Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., the Canadian convenience-store chain, made an unsolicited bid for Casey’s General Stores Inc. for $36 a share in cash, BusinessWeek reported
Couche-Tard offered the Ankeny, Iowa-based company, which operates more than 1,500 stores in the Midwest, 14% more than its closing price yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Including about $29 million in debt, the deal has an enterprise value of about $1.9 billion, Couche-Tard said in a statement.
Couche-Tard said it made the proposal public after Casey’s board unanimously rejected it. “Your continued failure to engage in discussions about our proposal is not in the best interest of your shareholders or any of your other constituencies,” Alain Bouchard, CEO of Laval, Quebec-based Couche-Tard, said in a letter to Casey’s board included in the statement.
Casey jumped $7.02, or 22%, to $38.61 at 8:40 a.m. New York time, before the start of regular U.S. trading. Through yesterday, the shares had declined 1% this year.