NAGOYA (Kyodo) An investment fund led by bureaucrat-turned-financier Yoshiaki Murakami suggested department store chain Matsuzakaya Co. fire all full-time employees and close some stores, sources said Thursday.
The Murakami Fund, as it is known, made the informal pitch after taking a 5.46 percent stake in Matsuzakaya last year, becoming its top shareholder, the sources said.
A senior Matsuzakaya official said the reforms presented by the fund "were totally unthinkable by anyone with common sense."
The suggestions were made when senior executives of the Nagoya-based chain paid a courtesy call on Murakami, the sources said.
The emporium chain did not view the exchange as an official request or proposal, and did not agree, they added.
But observers said the situation could change if the fund expands its stake.
Faced with poor earnings, Matsuzakaya closed two outlets in Osaka in 2004 and pulled the plug on operations in Paris in 2005.
But the firm began improving its earnings last year due partly to the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi Prefecture.
The Murakami Fund was the fourth-biggest Matsuzakaya shareholder at the end of August, with a stake of 3.14 percent.