Couche-Tard tests Japan’s foreign investment reforms with 7-Eleven bid

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Japanese merger experts believe the Circle K owner has a fighting chance at success in its bid for Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd.

had launched its historic bid for 7-Eleven just one year earlier or one year later, experts say, the Canadian convenience-store giant would likely have been quickly rebuffed by Japan’s notoriously protectionist foreign-takeover regime.representing the first test of new merger and acquisition guidelines that Tokyo issued late last year, Japanese merger experts believe the Laval, Que.-based Circle K owner has a fighting chance.Canadian entreaties to continue talks.

“Whether it was an international investor or even a Japanese investor, management often would not even really seriously consider the offer or even bring it to the board for discussion,” she said. “Now that approach has been clearly denied by the METI.” “This market has a tendency to prop up companies that have no prospects and are not dynamic because you couldn’t do unsolicited deals and foreign takeovers were so hard,” Mr. Carr said in an interview. “There are a lot of constituents in Japan that really want a foreign, unsolicited bid to succeed. People want to remove that label that Japanese protectionism would never let that happen.”

“It would be extremely easy for Japan to block this deal if it were the third unsolicited foreign takeover under the new guidelines and the first two went through,” Mr. Carr said. “This deal would have zero chance in my opinion if those were the facts, but the fact that this is the first one is what gives them a real chance.”

 

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Couche-Tard in acquisition talks with Japanese operator of 7-Eleven chainThe prospective deal for Seven & i Holdings Co. Ltd. would be the largest acquisition of a Japanese company by a foreign one in history
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