7 Eleven Background Information

7-Eleven is an international franchisor, licensor, and operator of the largest chain of convenience store in eighteen countries including: Canada, United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico in the Americas; Norway, Sweden and Denmark in Europe; Taiwan (Republic of China), People's Republic of China (China), Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan in East Asia; the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore in Southeast Asia; and also Turkey and Australia.

The company was founded in Oak Cliff, Texas, USA, which is now part of Dallas, USA, in 1927, and started to use the 7-Eleven name in 1946; 7-Eleven purchased a chain of stores in 1964 called "Speedee-Mart", which initiated the company's entry into franchising. Supermarket chain Ito-Yokado, which operates 7-Eleven stores in Japan, purchased the majority interest of The Southland Corporation in 1991. In 1999, The Southland Corporation changed its name to 7-Eleven, Inc.

Initially, these stores were open from 7 am to 11 pm, which was unprecedented at the time, hence the name; however, most 7-Eleven stores are now open twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. 7-Eleven's most popular private label products include: Slurpee, a partially frozen carbonated and non-carbonated beverage, available in a number of flavors, and the Big Gulp super size sofdrink in 32, 44, 52(Xtreme Gulp), and 64 (American) fluid ounce sizes. In 2005, 7-Eleven introduced their largest soft drink product, the 128 fluid ounce (1gallon) Team Gulp.

In November of 2005, Seven and I Holdings Co. completed the purchase of 7-Eleven, Inc., turning the American publicly traded conglomerate into a publicly traded Japanese conglomerate. Seven-Eleven Japan is itself a subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings, which also owns the Japanese Denny's chain of restaurants and Ito-Yokado.

In Hong Kong, 7-Eleven is operated by Dairy Farm since 1981. There are over 600 stores in the city in 2005. About half of them