ANKENY, Iowa - Casey€™s General Stores, Inc. announced on Friday that its board of directors reviewed, with the assistance of financial and legal advisors, an unsolicited proposal received from Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. on March 9 to acquire Casey€™s for $36 per share in cash.
The board unanimously determined that the proposal is not in the best interests of the corporation and informed Couche-Tard on March 29 that it had rejected the proposal. Casey€™s sent a letter to Couche-Tard in response to Couche-Tard€™s public letter released last week.
"We are very disappointed that you have decided to launch a hostile public campaign regarding your unsolicited proposal to acquire Casey's for $36 per share in cash," the letter began.
The letter went on to outline several of the strengths Casey€™s has. "We have important strategic growth initiatives underway that we expect will contribute meaningfully to our top and bottom lines and increase shareholder value in the near and long-term. Given our consistent out-performance among convenience store operators and our ongoing growth initiatives, along with the fact we own virtually all of our real estate, your proposal vastly undervalues Casey€™s and our future prospects."
The letter shared that the company would continue "to build on our exceptional track record of performance. We have had positive inside same-store sales growth for 24 consecutive quarters, based in part on the strength of our proprietary prepared food program, and this is a trend we expect to continue. We have the highest inside sales margins in the industry, which have enabled us to achieve double-digit annual EPS growth. Additionally, we have increased our dividend at a compounded annual growth rate of approximately 18 percent over the past five years."
Casey€™s President and CEO Robert Myers concluded the letter by writing that "Casey€™s is in a position of financial and operational strength, which gives us the flexibility to execute a wide variety of strategic initiatives."