From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Masatoshi Ito, 98, the King of Convenience Stores in Japan, Dies   
   By Ben Dooley, March 13, 2023, NY Times   
      
   TOKYO — Masatoshi Ito, who built a Japanese retail empire and helped   
   fundamentally change the country’s consumer culture with the introduction   
   there of the American convenience store 7-Eleven, died on Friday. He was 98.   
      
   Seven & I Holdings, the company he founded, which acquired majority control of   
   7-Eleven, confirmed the death in a statement on Monday. It did not say where   
   he died.   
      
   Mr. Ito’s experience in retail started with a family-owned clothing store in   
   Tokyo. He then founded Ito-Yokado, a chain of grocery stores that became the   
   foundation for one of the world’s most valuable retail empires, earning him   
   the admiration of    
   management gurus at home and abroad.   
      
   Perhaps his greatest contribution to modern Japan began in 1973, when a young   
   executive persuaded him to bring 7-Eleven to the country. Starting with a   
   single store in Tokyo, the deal he struck with the chain’s owners, the   
   Dallas-based Southland    
   company, launched a revolution in Japanese retailing that would transform   
   everything from the way companies moved their products to the way people eat.   
      
   The company’s introduction of the ready-to-eat rice ball to store shelves in   
   1978 made that humble snack into a central part of the country’s fast food   
   culture.   
      
   In the decades that followed, 7-Eleven and its imitators would open tens of   
   thousands of convenience stores across Japan, providing a wide range of goods   
   and services. The shops — open 24 hours a day, every day of the year —   
   became so integral to    
   daily life that the government declared them part of the national   
   infrastructure.   
      
   Under Mr. Ito, 7-Eleven Japan quickly outgrew its progenitor, Southland. In   
   1991, Ito-Yokado purchased a controlling stake in the American retailer,   
   making it a Japanese company.   
      
   But that success quickly soured into scandal, and Mr. Ito stepped down in 1992   
   in response to accusations that Ito-Yokado had paid off Japanese racketeers   
   who had threatened to disrupt its annual meetings.   
      
   Mr. Ito later became honorary chairman of 7-Eleven’s holding company, Seven   
   & I, where he continued to have significant influence on the company’s   
   operations. Today there are more than 80,000 7-Elevens worldwide, with more   
   than 21,000 in Japan.   
      
   Masatoshi Ito was born on April 30, 1924, in Tokyo to Senzo and Yuki Ito, who   
   ran a dry goods shop called Yokado.   
      
   In 1944, fresh out of high school, Mr. Ito spent a brief period in the   
   Japanese military and at a Japanese company before joining Yokado, which he   
   took over in 1956 after the death of his older brother. In 1958, he founded   
   the company that would go on to    
   become Ito-Yokado and, in 2005, Seven & I.   
      
   In 1961, as Japan continued to recover from the destruction of WWII, Mr. Ito   
   traveled to the United States and there “experienced a kind of cultural   
   shock at how rich everybody seemed,” he said in a 1988 interview with The   
   Journal of Japanese Trade    
   and Industry. He added, “I became particularly conscious of the sheer size   
   of America’s consumer society and the distribution techniques that made it   
   all possible.”   
      
   Convinced that Japan would soon follow the same development path, Mr. Ito   
   devoted himself to building a chain of supermarkets inspired by the American   
   model. He began making regular trips to the U.S., and by the 1970s Ito-Yokado   
   had become one of Japan’   
   s top retailers, going public in 1972.   
      
   But the company’s fate changed forever the next year, when a young   
   executive, Toshifumi Suzuki, traveled to the U.S. in search of new business   
   opportunities. Convinced that smaller shops like 7-Eleven could be the future   
   of Japanese retail, he talked    
   Mr. Ito into taking a gamble on the operation. They opened a small shop in   
   Tokyo’s Toyosu neighborhood in 1974.   
      
   Before long, stores began opening up all over Japan, introducing new ideas   
   about how to run retail operations, including the use of franchising to expand   
   market share and instituting 24-hour operations.   
      
   By the late 80s, Ito-Yokado had become a Japanese business empire with super   
   stores, department stores, a nationwide chain of Denny’s restaurants and   
   more than 4,000 7-Elevens, all generating over $12 billion in annual sales.   
      
   In 1989, 7-Eleven Japan took over operations of franchises in Hawaii — a   
   popular destination for Japanese tourists, many of whom expressed disappointed   
   that the American stores were not up to snuff in comparison with Japan’s   
   outlets.   
      
   A little over a year later, as 7-Eleven’s American owner, Southland, faced   
   financial collapse, Ito-Yokado struck a $430 million deal to purchase 70   
   percent of the company. Mr. Ito wanted to buy the operation because he feared   
   that the company’s    
   management, which he viewed as shoddy, would damage the brand in Japan, he   
   told Nikkei Business in a 1996 interview.   
      
   The victory, however, was short-lived. In 1992, Mr. Ito announced he was   
   stepping down as Ito-Yokado’s president after three executives at the   
   company were accused of providing payoffs to corporate shakedown artists who   
   had threatened to disrupt the    
   company’s annual meeting, a common racket at the time.   
      
   Replaced by his protégé, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Ito stayed out of the public view   
   for several years before re-emerging in the late 1990s, when he was appointed   
   Ito-Yokado’s honorary chairman. In 2005, the company became Seven & I,   
   combining the convenience    
   store’s name with the first initial of its predecessor. Mr. Ito remained   
   honorary chairman until his death.   
      
   Information about his survivors was not immediately available.   
      
   Reflecting on his success in the 1988 interview with The Journal of Japanese   
   Trade and Industry, Mr. Ito displayed a disarming modesty.   
      
   “I am frequently asked if I succeeded because of hard work or because I was   
   just lucky,” he said. “The answer is some of both.”   
      
   https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/13/business/masatoshi-ito-dead.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)