What is a guarantee? Describe the nature of the guarantees that Couche-Tard has?

Under what circumstances are guarantees reported as liabilities? If a guarantee isn’t reported as a liability, why are they reported in the notes to the financial statements?

Is information about guarantees useful to stakeholders? Explain.

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. (Couche-Tard) is a Canadian convenience store operator with a network of over 2,000 stores:in Canada and more than 3,000 stores in the U.S. Over 3,600 of the total number are company-operated and the rest operate under an affiliate program. The company sells fuel in 65 percent of its company-operated stores. The stores are primarily operated under the Couche-Tard and Mac’s trademarks in Canada and the Circle K trademark in the U.S.
In addition to the North American Couche-Tard network, there are approximately 3,500 Circle K-licensed stores in other parts of the world."
Couche-Tard’s consolidated balance sheets and statements of earnings as well as extracts from the statements of cash flows and notes to the financial statements from its 2009 annual report are provided in Exhibit 9.11.'

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EXHIBIT 9.11 Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc.: Extracts from the Financial Statements CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS as at April 26, 2009 and April 27, 2008 (in millions of US dollars (Note 2)) Assets Current assets Cash and cash equivalents Accounts receivable (Note 10) Inventories (Note 11) Prepaid expenses Future income taxes (Note 7) Property and equipment (Note 12) Goodwill (Note 13) Trademarks and licenses Other assets (Note 14) Future income taxes (Note 7) 2009 2008 173.3 216.0 225.4 251.7 400.3 444.5 8.5 8.3 37.0 24.7 844.5 945.2 1,789.4 1,748.3 384.8 402.6 172.0 170.3 60.7 53.3 4.5 0.9 3,255.9 3,320.6 Liabilities Current liabilities Accounts payable and accrued liabilities (Note 15) 758.1 842.7 Income taxes payable (Note 7) 26.3 18.6 Current portion of long-term debt (Note 16) 3.9 1.2 Future income taxes (Note 7) 0.7 789.0 862.5 Long-term debt (Note 16) Deferred credits and other liabilities (Note 17) Future income taxes (Note 7) 745.3 841.0 259.0 253.8 136.6 109.6 1,929.9 2,066.9