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Seven-Eleven is the world’s largest convenience store chain.
The owner of 7-Eleven sent shock waves in Japan this week when he announced that he had received a takeover bid from a Canadian rival.
A Japanese company of this size has never been acquired by a foreign company before.
Historically, Japanese companies have had a strong tendency to acquire overseas companies.
Seven-Eleven is the world’s largest convenience store chain, with 85,000 stores across 20 countries and regions.
And in places where such food is already plentiful, such as Japan and Thailand, it has been particularly successful in marketing itself as a cheap, convenient and tasty dining option.
“We have more stores than McDonald’s or Starbucks,” Seven & i Holdings Chief Executive Ryuichi Isaka told BBC News before the company received the takeover bid.
About a quarter of the 85,000 stores are in Japan, with about 10,000 in the United States.
Big players
By comparison, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard, which operates the Circle K chain, has about 17,000 stores in 31 countries and territories, with more than half of its stores in North America.
Before news of the bid broke, Seven & i was valued at more than $30 billion (£23 billion).
7-Eleven shares surged more than 20% on Monday, only to give up some of those gains the next day.
Analysts say Seven & i’s more affordable products are partly due to the weakness of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar and other major currencies.
Manoj Jain of Hong Kong-based hedge fund Maso Capital said the weak yen, along with efforts by the Japanese government to encourage mergers and acquisitions, appear to be working.
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Alimentation Couche-Tard operates the Circle K chain
Seven-Eleven is keen to capitalise on the popularity of its food products, which range from rice balls, sandwiches, ready-made pasta, fried chicken and dumplings.
In much of the world, convenience stores are the place to buy chocolate or potato chips in an emergency, but in Japan, stores like 7-Eleven are popular with tourists looking for tasty food.
These dishes from 7-Eleven have made the chain a hot topic on social media in Asia.
A stop at a 7-Eleven has also been promoted as one of the top things to do in Thailand, and its ham and cheese toastie has become a hit on TikTok.
British singer Ed Sheeran is one of the celebrities who helped raise awareness of 7-Eleven after he went viral after being seen sampling snacks he bought at a store in Thailand.
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The company has been under pressure from investors to sell some businesses and focus on the 7-Eleven brand, but Isaka has been aiming to replicate that success in the U.S. and European markets.
The company has been updating its strategy to allow more stores to follow the approach of its Japanese stores.
“We found that stores that sell fresh food attract more shoppers,” Isaka said.
“We’re not just looking to grow in volume, we’re looking to grow in quality. We want to satisfy our customers and increase sales at each store as we expand the number of stores,” he added.
American Roots
Seven & i is also on a shopping spree: in January it bought more than 200 US stores from petrol station chain Sunoco for around $1bn (£770m).
The company bought back more than 750 stores from Australian franchisees in April.
For most of its nearly century-long history, 7-Eleven has been an American brand.
The company began in 1927 by selling blocks of ice used to keep refrigerators cool, and later expanded to include other household essentials such as eggs, milk, and bread.
At the time, stores were open from 7am to 9pm, hence the name.
Seven & i Holdings
The first 7-Eleven opened in Texas in 1927.
As business expanded, 7-Eleven began offering franchises outside the United States.
In 1974, Japanese retailer Ito-Yokado signed a deal to open the country’s first 7-Eleven stores. In 1991, the company acquired a 70 percent stake in 7-Eleven’s U.S. parent company.
Ito-Yokado founder Masatoshi Ito, who died in 2023 at the age of 98, was highly praised for transforming 7-Eleven into a global empire.
Ito-Yokado was renamed Seven & i Holdings in 2005, with the “i” in the name paying tribute to Ito-Yokado and to Ito, who was the company’s honorary chairman at the time.
Now, as the company tries to decide whether to remain Japanese-owned or return to its North American roots, experts are wondering whether more large Japanese companies could become takeover targets.
“Japanese boards and management teams are increasingly open to foreign capital and open to foreign approaches,” Jain said.
He added that this may encourage more foreign investors to pursue interest in Japanese companies.