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(Bloomberg) -- Negotiations within the consortium proposing a ¥9 trillion ($60 billion) management buyout of Seven & i Holdings Co. have stalled over disagreements on who will control the 7-Eleven operator after it’s taken private, people familiar with the matter said.
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The founding Ito family and Itochu Corp. have yet to reach consensus on the composition of the board of the post-buyout entity, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The Nikkei newspaper reported that Itochu was set to pull out of the deal.
Talks are ongoing and may still yield a breakthrough. But if the buyout proposal fails to materialize, Seven & i Chief Executive Officer Ryuichi Isaka may have little choice but to enter negotiations with Circle-K operator Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which has proposed to take over the Japanese retailer at a valuation closer to $47 billion.
A representative for Itochu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach the Ito family didn’t elicit a response.
The Ito family and Itochu-led buyout proposal emerged in November to fend off Couche-Tard and keep Seven & i in Japanese hands. The heirs of the founder were set to contribute around ¥500 billion while trading house Itochu would put up more than ¥1 trillion, with the rest of funding coming from other strategic investors and financing from Japan’s top banks, people familiar with the plans had said.
Itochu has decided against joining the MBO as it might not bring sufficient synergies with its food business, the Nikkei newspaper reported Wednesday, without citing where it obtained the information. Even with Itochu’s withdrawal, the founding family will continue to raise funds, though it will be extremely difficult to achieve the goal to take Seven & I private by the annual shareholders’ meeting in May, it said.
Last month, Seven & i Chief Financial Officer Yoshimichi Maruyama said that a special board committee was still considering the takeover proposals by Couche-Tard and the founding Ito family, but didn’t have enough information to evaluate them. Seven & i’s management will decide what the best course of action will be, with an eye toward the shareholders’ meeting in May, the CFO said on Jan. 9.