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On 31 July 2026, Alimentation Couche-Tard, the company behind Circle K agreed to buy Poland's Żabka: more than 13,000 stores and around US$8.6 billion in equity value, the largest deal in its history. Just six days earlier, Seven & i, the owner of 7-Eleven, had pulled out of its own Żabka investment. A year before that, Couche-Tard had walked away from a US$47 billion pursuit of Seven & i itself. This episode opens up the operating system behind both decisions. We cover:

• Alain Bouchard's start in a single Quebec dépanneur (corner store) in 1980.
• The 460 store visits behind the 2003 Circle K deal.
• A decentralised model built on "9,000 chains of one."
• The Statoil playbook in the Nordics and Baltics.
• Five headline deals walked away from, in four countries.
• The fuel-margin, cost and self-distribution engine running more than 17,000 sites.

We close on the question this show keeps asking: can an operating system outlast its architect? Here the founder still chairs the board, and a third CEO is running the biggest deal the company has ever done.

Sources

• Couche-Tard, Q1 fiscal 2027 results (1 Sep 2026): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-results-for-its-first-quarter-of-fiscal-year-2027-851557013.html
• Couche-Tard, Żabka agreement and tender offer (31 Jul 2026): https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-agreement-to-acquire-controlling-stake-in-abka-group-and-launches-voluntary-tender-offer-302839695.html
• Couche-Tard, Core + More strategy update (11 Feb 2026): https://corporate.couche-tard.com/2026-02-11-ALIMENTATION-COUCHE-TARD-PRESENTS-ITS-2026-BUSINESS-STRATEGY-UPDATE-AND-NEW-LONG-TERM-GUIDANCE
• Couche-Tard, "10 for the Win" strategic plan (11 Oct 2023): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-10-for-the-win-five-year-strategic-plan-821350918.html
• Couche-Tard, offer for Statoil Fuel & Retail (18 Apr 2012): https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/alimentation-couche-tard-inc-to-make-recommended-offer-to-acquire-statoil-fuel--retail-asa-for-us28-billion-510036451.html
• Cstore Dive, TotalEnergies European sites acquisition (2023): https://cstoredive.com/news/couche-tard-acquire-2200-totalenergies-sites/645213
• Cstore Dive, Circle K and McLane third-party logistics (Apr 2025): https://www.cstoredive.com/news/circle-k-mclane-third-party-logistics/746665/
• Cstore Dive, Otsego distribution centre opens (Nov 2025): https://www.cstoredive.com/news/alimentation-couche-tard-mclane-distribution-center/805985/

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

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In 1984, a physicist wrote a novel to sell his factory software. It worked too well, but it cost him his company. Eli Goldratt's "The Goal" became one of the most influential business books ever written. By his own account, operations managers that read it got better results than clients who had bought his scheduling software. He refused to pretend otherwise, and his shareholders showed him the door.This episode tells that story, then opens the Theory of Constraints for operators: the five focusing steps, Drum-Buffer-Rope, and why throughput accounting starts fights with finance. We test the evidence: a Marine Corps repair depot, an Air Force C-5 line, a Japanese toolmaker and the case against, including the failure mode Goldratt documented himself: what happens when a business books freed capacity as a headcount saving instead of a growth engine. This is the story about the man, novel, and impact on operations management. This episode pairs well with previous Operational Velocity episodes on John Little, Deming, and Aravind Eye Care, the links are below:

• John Little
  • https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ZsSVZSKyYk1Rtn1ZCHkU3
• W. Edwards Deming
  • https://open.spotify.com/show/033vWeYysd1RAQNqG8kqAg
• Aravind Eye Care
  • https://open.spotify.com/episode/7BJeh8XppHXhJ6vO1nGjzG

Sources

• Goldratt & Cox, The Goal (1984; revised 1986, 1992, 2004, 2014)
• Goldratt & Fox, The Race (1986)
• Goldratt, The Haystack Syndrome (1990) · It's Not Luck (1994) · Critical Chain (1997)
• Goldratt, "My Saga to Improve Production" (1996): toc-goldratt.com/content/My-Saga-to-Improve-Production
• Goldratt, "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants," Gestão & Produção (2009): scielo.br/j/gp/a/nw43nPSMWtFFqr4x5jhJkJn
• Watson, Blackstone & Gardiner, "The evolution of a management philosophy: The theory of constraints," Journal of Operations Management (2007)
• Mabin & Balderstone, "The performance of the theory of constraints methodology," IJOPM (2003)
• US Marine Corps, "MCA garners 'Fox' award" (2009): albany.marines.mil
• Srinivasan et al., "Warner Robins Air Logistics Center Streamlines Aircraft Repair and Overhaul," Interfaces (2007)

Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.

Lifco is a Swedish serial acquirer that owns approximately 275 small niche businesses such as: dental products, demolition robots, crane attachments, recycling machinery and reports EBITA of 129% of capital employed excluding goodwill. In 2019, they mutually parted ways with their longstanding CEO and arguably the architect of their operating model. Since that time, they managed to triple their EBIDTA. In this episode, we unpack Lifco's story and more specifically break down the acquisition screen, the two-person ethics committee, the put/call structure that keeps sellers invested, and the "install a chairman" operating model, and set it against Danaher's business system, Constellation Software's capital discipline, TransDigm's leverage and Nucor's lean head office.

Sources

• Lifco AB, Interim Report January–June 2026 (14 Jul 2026) — https://mfn.se/a/lifco/interim-report-january-june-2026
• Lifco AB, Annual and Sustainability Report 2025 (30 Mar 2026) — https://storage.mfn.se/14bd9523-71cc-4c40-9476-705e245804f6/annual-and-sustainability-report-2025.pdf
• Lifco.se — History, Business idea and targets, Acquisitions, Organisation and governance, Shareholders (as of 30 Jun 2026)
• 7 Nov 2014, prospectus and IPO price — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/lifco-publishes-the-prospectus-and-announces-the-price-for-its-ipo-on-nasdaq-stockholm,c9676238
• 21 Nov 2014, trading commences — https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/11/21/685204/0/en/LIFCO-COMMENCES-TRADING-ON-NASDAQ-STOCKHOLM-TODAY.html
• 7 Feb 2019, changes in Lifco's management — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/changes-in-lifco-s-management,c2734259
• 8 Feb 2019, Lifco appoints new CEO — https://news.cision.com/lifco-ab/r/lifco-appoints-new-ceo,c2735252
• Röko AB, 11 Mar 2025, outcome of offering and start of trading
• Oliver Sung, "Is Röko a Lifco all over again?" (3 Jul 2026)

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Operational Velocity is for education and general information only and is not investment, financial, legal, or tax advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The views expressed are the host's own, the company and figures discussed are drawn from public sources believed reliable but not guaranteed, and you should do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.