard publicly launched a bid to acquire Ankeny, Iowa-based Casey's. In North America, Couche-Tard operates a network of 5,883 c-stores located in 11 large geographic markets, including eight in the United States (operating primarily under the Circle K name) covering 43 states and the District of Columbia, and three in Canada (operating primarily under the Mac's name) covering all 10 provinces.
(Click here for previous CSP Daily News coverage of the Casey's/Couche-Tard saga.)
Meanwhile, on August 16, 2010, Casey's reported July 2010 same-store sales results for stores open for one full year. Same-store sales for prepared food and fountain increased 1.7%, and grocery and other merchandise increased 4.5% in July 2010 compared to July 2009.
Same-store gasoline gallons sold increased 3.8% in July 2010 compared to July 2009. The gasoline margin was above the company's fiscal 2011 goal of 13.5 cents per gallon. The average retail price of gasoline sold during July 2010 was $2.58 per gallon.
Robert J. Myers, Casey's president and CEO, commented: "We are pleased with the continued momentum of Casey's performance, particularly in light of the challenging weather so far this fiscal year. We achieved solid gas volume increases, above-goal gas margins and a positive customer count in July, and our combined same-store sales results for May, June and July mark our 27th consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales."
Casey's and its wholly owned subsidiaries operate c-stores under the name Casey's General Store, HandiMart and Just Diesel in nine Midwestern states, primarily Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. The stores carry a broad selection of food (including freshly prepared foods such as pizza, donuts and sandwiches), beverages, tobacco products, health and beauty aids, automotive products and other nonfood items. In addition, all of its stores offer gasoline.
Casey's has 1,531 stores as of June 30, 2010. Approximately 61% of all the stores are located in areas with populations of fewer than 5,000 persons, while approximately 14% of our stores are located in communities with populations exceeding 20,000 persons. It said that it seeks to meet the needs of residents of smaller towns by combining features of both general store and c-store operations. Smaller communities often are not served by national-chain c-stores, it added.
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