{"id":14110,"date":"2023-04-18T10:17:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T10:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/seven-i-holdings\/"},"modified":"2023-04-18T10:19:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T10:19:46","slug":"seven-i-holdings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/seven-i-holdings\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven & i Holdings opposes board nominees backed by ValueAct Capital"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese retail giant Seven & i Holdings Co will oppose all four board director candidates nominated by ValueAct Capital, it said on Tuesday, escalating its high-profile battle with the activist shareholder.<\/p>\n

“None of ValueAct’s nominees have experience in significant business transformations,” Seven & i said in a statement. The nominees included Dene Rogers, former executive at RadioShack and Sears, and Brittni Levinson, ValueAct’s sustainability chief.<\/p>\n

Frustrated with Seven & i’s conglomerate structure, ValueAct, which owns a 4.4% stake, is calling for a spin-off of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain and is seeking to replace four of the 14 board members at the annual meeting. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Seven & i’s board has agreed to reappoint 13 directors, including current President Ryuichi Isaka and two other directors that ValueAct wants to replace, the company said.<\/p>\n

“Our nominees have Japanese and international strategy experience and business execution experience through all business cycles,” the company said.<\/p>\n

In its presentation document, it called ValueAct’s spin-off proposals “short-sighted” and “based on superficial understanding” of its businesses, while stressing various steps it has taken such as the divestiture of the department store business.<\/p>\n

“Seven & i has been steadily evolving the business, achieving a significant transformation in recent years. ValueAct’s proposal would effectively halt this momentum,” it said.<\/p>\n

It also reiterated that the board would continue to review the optimal group structure and strategic alternatives including a possible initial public offering or a spin-off.<\/p>\n

In response, ValueAct criticised Seven & i management for avoiding fundamental strategic questions that stakeholders have asked for years. “Here, we have observed a troubling pattern of decisions to protect management’s status quo interests despite poor performance,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The U.S. investment fund has been invested in Seven & i and making proposals since 2021.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Mariko Katsumura and Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Kim Coghill and Susan Fenton)<\/p>\n

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TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese retail giant Seven & i Holdings Co will oppose all four board director candidates nominated by ValueAct Capital, it said on Tuesday, escalating its high-profile battle with the activist shareholder. “None of ValueAct’s nominees have experience in significant business transformations,” Seven & i said in a statement. The nominees included Dene Rogers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":14111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-14110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3H06F-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14110"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14396,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14110\/revisions\/14396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}