Struggling Daiei Inc. said Tuesday it will invite Yoshiharu Kawato from the Aeon supermarket chain to be its chairman as part of the business and capital alliance between the two retailers.
Kawato, currently a board member at Aeon Co. and president of affiliated company Aeon Mall will initially join Daiei as an adviser in April and then replace Fumiko Hayashi as Daiei chairman after a vote on the change at the general shareholders' meeting in May.
Daiei will also ask Akinori Yamashita, a managing director at Aeon, to become its adviser in April, but his final position, which must also be approved by the shareholders, has yet to be decided, the troubled retailer said.
Hayashi will become vice chairman and will no longer have the right to represent the company.
Toru Nishimi will stay on as president and be the only executive with the right to represent the company. Trading house Marubeni sent Nishimi to Daiei last year to become president after it took over Daiei's bailout.
"The new management will put our collaboration into shape and by learning Aeon's business expertise from (Kawato and Yamashita), we will speed up Daiei's rehabilitation, with the support of Aeon and Marubeni Corp.," Nishimi told reporters.
Daiei has been trying to turn around itself with the help of Marubeni, after collapsing in 2004. Marubeni is the biggest shareholder of Daiei, with a 44.6 percent stake.
Aeon, the nation's biggest supermarket chain, was picked last year to set up a business alliance to rehabilitate the struggling supermarket chain.