[ad_1]
The Japanese conglomerate’s founder died last year at the age of 98, with a net worth of $5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His son, Junro Ito, is executive vice president and sits on the board.
Bouchard and Jacques D’Amore, the co-founder of Couche-Tard, have built multimillion-dollar fortunes in the retail business, with net worths of $7.9 billion and $3.9 billion, respectively, according to the Bloomberg Wealth Index. The company has grown from a single location in a Montreal suburb that Bouchard opened in 1980 to more than 16,700 stores worldwide through a flurry of deals that saw it acquire competitors including U.S. department store chain Circle K.
Alimentation Couche-Tard CEO Alain Bouchard was the first to approach 7-Eleven about acquiring it in 2005. credit: Reuters
Activist pressure
The late Ito, who was born in 1924, expanded his small family store into one of Japan's largest retailers, and successfully took the 7-Eleven convenience store chain global.
Sometimes called Japan's Sam Walton, Ito was known for his decentralized business style, influenced by his long friendship with famed management consultant Peter Drucker, who once described Ito as “one of the world's preeminent entrepreneurs and business builders.”
The company's empire now extends to 85,000 grocery stores, gas stations and retail outlets around the world.
The company also plays a major role in Japan, providing essential services including food and water delivery in times of disasters such as earthquakes, Cawston added.
“Seven & I is not just a retailer; it is part of the backbone of Japan's emergency response services. So I don't see the government supporting a foreign takeover in this case,” he said.
Until recently, the company had been making its own acquisitions. In 2020, Seven & i agreed to buy about 3,900 Speedway gas stations and convenience stores from U.S.-based Marathon Petroleum Corp. for $21 billion, its largest deal ever at the time.
Seven & i has been under pressure from activist fund ValueAct Capital Management LP over perceptions that its assets could be worth more and to narrow its focus on 7-Eleven stores.
download
“The company may be working harder to improve the business to prove it is the better owner,” Macquarie analysts Natsuko Douglas and Linda Huang wrote in a note, after recent weak sales. “Management appears to be making efforts to improve these numbers.”
Foreign takeovers of Japanese companies are extremely rare, but recent changes in merger guidelines, as well as activist investors pushing companies to boost their value, could open the door to a deal that would create a global retail giant.
Masatoshi Ito's heirs own the majority of Seven & i shares through an investment company that does not disclose individual ownership. Ito and his wife Nobuko have three children — Yasuhisa, Hisako and Junro.
[ad_2]
Source