Canadian convenience-store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard has officially scrapped its $46 billion bid to acquire Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese parent of 7-Eleven, after nearly a year of stalled talks. In a sharply worded letter to Seven & i's board, Couche-Tard executives accused the Tokyo-based company of dragging its feet and stonewalling attempts at negotiation, claiming the process was marked by delay tactics and a lack of transparency, the Globe and Mail reports. The Quebec-based Couche-Tard, operator of chains including Circle K, had hoped to unite two of the world's leading convenience retailers.
At $46 billion and a 47.6% premium over Seven & i's market value before the bid, the all-cash offer would have created a global retail powerhouse. But Seven & i rebuffed the proposal from the outset, a stance that drew renewed attention to Japan's long-standing resistance to foreign takeovers—even after the government recently urged more openness to cross-border deals. Despite agreeing last spring to a nondisclosure pact, Couche-Tard's executives say the Japanese side gave little ground, providing only minimal information and limited access to decision-makers. Attempts to meet with the founding Ito family went nowhere, and management meetings yielded scant progress.
Couche-Tard described one Tokyo meeting as "tightly scripted" and said that even alternative proposals—such as buying Seven's international business or taking a minority stake—were met with either silence or counteroffers deemed unworkable. Seven & i, for its part, denies any wrongdoing, saying it engaged in "good faith" and pointing to "extraordinary antitrust hurdles" as a barrier. Arun Sundaram, an analyst with CFRA Research, tells Reuters that the deal "was always a long shot." Sundaram expects Couche-Tard to look for other acquisitions, "particularly as the US convenience store sector remains both mature and fragmented, making it ripe for consolidation."
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