Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.

Laval, QC Canada

  (Toronto: ATD)

Company Description

Alimentation Couche-Tard can gas up you and your car on both sides of the US-Canada border. It's the second-largest convenience store operator in North America and the leader in Canada with some 5,875 outlets: Couche-Tard in Québec; Mac's in central and western Canada; and more than 3,800-plus Circle K shops in about 40 US states. (It bought the Circle K chain in the US from ConocoPhillips in 2003.) More than 75% of its sales are rung up in the US. Alimentation Couche-Tard, French for "food for those who go to bed late," sells gas at more than two-thirds of its stores. The fast-growing company acquired about 40 convenience stores from ExxonMobil in 2009 and abandoned a hostile bid for Casey's General Stores.