Casey’s General Store’s strategic plan included a goal of adding at least 350 new convenience stores by 2026.

The Ankeny-based chain met the goal nearly 18 months sooner than expected, Darren Rebelez, the company’s chairman, president and CEO, said today.

Rebelez attributed the company’s quick pace of meeting the goal to the acquisition in July of Fikes Wholesale Inc., which operates 198 CEFCO Convenience Stores in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. The acquisition is expected to be finalized at the end of 2024.

The move has prompted Casey’s to increase to 500 the number of stores it expects to add by 2026, Rebelez said.

Rebelez’s comments came during the company’s first-quarter earnings call. For the quarter that ended on July 31, Casey’s reported a net income of $180.19 million, up 6% from $169.23 million in last year’s first quarter. Casey’s diluted earnings per share in the first quarter increased by 7% to $4.83 from $4.52 in the same period a year ago.

It is unlikely Casey’s will make another large acquisition in the coming months similar to the one involving Fikes, Rebelez said. However, Casey’s merger and acquisition team “will continue their work on small acquisitions.”

Since the pandemic, it has become increasingly difficult for operators of small convenience store chains to operate with a profit, Rebelez said. “There’s a lot of operators out there struggling to survive and that creates a great opportunity from a [merger and acquisition] perspective for folks like us who have the capacity and the ability to acquire and integrate those businesses.”

Rebelez also said Casey’s would continue to construct new stores. In the first quarter, the company added 10 new stores and nine stores that were acquired. Casey’s has 2,674 stores in 17 states.

Highlights from Casey’s first-quarter earnings report include:

• Total revenue of $4.09 billion, an increase from the same period a year ago when total revenue was $4.52 billion.
• Diluted per share earning of $4.83, up from $4.52 a year ago.
• $1.47 billion in inside same-store sales, up 7.6% from $1.369 billion in the same period a year ago.
• Over 772 million gallons of fuel sold, an 8.2% increase from a year ago. Part of the increase is due to the increase in the number of stores operated by Casey’s.

Casey’s first-quarter results exceeded analysts’ expectations. Zacks Consensus Estimate, for example, had predicted the convenience store chain would post quarterly earnings of $4.54 a share.

To read the news release about Casey’s fourth-quarter and fiscal year results, click here.