Trial, a discount store operator based in the Kyushu region, said Wednesday that it will acquire supermarket operator Seiyu.
Trial plans to buy all of Seiyu's outstanding shares from their current owners, including U.S. investment fund KKR, for ¥380 billion in July to make the firm a wholly owned subsidiary.
Trial currently plans to retain Seiyu's company name and staff.
With the acquisition, the number of the Trial group's stores will reach 585, and annual sales are expected to expand to about ¥1.2 trillion ($8 billion).
Seiyu's stores are mainly located in the Kanto and Chubu regions, where Trial has relatively few stores. "Seiyu is the perfect partner," Ryota Ishibashi, president of Trial, said at a press conference in Tokyo, noting that the two sides can complement each other.
"We want to take a major role in future industry realignment," Ishibashi also said.
Seiyu became a fully owned subsidiary of U.S. retail giant Walmart in 2008. In 2021, KKR acquired a 65% stake in Seiyu from Walmart, while what is now Rakuten Group acquired a 20% stake.
In 2023, Rakuten Group sold all of its Seiyu shares to KKR, increasing KKR's stake to 85%. Walmart owns the remaining 15%.
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