TOKYO — Nearly three weeks after Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (ACT) withdrew its proposal to acquire Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd., 7-Eleven Inc.‘s parent company is reaffirming its commitment to its standalone value creation plan.
In a strategy briefing held on Aug. 6 in Tokyo, CEO Stephen Dacus revealed Seven & i plans to open 1,300 new convenience stores in North America and around 1,000 locations in Japan through the year ending February 2030, as Kyodo News reported.
For fiscal year 2024, Seven & i operated nearly 26,000 stores in Japan, while subsidiary 7-Eleven Inc. operated, franchised and/or licensed more than 13,000 stores in the United States and Canada.
The company expects the expansion would bolster revenue in fiscal 2030 to 11.3 trillion yen (roughly $76.5 billion), more than 1 trillion yen more than fiscal 2024.
“It is extremely important that we undergo changes now,” said Dacus, who became the company’s first foreign CEO in May.
“We will change the way we run our business from the very beginning.”
Dacus reiterated plans to list the company’s North American business, noting the initial public offering (IPO) would enable the Japanese-based business to take on additional debt to pursue more aggressive growth opportunities.
A U.S. listing of its 7-Eleven business is planned for the second half of 2026.
This would allow for faster store rollouts in the U.S. as well as additional bolt-on mergers and acquisitions, he added.
For years Seven & i has been under pressure from shareholders, including a series of activist investors, to boost returns by selling off assets and focusing on its core convenience store business, as Reuters reported.
In March, it unveiled a major restructuring in which it sold off its superstore unit, announced a 2 trillion yen ($13.55 billion) share buyback through 2030 and committed to a public listing of its North American arm.
The fate of the company rests on its ability to demonstrate it can grow independently, having successfully fended off the takeover bid from ACT, parent company of the Circle K brand.
Last month, the Canadian-based retailer withdrew its acquisition offer “due to a lack of constructive engagement,” which precipitated a 9% fall in Seven & i’s share price that reflected investor skepticism about the Japanese-based standalone growth plans, Reuters added.
In the Aug. 6 briefing, Dacus said Couche-Tard never had an actionable plan to surmount regulatory hurdles in the U.S., adding that the fact its performance had suffered in the last year may have fed into its decision to step back from negotiations.
“I’m not surprised it ended the way it did,” he commented.
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