THE JAPAN NEWS

 

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — FamilyMart Co. and retailer Uny Group Holdings Co. unified their operations under a joint holding company on Thursday.

The new company, FamilyMart Uny Holdings Co., hopes to reduce its procurement costs and brush up its product development capabilities.

In particular, the FamilyMart Uny group will strive to strengthen its convenience store operations, aiming to catch up with industry leader Seven-Eleven Japan Co., a unit of retail giant Seven & i Holdings Co.
The group now runs a total of some 18,000 convenience stores, ranking second after Seven-Eleven Japan.

Of some 6,250 Circle K and Sunkus brand convenience stores operated by Uny, about 1,000 unprofitable outlets will be consolidated. Other outlets will be converted to FamilyMart brand convenience stores by February 2019.

As of Thursday, two Circle K stores and one Sunkus outlet became FamilyMart stores.