7-Eleven is at the center of a multibillion-dollar bidding war

• Seven & i Holdings, owner of 7-Eleven stores, is at the center of a three-way bidding war.
• The company’s management, its founders, and a Canadian convenience store company all want control.
• Depending on who ultimately prevails, the Japan-based company could go private.

Japan-based Seven & i Holdings, owner of the iconic global chain of 7-Eleven convenience stores, is at the center of an intensifying bidding war, multiple outlets reported.

The company’s management, its founding family, and a Canadian company — Alimentation Couche-Tard, owner of Circle K convenience stores — are all interested in control of the chain, with bids upward of $58 billion.

Business Insider previously reported Alimentation Couche-Tard made its first bid this summer, proposing a purchase to expand its nearly 17,000-store catalog of global convenience stores with 7-Eleven’s approximately 85,000 locations if the sale was approved. The initial offer of $39 billion was rejected for being a dramatically lower valuation than the company would consider for a buyout — but the Quebec-based company raised its bid to $47 billion in October, The Wall Street Journal reported.

If the deal were to go through, it would be the largest-ever foreign takeover of a Japanese company.

Last month, in an opposing proposal to the company’s board, Seven & i’s CEO, Ryuichi Isaka, said the company has “potential for significant growth globally,” announcing his aim to increase revenue to about $200 billion by 2030 with a restructuring plan including spinning off its noncore businesses, The Journal reported.

This month, Junro Ito, an executive at Seven & i Holdings and the heir to the 7-Eleven chain, proposed a management buyout that would take the company private with a $58 billion bid, according to Bloomberg.

Ito had been courting investors this summer to buy stock in the chain before Alimentation Couche-Tard’s offer to purchase the company outright was on the table. Bloomberg reported he told prospective investors in August that the company “would like to spread our retail business and strengths in food not only within Japan but also around the world.”

However, it appears Alimentation Couche-Tard’s proposal rattled Tokyo’s business elite into reconsidering whether the company should be public at all, per Bloomberg.

Each of the proposals is being considered by a special committee made up of Seven & i Holdings’ board members in order to maximize value for its shareholders, per Bloomberg.

Seven & i Holdings’ stock has responded well to all the interest, increasing nearly 15% — from $14.36 per share to $16.49 — over the last 30 days and more than 25% this year.

The 7-Eleven chain was founded in 1927 in Dallas, per The Journal. It was originally called the Southland Ice Company but was rebranded in 1946 to be called 7-Eleven based on its hours of operation.

The convenience store partnered with Ito-Yokado, a Japanese supermarket chain founded by Masatoshi Ito — Junro Ito’s father — in 1973 to build franchised locations in Japan. Ito-Yokado acquired a majority stake in the company in the early 1990s and completed its acquisition in November 2005. Ito-Yokado then reorganized, becoming Seven & i Holdings, that year.

Representatives for Alimentation Couche-Tard and 7-Eleven did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.