Central Retail Corporation (CRC) plans to rebrand its convenience store chain Tops Daily into FamilyMart and develop the brand to 1500 store-network in five years.
The move follows Central Retail’s 50.29 per cent stake acquisition of Siam FamilyMart, which operates 746 FamilyMart stores in Thailand, for 7.8 billion yen (3.12 billion baht or US$100 million).
Japan-based FamilyMart owns 48.20 per cent stake in Siam FamilyMart and the remaining 1.51 per cent is held by Robinson and Itochu.
“Tops Daily will be gradually transformed into FamilyMart, as the Japanese convenience store has a stronger brand,” said CRC CEO Tos Chirathivat. “We are also considering a franchise system for the store expansion.”
CRC, which operates 119 Tops Daily stores, has earmarked 2-3 billion baht (US$64.8 million–US$97.3 million) for its five-year expansion of the chain.
FamilyMart Japan president and CEO Junji Ueda said FamilyMart’s speedy expansion ambition is now realisable now that CRC owns a controlling stake in Siam FamilyMart.
CRC wants to take the number of FamilyMarts in Thailand to 3000 by 2022.
FamilyMart Japan aims to create a global network of 25,000 stores by 2015 and 40,000 by 2020 from an existing network of 21,222 stores.
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