Euro Garage’s parent company EG Group has approached fuel retailer and refiner Caltex Australia about the potential acquisition of some or all of its assets in a deal that could be worth more than £4.5bn.
Caltex, which has a network of sites accounting for about 16% of petrol sales in Australia, released a statement saying it had been approached by a number of parties, including EG Group, which had expressed interest in acquiring some or all of its assets.
The approaches followed a A$8.6bn (£4.5bn) bid in November by Alimentation Couche-Tard to acquire Caltex that was rejected, although Caltex offered to provide information to the company to enable it to increase its bid.
EG Group already has a presence in Australia having last April completed the A$1.725bn (£910m) acquisition of Woolworth’s petrol business – a network of 540 sites.
Analysts said EG Group might run into issues with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, because it is among the top four petrol retailers in the country and would be bidding for a network that accounts for around 16% of petrol retail sales.
The 380 Euro Garages sites in the UK are part of an international portfolio of 5,200 EG Group sites in Europe, Australia and the US, where it has just shy of 1,700 sites.
Alimentation Couche-Tard has a presence in the UK and Irish Republic through its 410 Circle K sites.
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