Couche-Tard Irving Oil Station Purchase|52 Stations It Already Runs?

Buying what it already runs

Alimentation Couche-Tard has agreed to buy gas station sites in Quebec and Ontario from Irving Oil. Yet all 52 retail sites in the deal are already run by Couche-Tard. Fifty sit in Quebec, under an alliance between the two companies. The other two are in Pembroke and Cornwall, in eastern Ontario. The package also holds 18 cardlocks, the self-serve fuel stops built for truck fleets.

Sixteen share a lot with those same retail sites. The other two sit next to stations Couche-Tard already owns. The Canadian Press described a deal to buy dozens of retail sites. But the number of stores Couche-Tard runs in these two provinces does not change. This deal is best read as Couche-Tard buying the ground and the fuel behind stores it already operates. That reading starts with how this partnership was built.

For about two decades, Couche-Tard leased and ran hundreds of convenience stores under its own brands. Irving Oil stayed the owner of those stations, and their supplier. Couche-Tard ran the shop. Irving held the property and supplied it. This agreement changes that split for the sites in the deal. Retail Insider described it as expanding Couche-Tard's ownership of retail assets in the two provinces.

Stéphane Trudel, Couche-Tard's senior vice-president of operations, explained the deal in a release. "This agreement builds on our longstanding relationship with Irving Oil and our experience operating these locations." He added: "These are markets and customers we know well." In other words, Couche-Tard moves from operator to owner, on ground it already knows. One part of the deal has nothing to do with buildings.

It also covers fuel supply to 71 more Quebec sites that Couche-Tard already owns and operates. Add those to the 52 retail sites, and the deal reaches the fuel side of 123 Couche-Tard locations. Fuel is not a sideline for this company. About 13,100 of its more than 17,200 stores sell road fuel. A Motley Fool contributor estimates that it makes about half its money from fuel sales.

So on that writer's estimate, this deal reaches into the part of the business that earns half the company's money. What the announcement does not say is whether branding, staffing or day-to-day operations will change at these sites.

Why Irving lets go

The seller is no small station owner. Irving Oil runs Canada's largest refinery, in Saint John, along with more than 1,000 fuelling locations. In January 2025, after an 18-month strategic review, the family-owned company chose to stay independent rather than pursue a sale. This deal came weeks after Irving named Alfred Stern as its next president and chief executive.

Stern most recently ran Austrian oil and gas group OMV, and takes the top job on November 1. Brunswick News has reported that industry experts see his hiring as a new era for Irving, with potential change on the way. Irving did not immediately respond to a request for further comment on the sale. What Irving keeps matters as much as what it sells.

Its existing fleet customers will still be served at the cardlocks, under a long-term agreement with Couche-Tard. Couche-Tard has stood on the buying side of this kind of deal before. In 2023, it bought about 2,200 European gas stations from French oil company TotalEnergies. That deal cost 3.3 billion US dollars. In both cases, an oil company handed the station end of its business to a convenience operator.

The difference here is what the seller holds on to. Irving keeps its fleet customers by contract, and the sale lands beside a change at the top. Neither company has tied the two together. What Couche-Tard takes is the retail end of Irving's chain, not its customer relationships. Now the size. The deal covers 52 retail sites. Couche-Tard runs more than 17,200 stores across 27 countries and territories.

That puts these sites at about three of every thousand stores in its network. No price was disclosed. The release gave no timeline for completion. The deal still needs regulatory approvals, including under the Competition Act. So the reading holds for these stations, but it barely moves the company.

Without a price, shareholders cannot judge from the announcement whether owning these sites beats running them on Irving's property.

Where the stake sits

On the same Friday, October 9, a far larger Couche-Tard deal cleared a hurdle in Europe. The European Commission cleared its planned takeover of Polish convenience chain Zabka under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation. Zabka has more than 13,000 convenience stores across Poland and Romania. Couche-Tard runs more than 17,200. So Zabka alone would add about three-quarters as many stores as Couche-Tard has now.

CBC reported the offer values a controlling stake in Zabka at more than 12 billion dollars. A successful close would be Couche-Tard's largest acquisition ever. Set against that, the Irving deal is housekeeping. For Couche-Tard shareholders, the stake this autumn sits in Poland. Couche-Tard has watched a giant deal slip away before. It spent nearly a year pursuing Seven & i, the Japanese parent of 7-Eleven.

It withdrew its proposal in July 2025, after the two sides clashed over valuation, engagement and regulatory risks. Zabka looks different on engagement. Its incoming chief executive, Tomasz Blicharski, said Zabka was receptive because Couche-Tard's executives listened carefully to how it built its business. Regulatory risk is the piece the two stories share. The European clearance does not finish the job.

MLex reports the Zabka deal still needs merger-control approval. It adds that the timing and the relevant regulator are not clear. The dates have already moved. Polish outlet Bankier.pl reported on October 7 that Couche-Tard extended the tender deadline for Zabka shares to October 26. The timetable it cited sets October 29 as the expected transaction date. Settlement is expected on November 3.

So a clearance that looks like a green light leaves one approval outstanding, with no named regulator and no clear timing. Other pieces are in place. Coverage of the deal referred to approval of a foreign-investment condition, dated September 30. The offer is 32 zloty per share. On October 9, Zabka shares stood at 31.70 zloty. That is 30 groszy below the offer, a gap of less than one percent.

A gap that thin suggests traders in Warsaw are not betting heavily against the deal. That is a reading of the price, not a statement from any party.

What to watch

Back to the puzzle at the start. Couche-Tard agreed to pay an undisclosed sum for 52 stations it already ran. It was buying ownership, not reach: the ground and fuel behind its own stores, from a seller that keeps its fleet customers. That deal is too small to change the company. Zabka can. Weighing the clearances already won against the approval still missing, the deal looks more likely to close than to fail.

The weak point is the schedule. An October 29 transaction date rests on an approval whose regulator and timing, according to MLex, are not clear. The signal to watch is the October 26 tender deadline. If merger-control approval is announced before then, the schedule holds, and so does this reading. If the deadline is pushed again with no regulator named, the timing part of this judgment is wrong.

The case for a clean close would weaken with it. In that case, Zabka shareholders who tendered would wait longer for their 32 zloty. Couche-Tard's largest deal would stay unfinished for longer.

Informational only, not investment advice. Figures and quotes come from the linked reports.