TOKYO/BANGKOK (Jan 30): The founding family of Japan's Seven & i is asking Thailand's Charoen Pokphand (CP) Group to invest in a management buyout of the Japanese retailing giant, national broadcaster NHK reported on Thursday.

The founding family is in talks to take Seven & i private through a management buyout to fend off a US$47 billion (RM208.93 billion) takeover from Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard.

CP is the latest candidate approached by the family to support its takeover effort, which values the sprawling convenience store conglomerate at an estimated US$58 billion, and would be the largest management buyout in Japanese history should it go ahead.

The proposed CP investment would be in the order of hundreds of billions of yen and negotiations to determine the figure are ongoing, NHK said.

Seven & i declined to comment on the report. A representative of CP Group said they do not comment on speculation.

The Thai retail and food group, which operates 12,000 7-Eleven stores in Thailand, follows Japanese trading house Itochu and US asset manager Apollo Global Management as potential partners the family has reportedly sounded out as sources of funding.

The move would keep Seven & i's current management in place and relieve pressure to offload unprofitable assets, although some analysts have said it may be intended to induce a higher bid from Couche-Tard.

Seven & i has been under pressure from shareholders in recent years to divest its varied non-core assets, which span supermarkets, speciality stores and restaurant franchises.

In October, it announced the establishment of a holding company set to house 31 of its subsidiaries, and sources have told Reuters that US private equity powerhouses KKR and Bain Capital each bid more than US$5 billion for the spin out.

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