Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire who sold his online apparel company to Masayoshi Son and is preparing to ride around the moon on Elon Musk’s spacecraft, jumped back into the country’s business scene Thursday with a set of unlikely bets on brick-and-mortar clothing retailers.
In a set of filings, Maezawa disclosed stakes making him the third-largest shareholder in fashion retailers United Arrows Ltd. and Adastria Co. The holdings are worth a combined ¥7.6 billion ($71 million).
While the stock purchases were for investment purposes, Maezawa may also "give advice or make proposals to management to improve enterprise value if needed, assuming a friendly relationship can be created with management,” the filings said.