7-Eleven Chain Receives Buyout Proposal From Canadian Owner Of Circle K

Japan’s 7-Eleven owner, Seven & i Holdings Co. (SVNDF.PK, SVNDY.PK), has received a “friendly, non-binding” proposal from the Canadian convenience store multinational Alimentation Couche-Tard (ANCUF.PK, ATD_B.TO, ATD_A.TO) to buy the company.

The Tokyo-based company confirmed receiving a preliminary proposal to acquire all of its outstanding shares, and has established a special committee to evaluate the offer.

Notably, Alimentation Couche-Tard did not disclose the amount it is willing to pay for the potential acquisition.

The story was first reported by Japan’s Nikkei business daily, which described it as potentially the largest foreign takeover of a Japanese company.

However, retail analyst Bryan Gildenberg told to CNBC that he expects the offer to attract antitrust scrutiny, particularly from the American Federal Trade Commission.

“I would imagine that there’s going to be some regulatory concern and some required divestment in order to make this work,” said Gildenberg.

7-Eleven operates over 84,000 stores across 19 countries, including 13,000 in the U.S. and 22,000 in Japan. Meanwhile, the Canadian company has more than 16,700 stores and petrol stations across 31 countries, The Guardian reports.