Couche-Tard to buy Norway's Statoil Fuel and Retail business for $2.77 bn

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc, one of the world's largest convenience-store chains, has offered to buy Norway's Statoil Fuel and Retail business, for $2.77 billion in cash.

Quebec-based Couche-Tard, which last year acquired ExxonMobil's 33 company-operated On the Run stores in Louisiana, US, has offered to buy Statoil Fuel and Retail's 54 per cent stake for 53 crowns per share, a 53 per cent premium to yesterday closing price of 34.75 crown.

Total transaction enterprise value is approximately $3.6 billion on a fully diluted basis.

Couche-Tard, which runs a network of convenience stores across the US and Canada, expects to use existing credit facilities and a new three-year $3.2 billion credit facility to fund the acquisition.

Statoil Fuel & Retail is the largest Scandinavian convenience and fuel retailer with over 100 years of operations in the region. It has a broad network and leading market share across Scandinavia and the Baltic States, as well as a growing presence in Poland with approximately 2,300 full-service or automated stations of which approximately 68 per cent are company-operated.

Statoil Fuel & Retail's other products include stationary energy, marine fuel, aviation fuel, lubricants and chemicals. In Europe, it operates 12 key terminals, approximately 400 road tankers and 50 depots in eight countries.