Daiei Inc. and its biggest shareholder, Marubeni Corp., said Friday they have picked Aeon Co., the nation's largest supermarket chain, to gather capital and organize business alliances to rehabilitate the struggling supermarket operator.
Aeon will begin negotiations on acquiring a 15 percent stake in Daiei from trading house Marubeni, which has a 44.6 percent stake, and on acquiring a stake of about 20 percent in grocery store chain Maruetsu Inc. from Daiei.
Maruetsu, owned 37.8 percent by Daiei and 30 percent by Marubeni, operates 193 supermarkets in the Tokyo metropolitan area. By investing in Maruetsu, Aeon, which has a retail network in the Jusco chain, will try to bolster its operations in an area where it has a small presence.