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The family that founded Seven & i has abandoned an attempted $58bn buyout of the Japanese convenience store group.
A group led by the Ito family was unable to secure financing, Seven & i said on Thursday. Shares in the company fell 12 per cent in Tokyo.
The decision leaves Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard, which has made an unsolicited $47bn offer for Seven & i, as the only known bidder for the group, which owns the 7-Eleven convenience store chains in the US, Japan and elsewhere.
If Couche-Tard does succeed in winning control of Seven & i, it will be the biggest takeover of a Japanese company.
The Ito family launched its effort to buy Seven & i and keep it under Japanese ownership in November, months after Couche-Tard made a first $39bn unsolicited bid.
However Seven & i said on Thursday that it had “received notification from Junro Ito, our executive vice-president and representative director, and Ito Kogyo Co that they are no longer able to secure the necessary financing to make a formal proposal to acquire the company”.
The statement came after Itochu, a Japanese trading house which owns rival convenience store chain FamilyMart, decided this week that it would not participate in the buyout, according to people familiar with the matter.
Itochu declined to comment. Its shares rose 6 per cent on Thursday.
The Ito family had been rushing to raise financing for the buyout and sounded out big Japanese banks, international private equity groups and other global financial institutions, including Apollo and Thailand’s CP Group.
Since Couche-Tard’s approach, Seven & i has set up a special committee to explore other options for its future, including a plan by its existing management to raise its value. The committee is expected to give recommendations ahead of Seven & i’s annual shareholders meeting in May.
Seven & i said it would “continue to evaluate and consider all strategic options, including the proposal from Alimentation Couche-Tard, to realise value for our shareholders”.
Couche-Tard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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