Takeshi Kaneko searched for nine years to find someone to take over the dried-food store his parents opened after they fled the rubble of Japan-occupied China at the end of World War II.
"I started thinking about it when I turned 60, since my three children are all girls and they left home when they got married," Kaneko, 71, said at his one-story shop in the city of Shizuoka. "We used to make so much money that we had to stuff ¥100 bills in hemp sacks to take home. But now our sales are only about an eighth of the old days."
After talking to local banks and getting no good leads, Kaneko tried a program run by the prefecture's chamber of commerce that helps business owners find successors and assists with the paperwork. He received 26 applications. Kaneko's choice: Kotomi Shinya, a 41-year-old woman who was interested in food retailing. Having worked with Kaneko and begun learning the ropes, Shinya says that she intends to buy the shop.