Press Releases

Monday, August 10, 2009

Circle K Tidies Up

LAVAL, Quebec — In an effort to prune sites that don't currently match the company's retail criteria, Circle K Stores Inc. is selling 87 locations. The final list of properties to be divested includes 74 petroleum sites and an additional 13 commercial sites. Of the total, 60 properties are operating locations, 22 are closed stores and five are vacant sites.

As reported in a CSP Daily News Flash yesterday, the properties are located in various markets in Alabama (4), Colorado (2), Florida (41), Georgia (19), Illinois (1), Louisiana (3), Mississippi (1), Missouri (2), New Mexico (6), North Carolina (3), Oklahoma (1), South Carolina (2), Tennessee (1) and Texas (1). The majority of the sites include the real estate, while others consist of leasehold interests.

Chicago-based NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC will be assisting Laval, Quebec-based Circle K, a subsidiary of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., with the sale under a previously announced retention agreement.

Growth-conscious Couche-Tard told CSP Daily News in late July that it intended to divest itself of about 75 unwanted stores by the end of the calendar year. "We're divesting some of the sites that don't fit our criteria," Butch Seber, vice president of real estate and development for Couche-Tard, said at the time. "We've gone through a number of acquisitions over the last few years and have operated the stores for some time. Now we're trying to optimize our network and clean up our portfolio."

Denny Ruben, managing director of NRC, said yesterday, "These are all properties which will make excellent locations for the right buyers. Given the high level of interest in similar locations in these states, and our success in selling such locations, these sites should generate a great deal of interest among potential purchasers.

The sites will be sold using NRC Realty & Capital Advisors LLC's "buy one, some or all" sealed-bid sale process. NRC has established a September 29 bid deadline. A complete list of properties is available online at www.nrc.com/908, or by calling the NRC Customer Service Center at (800)747-3342, extension 908.

NRC Realty & Capital Advisors provides real estate and financial advisory services to the convenience store and petroleum industries, and specializes in the accelerated sale of commercial and residential real estate. NRC's breadth of experience in the c-store arena includes portfolio evaluation and analysis; refinancing, recapitalization & sale-leaseback financing options; and merger and acquisition advisory services. Industry clients include BP, Circle K, Shell, Sunoco and White Hen Pantry.

Couche-Tard has a network of 5,443 convenience stores in 11 large geographic markets, including eight in the United States covering 34 states and three in Canada covering 10 provinces. There are more than 2,100 Circle K stores across the United States.

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