Itochu Corp. said Wednesday it plans to acquire the entire stake in FamilyMart Co. through a tender offer as part of efforts to overcome tough competition in the retail business.

By delisting FamilyMart, Itochu hopes to speed up decision-making at Japan's second-biggest convenience store chain and boost its profitability by making it use more of the trading house's international procurement networks.

Itochu, which currently has a 50.1 percent stake in the convenience store chain, will spend about 580 billion yen ($5.39 billion) to acquire the remaining stake. It is offering 2,300 yen per share in the tender offer from Thursday through Aug. 24.

After acquiring all shares in FamilyMart, Itochu plans to sell stakes totaling 4.9 percent to Japan Agricultural Cooperatives and Norinchukin Bank for about 57 billion yen.

The agricultural cooperatives, known as JA, plan to sell farm products at the around 16,000 FamilyMart outlets in the country.

Separately, the convenience store operator reported a 71.5 percent fall in its group net profit to 5.79 billion yen in the first quarter through May, citing a government advisory for people to stay at home as much as possible to curb the spread of the COVID-19 respiratory disease as the cause of its sluggish performance.

The company said sales declined 15.9 percent to 111.76 billion yen in the first three months of its business year ending February 2021.

For the current fiscal year, the company now expects its net profit to rise 37.8 percent to 60 billion yen on revenue of 460 billion yen, down 11.0 percent from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, Aeon Co., another retail giant, said the same day it incurred a consolidated net loss of 53.97 billion yen in the March-May period.

==Kyodo

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