TOKYO - SoftBank Corp. and PayPay Corp. are considering acquiring a stake worth several hundred billion yen in Japanese convenience store operator Seven & i Holdings Co., sources familiar with the matter said Friday.
The move by the two companies, both subsidiaries of investment and technology giant SoftBank Group Corp., comes nearly a year after Canadian retailer Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. withdrew its takeover bid for the operator of the Seven-Eleven convenience store chain.
PayPay, the Japanese provider of a popular digital payment app, and telecommunications carrier SoftBank aim to expand their customer ecosystems, the sources said.
According to the sources, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group's credit card subsidiary, Sumitomo Mitsui Card Co., is also considering joining the deal. The three companies are in a tie-up for digital financial services.
There were about 22,000 Seven-Eleven stores across Japan as of the end of June. SoftBank sees an investment in the retailer as an opportunity to expand its telecommunications and financial services.
Seven & i's market capitalization on the Tokyo Stock Exchange stood at 5.2 trillion yen as of Friday.
Seven & i and Couche-Tard, the operator of the Circle K convenience store chain, had been in takeover talks for nearly a year. There were concerns that U.S. antitrust regulators could object to the deal because the Japanese company has the largest share of the U.S. convenience store market.
The talks collapsed, with the Canadian retailer citing a lack of constructive engagement.
