LAVAL, Quebec – Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., one of the world’s leading convenience-store retailers, announced today that it is consolidating its Circle K, Statoil, Mac’s and Kangaroo Express retail brands under one refreshed global banner, creating a new, global convenience brand, “Circle K.”

The new Circle K brand will replace Couche-Tard’s existing Circle K, Statoil, Mac’s and Kangaroo Express branding on its convenience stores and gas stations across Canada, the United States, Scandinavia and Central and Eastern Europe. The new Circle K brand will also appear on licensed stores across Asia and will be a fundamental part of Couche-Tard’s future growth.

Couche-Tard has chosen to retain the company’s founding Couche-Tard retail brand in Québec in Canada due to the specifics of that market.

The global Circle K brand will begin rolling out to c-stores in the United States in January 2016. It will be seen on gas stations in Europe from May 2016, while Canadian customers outside Québec will see the new Circle K brand starting in May 2017.

As of July 19, 2015, Couche-Tard’s network comprised 7,987 convenience stores throughout North America, including 6,556 stores offering road transportation fuel. Its North American network consists of 15 business units, including 11 in the United States covering 41 States and four in Canada covering all 10 provinces.

In Europe, Couche-Tard operates a retail network across Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Poland, the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and Russia. As at July 19, 2015, it comprised 2,229 stores, the majority of which offer road transportation fuel and convenience-store products while the others are unmanned automated gas stations that offer road transportation fuel only. The corporation also offers other products, including stationary energy, marine fuel, lubricants and chemicals. Couche-Tard operates key fuel terminals and fuel depots in six countries.

In addition, about 4,700 stores are operated by independent operators under the Circle K banner in 12 other countries or regions worldwide (China, Guam, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam), which brings to more than 14,900 the number of sites in Couche-Tard’s network.

Watch for details on CSPnet.com and in CSP Daily News.