Mycal Corp. filed for protection from creditors with the Tokyo District Court on Friday, after Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, its biggest creditor, decided to cut off further financial support to the supermarket chain.
The collapse of Mycal, saddled with more than 1 trillion yen in group debts, is the largest failure of a company outside the financial sector since department store chain Sogo Co. went under in July 2000 with debts of some 1.87 trillion yen.
Under a three-year rehabilitation plan launched in January, Mycal had aimed to reduce its consolidated interest-bearing debts, which totaled 1.15 trillion yen as of the end of February, to 910 billion yen by the end of last month and to 750 billion yen by the end of February 2004.