Wal-Mart is in Japan. I couldn’t believe it and recently I’ve spotted the “GreatValue” brand that’s owned by Wal-Mart in a few grocery stores here. Sure the brand is generic but they sure do rack the price up here in Japan vs. the United States GreatValue price (uber lame!). I just read that Wal-Mart got into the Japan market back in 2002 and owns 50.9% of the struggling Japanese copmany Seiyu. Wal-Mart said it would offer 140 yen per Seiyu common share with the goal of taking full ownership of this drowning company. That would be about $878 Million. Let’s convert to yen as of the current currency conversion rate…
878,000,000 in USD would be 100,495,879,196 Yen. That’s why the Yen is so cool when you’re an American… it sounds like a shit load of money. 10 dollars? Oh hellz no! 1,000 Yen! That’s where it’s at!
About Seiyu:
Seiyu Group is a Japanese operator of supermarkets, shopping centers, and department stores. In addition to its Japanese operations, Seiyu also has department stores operating under its name in Singapore and Hong Kong. The group used to directly operate its Singapore and Hong Kong stores, but in October 2005 its three Singapore stores were sold to CapitaLand Limited, which transferred them to Beijing Hualian Group later the same year. The group’s Hong Kong store in New Town Plaza, Sha Tin was sold to Sun Hung Kai Properties Limited in June 2005, but like the stores in Singapore it continues to operate under the Seiyu name.
According to BusinessWeek Online, Wal-Mart, the giant American retailer, bought a 37 percent stake in Seiyu in 2002, and according to a company press release, in late 2005 Wal-Mart acquired a majority stake in the company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiyu_Group
Read more about this at…
MSNBC.com
BloomBerg
CNNMoney
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