The timing of an initial public offering for Seven & i Holdings Co.’s US convenience stores will depend on turnaround progress as well as market conditions, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Dacus said, as he seeks to leverage the quality of 7-Eleven shops in Japan to revive North American operations.

“The objective is to increase shareholder value,” Dacus said in a group interview. “As far as retail and consumer products type IPOs, I think a lot of the oxygen’s been sucked out of that by AI.”Earlier this year, Dacus appointed Mauricio Leyva to lead the US operations, tasking the former Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. executive to revive performance and prepare the unit for an eventual public listing. The move followed Seven & i’s decision to delay the IPO to next year or later, as weak fuel demand and softer consumer spending weigh on store traffic.

Seven & i, which took the American convenience store concept and turned it into a global retailing empire, has revamped itself by selling its Japan-based supermarket and specialty-store operations, installing new leadership and seeking a partial listing of the US unit. Those efforts were spurred on by Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.’s ¥6.77 trillion ($42.8 billion) takeover proposal, which was abandoned last year after Seven & i rebuffed the approach.

At the same time, the higher fuel prices have helped to boost profitability and make up for weaker spending in American 7-Elevens, which Leyva is working to fix with fresh food offerings and better supply chain management. Operating profit at the North American unit rose 46% from a year earlier to $1.3 billion in the six months through August, according to results released this week.

“We’re seeing new customers in the fresh food domain and portfolio, which we didn’t have before,” Leyva said in the joint interview with Dacus. “More than just replicating, it’s making sure that it’s addressing the North American needs.”The US business is made up of the original 7-Eleven chain of stores that got their start almost a century ago in Texas, before Seven & i took full control in 2005. Over the past decade, it expanded through the acquisition of some of Sunoco LP’s gasoline stations in 2018 and the $21 billion purchase of Speedway outlets from Marathon Petroleum Corp. in 2021.

“We’ve made a lot of changes in terms of leadership over the last 16 months at all different levels,” Dacus said. “I believe we’ve got the right strategy. The key thing now is to step on the gas, execute with discipline, with speed.”Leyva served as group president of Keurig Dr Pepper from 2020 to 2024 after the merger of Keurig Green Mountain and Dr Pepper Snapple Group. He said his favorite 7-Eleven product in Japan is the egg-salad sandwich, which the company is working to improve in the US as it seeks to expand its fresh food offerings and quality.

“I like to say we’re stealing with pride” from the Japanese business, Leyva told reporters in Tokyo Friday. “We need to make sure that those fundamentals of having cleanliness, of having the right safety, of having the right light and availability in store, etc., takes place.”Leyva said much of the North American growth plan will be funded by initiatives already generating returns, such as delivery services and more efficient fresh food operations.

“One of the things that we like most about Japan and that I’ve personally experienced is this attention to detail and focus on quality,” said Leyva. “That is something that we need to enhance and do better in North America.”