Couche-Tard rules out higher offer, hostile bid for 7-Eleven — reports

Seven & i, owner of the world's biggest convenience store chain, has rejected a bid of nearly $40 billion by Canada's Couche-Tard, which then hiked its offer 20 percent.

Last week, Seven & i said it was studying a counter-offer from the company's founding family reportedly worth eight trillion yen ($50 billion).

Japanese media quoted Couche-Tard CEO Alex Miller as saying the Canadian company would not sweeten its bid again.

"We're not going to. We believe that the offer that we have made is very compelling for all stakeholders," Nikkei Asia quoted Miller as saying at the firm's Montreal headquarters.

Co-founder and chairman Alain Bouchard was cited as saying that a hostile takeover was also "not in the plan" for ACT.

A takeover by ACT would be the biggest-ever foreign buyout of a Japanese company and create a convenience store behemoth with some 100,000 outlets.

The Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported that Bouchard said Seven & i Holdings' fresh food supply chain in Japan was excellent, and that he wanted to integrate it into ACT's services.

The 7-Eleven franchise began in the United States, but it has been wholly owned by Seven & i since 2005.

About a quarter of 7-Eleven's 85,000 outlets are in Japan, where they are a cherished one-stop shop for everything from rice balls to concert tickets.