TOKYO — Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd., parent company of 7-Eleven, could sell as many as 300 convenience stores in the United States following its deal to acquire Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s Speedway retail network for $21 billion, according to a Reuters report citing people familiar with the matter.
Tokyo-based Seven & i is working with investment bank Nomura Holdings Inc., also based in Tokyo, to solicit buyers, the sources said. Seven & i said in August it expected net proceeds of $1 billion, without disclosing how many stations it would sell, according to the report.
Seven & i signed a deal in August to purchase Speedway's approximately 3,900 stores in 35 U.S. states. The purchase is part of a strategy to shift focus beyond Japan where its stores and supermarkets face a shrinking population, slow economic growth and tough price competition, the report said.
The deal would leave Seven & i with some overlap between 7-Eleven and Speedway stores, according to the report, which it is seeking to address by divesting up to 300 stores, possibly ahead of any regulatory requirements.
London-based TDR Capital, the private-equity firm that owns Blackburn, U.K.-based gas station operator EG Group, which lost out to Seven & i in the acquisition race for Speedway, plans to make an offer for the gas stations, one of the sources told Reuters.
Seven & i and TDR Capital did not respond to the news agency's requests for comment, and Nomura declined to comment.
Founded in 2001 by the Issa family, EG Group is a gasoline forecourt and c-store operator with approximately 5,400 sites in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States and Australia. EG Group acquired Cincinnati-based Kroger’s 762-site c-store network in 2018. Also in 2018, it acquired 225 Minit Mart c-stores from TravelCenters of America LLC, Westlake, Ohio. In 2019, EG Group acquired 54 c-stores from Fastrac Markets LLC, East Syracuse, N.Y., 69 c-stores from Certified Oil, Columbus, Ohio, and 660 c-stores from Cumberland Farms, Westborough, Mass. EG America, now based in Westborough, is No. 5 in CSP’s 2020 Top 202 ranking of c-store chains by number of U.S. retail outlets.
Based in Irving, Texas, 7–Eleven operates, franchises or licenses more than 71,100 7-Eleven c-stores in 17 countries, including more than 9,300 in the United States. It is No. 1 on CSP's 2020 Top 202 ranking of U.S. c-store chains by size.
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