The Full Wiki

Casey's General Stores: Wikis

  
  

Note: Many of our articles have direct quotes from sources you can cite, within the Wikipedia article! This article doesn't yet, but we're working on it! See more info or our list of citable articles.

Encyclopedia

Updated live from Wikipedia, last check: May 31, 2012 17:07 UTC (44 seconds ago)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Casey's General Stores, Inc.
Type Public (NASDAQCASY)
Founded 1968
Headquarters Ankeny, Iowa, U.S.
Key people Don Lamberti, founder
Ronald W. Lamb, Chairman & CEO
Industry Retail (Convenience stores), Fuel
Revenue $2.8 billion (2005)
Employees 14,500
Website www.caseys.com

Casey's General Stores, Inc. (NASDAQCASY) is a chain of convenience stores in the Midwestern United States, primarily within the states of Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. The company is headquartered in Ankeny, Iowa.

Contents

History

In 1959 Don Lamberti leased a service station in Des Moines, Iowa from his father. After successfully remodeling the station into a convenience store and operating it for nine years, his gasoline supplier and friend, Kurvin C. (K.C.) Fish, suggested that he purchase the Square Deal Oil Company, a service station available for sale in Boone, Iowa. Lamberti followed Fish's advice and purchased the station, which he renamed "Casey's" after Fish and as with his leased store converted the station into a convenience store. The logo on the Boone store is the same logo used today by the Casey's chain.

The Boone store (located in a town of only 12,500) did well, so Lamberti decided to see if he could duplicate his success. He purchased another store in Creston, Iowa (population 7,000) and that store did well also. Lamberti became more ambitious and decided to open a store from scratch in the even smaller town of Waukee, Iowa (population 1,500 at the time). The Waukee store proved to be the most successful of the three, so Lamberti decided to purchase and open more stores, concentrating on towns of less than 5,000 population (a variation on the tactic used in the early success of Wal-Mart).

By the late 1970s (when Casey's opened its first warehouse) the chain had 118 stores, including the original store operated by Lamberti's parents which entered the Casey's fold in 1977.

In 1982 Casey's opened its first Distribution Center in Urbandale, Iowa.

Casey's became a publicly traded company in October, 1983, with an initial public offering of 700,000 shares. Around this time Casey's began to sell doughnuts in its stores; in December 1984 it introduced pizza into its stores (which is one of its signature items today).

In 1990 Casey's moved to its current facility in Ankeny.

Casey's 1,000th store opened in Altoona, Iowa in 1996, the same year Casey's exceeded US$1 billion in annual sales.

In January 2006, Casey's purchased Lincoln, Nebraska-based Gas 'N Shop.[1] On August 7, 2006, Casey's agreed to purchase the 33-store HandiMart chain, based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in a $63 million deal.[2]

Casey's today

Original Casey's in Boone, Iowa

As of February 29, 2008, Casey's has 1,463 stores in nine states, of which 1,449 are company-owned and 14 are franchised stores. Casey's has announced its intent to buy out the remaining franchisees when the existing agreements expire, or otherwise terminate the agreements, and all new stores opened are company-owned stores.

Casey's currently operates in the following states, all in the Midwestern United States:

The chain markets itself toward smaller communities. As according to the 2007 10-K filing, 61% of its stores are located in cities with populations of less than 5,000 and only 13% are located in cities with greater than 20,000 population. Most Casey's stores sell their own freshly made pizza and doughnuts (according to Casey's, over 27,000 pizzas and over 269,000 doughnuts per day) in addition to gasoline and other convenience store products.

Recently the chain has begun upgrading or replacing its facilities as many of the original stores were dated from the 1960s and 70s. Many of the original stores were considered too small by the company, and were starting to show age. According to the Casey's website, as of July 1, 2005 the average store is 13 years old, and the average store canopy is 8.5 years old. Also, Casey's has concentrated on acquiring other convenience store chains or individual stores within and adjacent to its territory.

References

  1. ^ Reuters. "Key Developments for CASY". http://www.investor.reuters.wallst.com/stocks/key-developments.asp?rpc=66&ticker=CASY&timestamp=20060109190000. Retrieved 2006-11-14. 
  2. ^ DeWitte, Dave (2006-08-08). "Casey's Buying HandiMart in $63 Million Deal". The Gazette (Cedar Rapids): p. 1A. 

External links








Got something to say? Make a comment.
Your name
Your email address
Message
Please enter the solution to case below
12+8=