We followed the saga of Canadian convenience store giant Alimentation Couche-Tard (TSE:ATD) for months as it doggedly pursued the acquisition of Japanese convenience store giant and 7-Eleven parent company Seven & i. And when the deal finally broke down into no deal at all, Couche-Tard wasted no time and got back on the horse, launching a new share buyback plan. This was fine news for investors, who sent shares surging up 3% in Monday morning’s trading.
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Without the need to pay for 7-Eleven, Couche-Tard decided to focus its efforts, and its cash, on bolstering share prices by buying back stock. In fact, a program recently approved by the Toronto Stock Exchange calls for it to buy back as much as 10% of outstanding stock. That represents nearly $6 billion worth of shares, reports note.
Couche-Tard had, for a while, suspended its share buyback efforts, citing a need to keep cash on hand to address a potential merger. But with that merger now officially off the table, that cash is sitting around with nothing to do, and Couche-Tard means to change that.
“Who Are We Supposed to Believe?”
Meanwhile, the post-mortem reports around the now-dead deal have been emerging, and devolving into a he-said-she-said kind of affair that is leaving outside observers scratching their heads. Couche-Tard, for its part, believed that Seven & i was simply not willing to negotiate, constantly throwing up roadblocks into the process. Meanwhile, Seven & i asserted regularly that it was willing to negotiate, but it had what it believed were valid concerns about antitrust issues—especially in the United States—and the global economy as a whole.
This led those outside observers to ask, “Who are we supposed to believe?”. Reports suggest that Seven & i was never interested in a deal from the start, regarding Couche-tard’s “…overtures as hostile and contrary to its interests.” However, elements within Seven & i insisted on pursuing the deal regardless, believing that it would “boost its corporate value.”
Is Alimentation Couche-Tard a Good Stock to Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on TSE:ATD stock based on 12 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 9.11% loss in its share price over the past year, the average TSE:ATD price target of C$82.67 per share implies 5.89% upside potential.
