Southland Corp. Sells Part of Firm

Southland Corp., parent company of 7-Eleven convenience stores, has sold part of the company to a group of outside investors and switched investment bankers, documents outlining the company’s $4.9-billion debt-financed restructuring show.

The documents disclose that Southland, which struggled to complete financing for the deal last December, dumped the investment banking firms of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Salomon Brothers Inc., in favor of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., the leading underwriter of high-yield “junk bond” securities that play an important role in many debt-restructurings.

The documents, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, show Southland seeks to reduce interest expenses by exchanging new debt securities for nearly $1 billion in existing securities with yields of 18%.