OSAKA (Kyodo) Daiei Inc. founder Isao Nakauchi has been undergoing medical treatment since suffering a stroke late last month, the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences said Wednesday.
Nakauchi, 83, former chairman of the retail giant, collapsed after he left the Kobe-based university Aug. 26, the university said.
He had been serving as the head of Nakauchi Gakuen, an educational corporation that runs the university, since he gave up the right to represent any of the companies in the Daiei group in 2001.
Nakauchi, once dubbed the king of Japan's retail business, established the first Daiei store in the city of Osaka in 1957.
Daiei, which became Japan's biggest retailer in terms of sales in 1972, is now in rehabilitation under the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan. Nakauchi has been blamed for turning the Daiei group into a debt-ridden retailer through aggressive business expansion during the years of the bubble economy.