THE POWER OF A GLOBAL BRAND HAS A HIGH VALUE.

disruptor module,” a group of young inventors who will work on the periphery to come up with new ideas.

Couche-Tard is already making big changes. Over the next few years, the retailer will spend “several hundred million dollars” to change the name of every Mac’s Milk and Becker’s in Ontario, every CST in Texas and every Statoil in Europe to one global brand: Circle K. (Stores in Quebec will remain Couche-Tard).

“We concluded that the power of a global brand has a high value,” Bouchard said.

He also notes that Couche-Tard now builds 600-square-metre stores, about twice the size of the typical corner store, in order to prepare and serve more food.

Head office in Laval will grow too, adding several hundred “high-level” employees in accounting, engineering and IT. In addition, anticipating that cities across Canada will soon ban car washing in driveways, Couche-Tard plans to rebuild 350 car washes at its stores across Canada.

Bouchard has already succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, but he wants more: specifically, he wants to grow the brand’s footprint in Asia.

“In Vietnam, we were the first to establish a modern network in Ho Chi Minh. It’s impressive how much the young Vietnamese adore our approach. If I was 30 years younger, I would move there to develop those countries.”

At age 67, he works out three mornings a week at his home in Lorraine, north of Montreal, with his personal trainer, Karine, and then commutes to head office in Laval. “I prefer to come to the office,” he said. “I think my wife prefers it, too.”

But one factor weighs on Bouchard. In the mid-1990s, Couche-Tard’s four founders — Bouchard, Jacques D’Amours, Richard Fortin and Réal Plourde — agreed that their multiple voting shares, which give them 10 votes for every share they hold, would expire when the last of them turns 65. That’s coming up in 2021.

Last year, the four wrote a resolution to change the corporate bylaws and make their multiple voting shares permanent, but backed off when they realized it would not pass.

Bouchard is determined to try again. This week he will visit Toronto, to tell institutional investors, such as Fidelity Investments Canada, that controlled companies perform better than those whose shares are widely held. “I have to take up my pilgrim’s staff and go explain myself,” he said.