Convenience stores are a part of the country’s culture, meaning that the foreign buyout（企業買収） bid for 7-Eleven, the largest chain, could be a hard sell in Japan.
By Kiuko Notoya and River Akira Davis
Aug. 26, 2024
Japan’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, is also its most famous.Credit...Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters
This week, Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese company that operates 7-Eleven, said it had received an unsolicited（未承諾の）takeover（経営権の獲得） proposal from Alimentation Couche-Tard, a convenience store giant in Canada.
The status of 7-Eleven stores as a cornerstone （土台）of Japanese society also means Japan probably will not be willing to part with （～を手放す）them, despite increasing pressure on the nation’s corporations to demonstrate openness to foreign-led （外国主導の）acquisitions（買収）.
7-Eleven is “one of the best brick-and-mortar（実店舗型の） retail businesses in the world,” said Hiroaki Watanabe, an independent retail analyst. Selling 7-Eleven to Couche-Tard would be, for Japan, “equivalent to Toyota becoming a foreign company,” he said.
Part of what distinguishes Japan’s 7-Eleven stores from convenience stores in America is the selection of fresh food on the shelves.Credit...Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg
In fact, 7-Eleven started out an American convenience store chain, operated by Southland Corporation, in Dallas in 1927. It opened its first store in Japan in 1974, featuring popular American items like hamburgers. It was an instant（瞬く間の） success in Japan and within two years had expanded to 100 stores.
In 1991, a Japanese supermarket operator, Ito-Yokado, and 7-Eleven Japan acquired 70 percent of Southland’s shares. In 2005, 7-Eleven became wholly Japanese-owned through a holding company, Seven & i.
Today, Seven & i has more than 21,000 7-Eleven stores in Japan and operates in 20 countries and territories. In the United States, Seven & i has been exploring ways to replicate（再現する） the much-coveted （待ち望まれている） Japanese convenience store experience. One possibility: Introduce ramen noodles.
In contrast to Japanese konbini stores, North American convenience stores are often seen as places for packaged snacks, drinks and, in many cases, gasoline. Couche-Tard, based in Quebec, operates many of these convenience stores in the United States under its Circle K brand.
The company runs more than 16,000 stores and gas stations in North America and Europe. Like Seven & i, the Canadian retailer has sought further growth abroad. In 2021, it tried to acquire the French grocery（食料品店） store operator Carrefour — an effort that regulators（規制当局） eventually shot down（却下された）.
Couche-Tard, a Canadian retailer, operates Circle K stores in the United States.Credit...Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto, via Associated Press
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