KKR Mulling Joining Seven & i Bid by Founding Family

Economy

Tokyo, Feb. 3 (Jiji Press)--U.S. investment fund KKR is considering investing in Seven & i Holdings Co. as part of a plan by the founding family of the Japanese retailer to acquire Seven & i, people familiar with the matter said Monday.

KKR and several other investment funds, including U.S. fund Apollo Global Management Inc., may take part in the bid from the founding family, which also has asked Japanese trading house Itochu Corp. and Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group to joint it.

The founding family last year offered to acquire Seven & i and take it private to counter a proposal by Canadian convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. to buy the Japanese retailer for around 7 trillion yen.

An acquisition of Seven & i, which owns the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, is expected to cost up to 9 trillion yen. Attention is focused on whether the founding family will be able to secure the massive funds for this.

The founding family aims to secure about 4 trillion yen in investments, including about 1.5 trillion yen from funds, roughly 1 trillion yen from Itochu and several hundred billion yen from CP Group as well as its own investment.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

Jiji Press