One of North America’s largest forecourt and convenience operators has made a swoop for the business formerly known as EG Group, founded by the Issa brothers.
The Times reported on Saturday that Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard has proposed to buy EG Group – which since March has been trading as Cumberland Farms, the name of a group it acquired in 2019 – for between $7.5 billion (£5.6 billion) and $8 billion.
It comes as Cumberland Farms had been preparing a $9 billion initial public offering on the New York stock exchange, a move that would be cancelled if the takeover goes ahead.
Couche-Tard, which is based in Laval, Quebec and quoted on the Toronto stock exchange, operates almost 17,300 stores, including 13,200 forecourts, in 27 countries. Its most famous brand is Circle K, although it trades as Couche-Tard in Quebec and Ingo in Sweden and Denmark. Other than Canada and the USA, its other major markets include the Baltics, Belgium, Ireland, Poland and Hong Kong.
While Cumberland Farms no longer runs UK forecourts – it sold the last of its petrol stations in this country to Zuber Issa’s EG On The Move breakaway business in 2024 – it remains one of the industry’s largest forecourt and convenience operators, albeit a smaller player than its potential suitor.
The company’s latest share prospectus states that Cumberland Farms was operating around 3,300 sites on June 30: 1,535 in the US and 1,778 in Germany and the Benelux countries. Just under 3,200 of these are forecourts.
In recent years, it has divested businesses in France (also to Zuber Issa), Australia, and Italy as well as the UK in a bid to drive down debts accumulated from a period of rapid international expansion.
Cumberland Farms’ latest accounts show that it made a net loss of $244 million in the six months to June 30, following a $145 million net loss for the whole of 2025.
Zuber and Mohsin Issa still each own 25% of the business, with TDR Capital holding the remaining shares. Neither brother holds a directorship or executive position with Cumberland Farms.
Cumberland Farms – founded as Euro Garages in Bury in 2001 – has been increasingly shifting the orientation of its business stateside, announcing it was moving its headquarters from Blackburn to Charlotte, North Carolina in August last year.
In March this year, the purchase of Pennsylvania-based Coen Markets added more than 50 outlets to its US forecourt and convenience network.
The rebrand came without fanfare, EG Group’s web site reporting that acquisition having been made by Cumberland Farms. There was no formal announcement of the renaming, but the EG Group site is now branded as Cumberland Farms. EG Group still exists as the business’s legal parent.
