Walmart Inc said it is committed to building its Japanese business, downplaying media reports that the retailing giant plans to sell its Seiyu chain.
“Walmart has not made a decision to sell Seiyu; we are not in any discussions with prospective buyers,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “We continue to build our Japan business towards the future to meet the changing needs of customers there.”
The Nikkei Shimbun on Thursday reported that Walmart plans to sell Seiyu to several logistics companies and investment funds for as much as ￥500 billion (US$4.4 billion).
RESTRUCTURING
The world’s largest retailer has been reshaping its international operations. In recent months, it has sold a majority stake in its Brazilian business, agreed to cede control of its British chain Asda and spent US$16 billion to acquire India’s e-commerce leader Flipkart Group in its biggest-ever deal.
Judith McKenna, who took the helm of Walmart’s US$120 billion international business earlier this year, said during a press conference in late May that she was “happy” with Seiyu’s performance.
She added that the business was “in the middle of a transformation” with a bigger focus on grocery sales and the alliance with Rakuten Inc.
Separately, Walmart is considering moving its branded credit-card business to Capital One Financial Corp from Synchrony Financial as it seeks to expand its mobile payments offering, people familiar with the matter said.
Walmart has narrowed the competition for its credit-card partnership to bids from the two lenders, the people said.
WALMART PAY
The negotiations are still ongoing, but the retailer is seeking a partner that can support its aspirations for Walmart Pay, the people said.
Cobrand and private label credit cards are a lucrative business for banks and retailers seeking to monetize a cardholder’s loyalty to a certain brand or store.
The Walmart card is the largest program in the US up for renegotiation between this year and next year, analysts at Susquehanna Financial Group said.
“There’s a lot of appetite among banks in this area,” Susquehanna analyst Jamie Friedman said.
The lenders attach “scarcity value” to strong retailers such as Walmart, which is known for having a deep understanding of customers’ buying habits, he said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
In a small town in Paraguay, a showdown is brewing between traditional producers of yerba mate, a bitter herbal tea popular across South America, and miners of a shinier treasure: gold. A rush for the precious metal is pitting mate growers and indigenous groups against the expanding operations of small-scale miners who, until recently, were their neighbors, not nemeses. “They [the miners] have destroyed everything... The canals, springs, swamps,” said Vidal Britez, president of the Yerba Mate Producers’ Association of the town of Paso Yobai, about 210km east of capital Asuncion. “You can see the pollution from the dead fish.
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS