After Corporate 'Soap Opera,' a $3.3B Deal for 7-Eleven, Sunoco

Sunoco is selling most of its convenience stores, with their accompanying gas pumps, to Seven & i Holdings, the parent company of 7-Eleven, in a deal valued at $3.3 billion as it looks to focus more on its fuel supply business, per the New York Times. About 1,110 convenience stores, mostly along the East Coast and in Texas, will be added to the 7-Eleven roster, the AP reports; approximately 200 convenience stores in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma will be sold separately. The transaction also includes fuel, merchandise, and other inventories. It doesn't include Sunoco's APlus franchisee-run stores or its Aloha Petroleum unit in Hawaii.

The Times notes the deal is part of Seven & i's US expansion after what it describes as a bit of a "soap opera," in which its current president, Ryuichi Isaka, forced out the previous president, Toshifumi Suzuki, last year in a highly publicized battle. As part of the deal, Sunoco LP will have a 15-year take-or-pay fuel supply agreement with a 7-Eleven subsidiary, under which Sunoco will supply approximately 2.2 billion gallons of fuel a year. The sale, announced Thursday and believed to be Seven & i's biggest acquisition ever, is expected to close by the fourth quarter. (More Sunoco stories.)