Activist investor Daniel Loeb, famously branded a carpet-bagger by actor George Clooney, has turned from bruiser to charmer in Japan, where he has added diversified retailer Seven & I Holdings to his portfolio.

Sources familiar with the situation say Loeb, 53, wants a management overhaul at Seven & I, which owns Sogo department stores and the 7-Eleven convenience chain, but in public the American has nothing but warm words for its 82-year-old chief executive, Toshifumi Suzuki.

"Mr. Suzuki instills a culture of singular focus on the customer and urgency to continually improve the company's best-in-class delivery systems and information technology," Loeb's Third Point hedge fund said last week in a newsletter announcing a new stake in the group.