Casey’s expects to open at least 80 stores in fiscal 2026, through a mix of mergers and acquisitions and new store construction, Casey’s CFO Stephen P. Bramlage said on the company’s fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2025 earnings call Tuesday.
This will bring the convenience-store chain’s three-year strategic plan period total to about 500 stores, he said, according to a transcript from financial services site AlphaSense. The chain has about 2,900 stores total.
Casey’s also said that in fiscal 2025, which ended April 30, it built or acquired 270 stores—the most in the company’s history. Most of those new stores came from its acquisition of 198 CEFCO c-stores from Fikes Wholesale, purchased in November.
In response to an analyst's question about whether it’s better to lean into M&A now with the current landscape with high inflationary construction costs, Casey's President and CEO Darren Rebelez said M&A has been a “very effective play” for Casey’s.
“Construction costs have been higher in the last couple of years, and we've been able to pretty effectively acquire stores, put capital in them to remodel them, add kitchens and make them essentially a new Casey's at below replacement cost. And so, we continue to look at that,” Rebelez said, according to AlphaSense’s transcript of the call.
But when Casey’s gives its guidance for new store development, they assume that they’re about 50/50 new-to-industry stores versus small-deal M&A, or deals with about one to three stores, he said.
“The larger deals are more opportunistic and those come along when they come along. And then, we evaluate those and see if we want to participate in that process or not,” Rebelez said.
Casey’s country
Casey’s entered Texas in November 2023 with the purchase of W. Douglass Distributing Ltd.’s 22 Lone Star Food Stores. Then it grew its presence in Texas and Florida with its purchase of CEFCO c-stores.
Rebelez said stores in the Texas and Florida markets are “behaving exactly as we thought they would.”
Three proof-of-concept stores that Casey’s has converted in Texas have been well-received, he said.
“Particularly, our pizza has performed exceptionally well in those markets," Rebelez said. “And again, while we're in different states, we are in, we tend to be in those smaller towns and rural communities. And so, that is right in our wheelhouse. That is absolutely Casey's country. And there's a little bit of nuance between one state and another but, by and large, they're behaving exactly like we expected.”
On the fuel side, he noted, margins have tended to be thinner than the Midwest, but volumes have been higher.
“So, we were expecting higher volumes and lower margins, and that's exactly what we're getting right now,” Rebelez said.
It aims to keep building in Texas, with at least seven new stores planned for 2025.
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