Blackburn-based EG Group is in potential merger talks with Alimentation Couche-Tard, a Canadian multinational operator of convenience stores, the Wall Street Journal has reported Friday (April 29).
The talks have so far failed to produce a deal and they may not lead to one, the paper added, citing people familiar with the matter.
Couche-Tard runs 15,000 stores, including 7,000 in the US, where EG Group operates over 1700 sites of its total 6300 sites globally. If successful, the deal would create a group with over $70 billion (£55.75bn) in annual revenue.
The proposals value EG Group, owned by Indian-origin brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa and private-equity firm TDR Capital, at roughly $16 billion or more including debt, the report said.
Issa brothers and TDR also own supermarket chain Asda and is reportedly bidding for Boots pharmacy chain.
Founded by Alain Bouchard, who remains chairman, in 1980 with a single convenience store in his hometown province of Quebec, Couche-Tard consolidated the Canadian c-store chains throughout the 1990s and entered America in 2001, the year in which Issa brothers founded Euro Garages with the acquisition of a single petrol station in Bury, Greater Manchester.
In recent years, EG has been on an acquisition spree, that included over 700 convenience stores from US supermarket chain Kroger and New England, US-based Cumberland Farms grocery stores.
