Shareholders approve new board amid Couche-Tard's takeover bid

In Japan, shareholders of Seven & i Holdings, the parent company of 7-Eleven, gathered for its annual general meeting and successfully approved a new board of directors. This change in leadership comes as the company remains engaged in negotiations with Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, which submitted a $51.5 billion takeover bid. The newly appointed chief executive officer, Stephen Dacus, who is the first foreign leader of the company, aims to initiate a drastic overhaul to improve the company's performance and shareholder value. The reshuffle has also led to the approval of high-profile board members, including Junro Ito from the founding family and Takashi Sawada, former president of FamilyMart, as external director. Despite some criticism regarding compensation and restructuring strategies among the approximately 800 shareholders present, all proposals introduced during the meeting passed. Couche-Tard has thus far been kept at a distance but has signed a non-disclosure agreement enabling it to review Seven & i’s financial data. The company is also exploring the option to sell around 2,000 overlapping convenience stores in North America, a necessary step to avoid antitrust challenges as the takeover bid continues. Dacus, the new CEO, expressed a commitment to ensuring that the next decade surpasses the previous one as the company implements reforms primarily focusing on convenience stores, whose growth has been stagnating in both Japan and the U.S. Parallel to these negotiations, Seven & i plans to sell its Ito-Yokado supermarket chain business to Bain Capital for approximately $5.7 billion. Moreover, it intends to achieve a U.S. listing for its 7-Eleven convenience store business unit by 2026 while also contemplating selling a portion of its shares in Seven Bank Ltd. to streamline operations. The market valuation remains significantly below the price Couche-Tard is willing to pay, demonstrating the challenges ahead in navigating both internal reforms and external acquisition proposals.