PARIS (Reuters) – The Canadian group Alimentation Couche-Tard announced on Thursday that it had entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire networks of service stations from TotalEnergies for 3.1 billion euros in cash.
The acquisition includes service station networks and fuel card activities for professional customers in Germany and the Netherlands as well as a 60% majority stake in Belgium and Luxembourg, Couche-Tard said in a press release. .
These four networks will remain under the TotalEnergies brand as long as they continue to be supplied with fuel by the company, for at least five years, TotalEnergies said in a separate press release.
On the Paris Stock Exchange, TotalEnergies took 0.4% at 09:57 GMT when the CAC 40 rose at the same time by 0.8%.
“We are delighted that Couche-Tard is putting all its know-how at the service of these 2,200 stations in Western Europe and to partner with them in Belgium and Luxembourg where we are market leaders”, declared Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of TotalEnergies in the press release.
Retail-related assets cover 2,193 locations of which 1,195 are located in Germany, 566 in Belgium, 387 in the Netherlands and 45 in Luxembourg, the company added.
TotalEnergies has specified that it will retain the electric charging activities outside stations (recharging hubs), hydrogen distribution, wholesale fuel sales activities as well as the network of AS24 stations for heavy goods vehicles.
The transaction will help the energy group meet its goal of a 30% decline in petroleum product sales by 2030, so that fuel sales and refining capacity do not exceed its oil production, the company said.
Since 2015, TotalEnergies has sold its service station networks in Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the group recalled.
The Quebec group had announced in 2021 a project of rapprochement with the distributor Carrefour, before withdrawing its proposal in the face of the refusal of the French government.
(Written by Kate Entringer, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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