Quebecois convenience store brand Couche-Tard is gunning to buy 7-Eleven. Here's how it got there

Quebec's Alimentation Couche-Tard started with one store in 1980. Now, the retailer stands a serious chance of taking over the largest operator of convenience stores in the world: 7-Eleven. 

Currently, 7-Eleven's more than 84,000 locations across the globe are owned by Japanese retailer giant, Seven & i Holdings, which rejected an offer worth $38.5 billion from Couche-Tard earlier this month.

But with the door still open to future deals, and Couche-Tard reportedly considering raising its offer price, it's possible that the Canadian company is on the verge of an acquisition that would make it one of the biggest retailers in the world. 

The potential takeover is being watched carefully by many — from Japanese customers nervous that a Canadian owner could change what has become a cultural institution, to U.S. customers worried a takeover could interrupt plans to expand Japanese-style offerings in American stores, to Canadians curious about an upgrade to our local 7-Elevens.

So how did we get here, and where could Couche-Tard go in the future?

Quebecois entrepreneur Alain Bouchard founded Alimentation Couche-Tard with that first store 44 years ago in Laval, Que. The store was modelled after the Quebecois dépanneur, a regional style of neighbourhood corner store unique to the province.

The classic dépanneurs are independently owned and are a fixture of the province's late-night scene, having sold alcohol long before other convenience stores elsewhere in Canada did.

Through a series of acquisitions, Bouchard transformed the chain into a global convenience store brand that is now one of the biggest companies in Canada, and one of the world's largest convenience retailers.

Yan Cimon, a professor of strategy at the University of Laval's business school in Quebec City, said the company has always been on a "relentless quest for growth."

"But it's a quest for what I would call disciplined growth," he said, "meaning that if you look at the way Couche-Tard selects the assets it wants to acquire, it knows very well the price it should pay and the price it could pay for that asset to make it profitable and to create value."

The company now operates more than 16,000 convenience stores across North America and Europe, mostly under the brand names Couche-Tard, Circle K and On The Run. An acquisition of Seven & i would be its crown jewel.

Part of the strategy behind its acquisitions is to adapt its offerings in different countries so that they're tailored to the culture and regional tastes of that country, said Cimon. 

The company's first acquisition came in the form of 11 convenience stores in Quebec City in 1985. Couche-Tard then bought two more convenience store brands, adding Sept-Jours stores to its portfolio in 1987 and buying 60 Mac's stores in 1993. The latter brand became Circle K in 2015.

Couche-Tard acquired 86 stores from dépanneur operator Perette in 1994.