SAN ANTONIO -- CST Brand’s CEO Kim Lubel shared her thoughts on the sale of CST Brands and several other industry topics during an interview with Fortune magazine.
Here she addresses the pressures of being a public company, Amazon’s plan to build brick-and-mortar convenience stores and the way to succeed in the convenience-store industry …
Lubel suggested CST Brands was rushed into a sale by activist shareholders and seemed optimistic Corner Store retail initiatives were on the right track.
“When we came out of our second anniversary, we were continuing to grow, continuing to implement our programs, but [it was] about a three-year payout for the programs we put in place,” Lubel said. “And in today’s public markets, shareholders are looking for quarter-by-quarter, short term kind of focus.”
She said it was two activist shareholders that “led to our board looking at all the options and to at least run a strategic review and test the market for the value of the company.”
Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard announced in August its intention to acquire CST Brands for approximately $4.43 billion in an all-cash transaction representing $48.53 per share.
Asked about the importance of store count in today’s c-store industry, Lubel said there are advantages to scale but that a balance is necessary.
“There’s about 126,000 c-stores in the United States that sell fuel; 60% of them are single-owner operated, so it’s a really fragmented and a family, corner-focused business,” she said. “And then there are a couple of giant conglomerates out there.
"But it’s such a neighborhood business. If it’s your family business, you know your neighbors and you have that connection and they want to come back to you.”
As Amazon.com plans to introduce convenience stores, according to reports, it will be challenged to find the balance that makes the business successful, Lubel said.
“Finding that magic spot between being large enough to have scale but being focused enough on the customer is the way to success with the customer,” she said.
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