Fighting a Canadian rival, the Japanese Mother of 7-Eleven announced a major business shock on Thursday that included the appointment of its first external chief executive.
Seven & I Holdings said that Stephen Dacus, 64, a member of the Board of Directors of the Company and the long retail executive from the United States, would take on the role in May. He also said he planned to maintain an initial public offer of her US comfort shop business, which operates more than 13,000 7-eleven branches in the country.
Movements are the company’s latest attempt to prevent it from being bought by the Alimention Couche-Ard retail group, the Canadian owner of the Circle K Convenience. That company has offered about $ 47 billion for seventh control, the largest bid led by foreigners for a Japanese company.
Japan’s corporate landscape, which in many ways withstood the change for decades, has begun to shift in the face of an influx of attention by foreign investors. Reorganization in seven & I, whose convenience shops are so ubiquitous in Japan that they are considered part of national infrastructure, is the last example of this transformation.
Investors activists have long pushed seven and I rotate his 7-year-old convenience shop business, arguing that it would improve the appreciation of the widespread retail group whose businesses went from supermarkets to exits selling things like writing and children’s goods.
Seven & I said on Thursday that it had reached an agreement to sell some of those suburban retail businesses in a unit of private capital capital giant for about 5.5 billion dollars. He also said he would aim to buy more than $ 13 billion worth its shares by the 2030 fiscal year to help increase their value.
“We are now in a critical inflation point,” Mr. Dacus at a press conference in Tokyo. With his latest restructuring efforts, he said, Seven & I aimed to be directed by a “general retailer” to a “global convenience shop champion” that would focus on bringing Japan’s quality food in foreign markets, including the United States.
Seven and I I O options to resist the purchase from the couch -ard are reduced. At the end of last month, an offer by Junro Ito, a son of Seven & I’s founder, to get it privately after he failed to secure the necessary funds.
Mr. Ito’s proposal had support from some within the upper ranks of the company that saw it as a way to hold 7-eleven in the hands of the Japanese. The belief was that a family -led foundation can help maintain a company culture that prioritizes values such as the quality and experience of the client over what it sees as the typical Western focus on the shareholder returns and great profits.
Couche-Ard has said he would respect and seek to learn from the seven methods of seventh functioning and I.
When Mr. Dacus goes into his new role, he will have to convince the shareholders that the new seventh & I structure and a leadership team led by him and others from existing management can promote growth without the need for a sale.
Seven and past leaders and its current chief, Ryuichi Isaka, have been Japanese leaders who rose in the inner ranks, while Mr. Dacus held high positions in a number of global brands.
Mr. Dacus, who speaks Japanese and English fluently, has also worked for years in the retail industry of Japan, including Stints in Uniqlo’s parent company and as chief executive of Walmart Japan. He often spoke during Thursday’s press conference about his experience to work at night at a 7-eleven, where his father was an exclusivity.
Under Mr. Isaaka, Seven & I tried to make myself more valuable by moving from subformer businesses to focus on 7-eleven stores in Japan and abroad. In October, the company announced plans to rotate its division of supermarkets and other suburban units into a separate holding company. He also set a target for the sale of approximately duplication of sales at about $ 200 billion by 2030.
However, in recent months, the business stores of the Seven & I have stuck in Japan. The situation has been worse in foreign markets like the United States. During the three months that ended in November, operating revenue from the seven & i business of external comfort shops dropped one -third a year ago.
Prior to her announcements on Thursday, the seventh shares had dropped more than 6 percent since the beginning of the week, when a Japanese media report said the company planned to refuse Couche-Ard. Seven & I denied the report and said Thursday that he was still engaging with the Canadian seller and taking into account his offer.
Poor growth and increased pressure from investors to negotiate an agreement with the couches-box had made the seven & I have increasingly regarded Mr. Dacus as a contender for high work in recent months. He had chaired the Independent Committee by assessing the couchy-box proposal, but said on Thursday that he would leave that role.