NEW YORK — 7-Eleven will divest 293 retail fuel outlets in the U.S. to settle antitrust charges around its acquisition of Speedway from Marathon Petroleum, the Federal Trade Commission said Friday, suggesting a regulatory hurdle has been cleared for the $21 billion deal.
The stores 7-Eleven is ordered to sell are located across 20 states in markets that an FTC analysis deemed vulnerable to monopolistic behavior if the Speedway merger went through as is.
The FTC’s announcement came a month after the convenience store chain’s own announcement on the divestitures, which did not specify the transactions were part of a settlement with the antitrust watchdog.
Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine Wilson said in a Friday statement that “a settlement in this matter is long overdue,” as they announced a consent agreement to resolve all competition concerns on the matter, pending public comment.
Four out of five commissioners — including two that previously opposed the deal — voted in favor to accept the proposed consent order, with new chair Lina Khan abstaining.
A Speedway filling station in a New York City suburb. (Photo by Kazunari Yokota)
On May 14, 7-Eleven, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Seven & i Holdings, said it had completed the acquisition of 3,800 Speedway stores — without the blessing of the FTC. Hours later, the agency’s acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Commissioner Rohit Chopra issued a strongly-worded statement voicing continued antitrust concerns with the deal.
“The commission has spent significant resources investigating this transaction but has not yet come to an agreement with the parties and a majority of the Commission that would fully resolve the competitive concerns,” the commissioners said at the time. “Seven and Marathon’s decision to close under these circumstances is highly unusual, and we are extremely troubled by it.”
Measured by number, these stores are just a fraction of the chain’s new store count following the acquisition of Speedway.
According to the FTC, 7-Eleven owns, operates and franchises some 9,000 convenience stores in the U.S., almost half of which also sell gasoline, while Speedway operates almost 4,000 retail fuel outlets across the country.
The antitrust agency in 2018 similarly ordered 7-Eleven to divest or give up the acquisition of dozens of U.S. stores covering key local markets as a condition of its $3.3 billion acquisition of 1,100 retail fuel outlets from gas station operator Sunoco.
