Kozo Yamashita, president of the failed supermarket chain Mycal Corp., said Friday he expects a sponsor for the company's rehabilitation to take over its 100 profitable outlets.
Mycal has 164 stores nationwide and sales at the 100 profitable ones total around 800 billion yen, showing a pretax profit of 20 billion yen, he said at a news conference in Tokyo.
Yamashita said he hopes the chain will be able to retain employees and suppliers under the reconstruction program.
Takashi Ejiri, a lawyer for Mycal, told the same news conference that it is likely the company will sell off outlets to several sponsors if the deal improves its ability to pay off debts.
The Osaka-based retailer filed for court protection from creditors last week with 1.74 trillion yen in group liabilities, making it one of the biggest corporate failures in Japan.