Opinions
James Telfser
Alimentation Couche-Tard
ATD-T
BUY
Oct 14, 2025
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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Japanese are not easy to negotiate with, and it's not to say that they won't come back and try again. Not a management deficiency that the deal wasn't completed. ATD is great at integrating. If they were able to get the deal done, he'd likely be back in the stock. No catalyst in the near term for him to buy; another deal would be a catalyst. In the meantime, doing a great job operating the business.
He's just a bit cautious in general about the consumer as a group relative to the rest of the market. He owns DOL and Loblaw, but that's it.
Premium contentThe bears won on July 11 when ATD suddenly called off the $46 billion deal. Days later, the company revived its share buyback program to the tune of $7.1 billion. Shares bounced back. I was in the bear camp and now see ATD as a stock to enter now before it sets its sight on another take-out target. True, the U.S.'s rising June CPI print raises legitimate concern about the state of the U.S. consumer looking forward. Forbes reported a 4.3% sales decline YOY last February in American convenience stores.
The proposed acquisition may have been a bit aggressive. May have felt a big acquisition was needed to move the needle. Very well run. May not be a lot of big purchases left in the space unless you overpay or take on a lot of debt. Without acquisitions and integration, may not be that much room for earnings growth.
We would be comfortable buying ATD at 18X earnings today, considering its solid long-term history and good outlook for continued growth.
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He's a huge fan, owning it almost his entire career. Very attractive valuation. The potential Seven & i acquisition really spooked the market, and a selloff ensued. Not a lot of excitement around the name right now. Could be a bit of economic weakness coming, with an attack on discretionary income.
Generates massive cashflows, which gives them so many options -- buy back shares, increase dividend, make acquisitions. Excellent at allocating capital. All this likely to reasonably boost EPS. Good growth (though not AI-type growth) at roughly 17x PE. Reasonable price for high-quality compounder.
Beaten down on concerns about potential spending. Now seeing a slow recovery. Struggled to beat expectations over the last year. Over the next 12 months, he'd bet that this name would beat expectations rather than a Loblaw. Gas prices are settling, but margins are still OK, so that should benefit the convenience store segment. Decent valuation.