7-Eleven Acquires 23 Stores From Strasburger Enterprises

DALLAS -- As reported in a Breaking News flash this morning by CSNews Online, 7-Eleven has acquired 23 convenience stores in Texas from Temple, Texas-based Strasburger Enterprises.

The stores, which operate primarily under the Quix banner, are spread throughout north and central Texas from Haslet in Tarrant County in the north, to Converse, just east of San Antonio, in the south. They will be rebranded as 7-Eleven by the end of the year. This acquisition brings the number of 7-Eleven Inc. operated and franchised stores in Texas to 570.

Roy Strasburger, president of the International Division of Strasburger Enterprises, told CSNews Online this morning that the deal was consummated on Tuesday. The sale of the Quix stores enables Strasburger Enterprises to focus on its convenience store management business, he said in a phone interview with CSNews Online.

Through a subsidiary, Convenience Management Systems Inc. (CMSI), Strasburger Enterprises operates retail store sites for convenience and fuel retailers, jobbers and financial institutions holding foreclosed assets."We're projecting that we'll be operating a total of about 75 convenience store sites through CMSI within the next three months," said Strasburger.

The acquisition helps 7-Eleven -- already the biggest and fastest growing U.S. convenience store chain in unit count growth -- continue its rapid store expansion. "7-Eleven is continuing its accelerated growth, and this acquisition helps us meet the ambitious goals we have set," said Robbie Radant, 7-Eleven's vice president of mergers and acquisitions. "We met our goal of opening more than 600 stores in the U.S. and Canada last year, and are on target to surpass that number in 2012 and reach our goal of 630."

The Dallas-based convenience giant said after conversion, the stores will offer 7-Eleven's line of daily-delivered fresh foods and bakery, proprietary 7-Select products, well-known Big Bite hot dogs, other grilled and hot foods, Slurpee and Big Gulp beverages, and standard grocery and convenience items.

The former Strasburger-owned stores will be available for franchise after they are remodeled to 7-Eleven.

"7-Eleven has extended job offers to qualified Strasburger employees who are affected by this acquisition, and we welcome them to the 7-Eleven team," Radant added.

Strasburger said that only 10 Quix stores remain, and the plan is to sell those units off to independent dealers. "We're shifting our focus completely to our contract operations business. CMSI is growing and we feel that's where our opportunity lies at the moment. That's the business we want to be in," he said, adding that at its previous size, the company-operated Quix chain was not big enough to achieve the advantages of a large chain nor small enough to be considered an independent.

"We were in no-man's land," said Strasburger.