A Canadian company seeking to buy Seven & I Holdings, which owns 7-Eleven, did not immediately reply to a bold and blunt rejection of its $39 billion offer.

The letter turning down Alimentation Couche-Tard’s proposal was delivered to the prospective acquirer and made public on Friday morning. By the afternoon, no response had been received from the potential buyer, according to Kunihiro Okada, a public relations official at Seven & I.

Okada said a special committee formed to consider the bid had had ongoing communications with Couche-Tard, including a number of discussions, and the last phone call with the company was on the same day the letter was sent, which was Thursday in Canada.