EG Group announced last week that it’s agreed to divest its roughly 260 convenience retail sites in France. This came a few months after the company offloaded its 1,200 sites in Italy and agreed to sell its 500 stores in Australia. It’s also about three years after EG Group agreed to sell its c-store assets in the U.K. and Ireland.
Although EG Group’s leadership has been up front that the divestitures aim to relieve debt, it also hasn’t shied away from the fact that these moves prioritize growth in the U.S. — EG’s largest and most profitable market.
Those efforts came into focus when EG Group appointed American Russell Colaco as its CEO last April, and revealed shortly after that it would relocate its global headquarters from the U.K. to Charlotte, North Carolina. EG Group has also reshaped its board of directors with several Americans since then, including Chairman Roland Smith and former Stripes CEO Steve DeSutter.
Colaco said in EG Group’s earnings update last week that following its recent divestitures and other refinancing actions, the company’s capital structure “is now well-positioned to support the execution of our strategy.”
In the U.S., EG Group — which has about 1,500 c-stores operating under several banners through its EG America arm — has grown its foodservice and loyalty capabilities through new QSR programs and its SmartRewards program. It also expressed intentions to rebrand its entire c-store network to the Cumberland Farms banner, a process that has been underway for years and still has a ways to go.
Full story How EG Group is betting big on the US | C-Store Dive
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