After months of negotiations, the fate of Nissan has been determined. Seven & I Holdings, the parent company of convenience store chain 7-Eleven, will own a controlling stake in the 91-year-old carmaker. “We welcome Nissan into our family of brands, and are excited to move into the automotive space,” said Seven & I president Ryuichi Isaka.
“Car enthusiasts love taking photos in front of our stores and posting them on social media,” said 7-Eleven head of communications Jarissa Marratt. “So we knew there was a potential business opportunity there. We made some T-shirts to celebrate that, and they sold like hot foods. We also did some deals with diecast car manufacturers for branded merch, but now we get to own an actual car manufacturer.”
Parent company Seven & I is a Japanese diversified retail holdings company that has owned several well-known Japanese retail chains, including 7-Eleven convenience stores globally and Ito Yokado grocery stores in Japan. Earlier this month, it sold its grocery and specialty store division, which includes Denny’s Japan restaurants, to private equity firm Bain Capital for $5.6 billion.
“Yeah, they’re probably going to strip those brands for parts like they did with Toys R Us,” said former toy retailer spokesperson Geoffrey Raffe. “It’s not clear how all this corporate shuffling will help consumers.”
When asked how 7-Eleven will build synergies between its stores and Nissan, a representative replied, “We’re not sure yet, maybe a Slurpee Edition car in pink and blue. We’ve also explored how to adjust the speed of our hot dog rollers with Nissan’s continuously variable transmission technology.”
Honda, which had been in talks to merge with Nissan, announced it had plans to purchase competing convenience store chain Lawson.
This is just nuts enough, I hope they succeed. Whatever happens, I pray they won’t ruin the combini stores, especially in Japan. I’m hungry for some hot chikuwa now…
You know the coffee they serve you when you go to the car dealership?
Starting now, Nissan dealerships will offer 7-Eleven chicken fillet to all visitors!
You know the world is upside down when I saw this and thought “you know, it’s not the craziest or worst idea I’ve seen today.” I was halfway to believing it until I remembered the date.
But honestly, could 7-11 run Nissan any worse than the current management?
While today maybe April 1 (sorry if I have not mentioned 1 April), which is April fools’ day, I think Seven and I (spelled as Seven & I) having an involvement in buying Nissan’s shares just as Honda already announced plans to acquire stakes in Lawson may even sound like as an old-fashioned yet backwards thing, similarly, non-automotive-focused companies in the past like Sears did cars by rebadging and remodeling a Fiat 128 Coupe as an electric car for itself (Sears) whereas Bridgestone sold and manufactured motorcycles by itself before ending it between 1969 and 1970 – notably Bridgestone’s fellow tire company Michelin had owned Citroen before the latter was sold to Peugeot in 1974.
Speaking of that, as I may find it not or little interesting (as well as not or little passionate) about seeing / expecting one retail company (7 & I / 7 and I) taking over (mainly shares in) a car manufacturer (Nissan / Mitsubishi), then given that Honda’s and Nissan’s attempt to merge with each other have already been perished. As I also know that there’s even sense of nothingness and lack of interest(s) in Japanese carmakers even before and after Korean war, Vietnam war and Yugoslav war that mentally-wise, which may also suggests that people (especially from / in United States of America and rest of Asia / Oceania for ex.) deeply and honestly overlook a couple of carmakers that are still running alive while each of them are profoundly and sincerely ignored by the same people and vice versa (VV) like Renault Group (which is known for Nissan since 1999), PSA Peugeot Citroen / Fiat SpA (now doing business as Stellantis) and others (especially with those marques being European origins while they are unless not from Germany plus Opel / Vauxhall of UK) – in that case who needs a Nissan and a Honda when there’s (for examples) Alfa Romeo (AR), Maserati, Jeep, Peugeot, Renault (of course who needs N formerly Datsun and Japanese H), Volvo etc. already?
As an idea of having Toyota to opt itself for buying shares in Honda just as in favor of having both (Toyota and Honda) to acquire shares in Renault Group and Stellantis would rather be considered as better off amazing as it would only just have one like Honda and Nissan to meet the same fate as the already-bankrupt Rootes Group (Singer, Humber, Hillman, Commer, Karrier) later Chrysler Europe aka Chrysler UK (Simca), which was taken over by PSA and liquidated it afterwards between 1978 and 1979, then it may suggest that Honda and Nissan would go out of business for good (riddance) like Chrysler’s former European operations were after being purchased and liquidated by the French lion. One interesting but uncomfortable thing to expect that a Toyota-Honda-Renault-Stellantis Quadruple Entente would even have Exor NV in it and thus have Ferrari, Iveco and even the rest like Juventus FC and The Economist (both are also owned by Exor / Agnelli) involved into that kind of (hypothetically-speaking mainly) automotive partnership to fight Hyundai / Kia – I remember how one Simpsons episode has Hyundai being mistakened as Honda (whose emblems are instead marked in a blue Datsun Maxima given the grille and headlights) and even knew already that Toyota may opt to protect / use Honda, Renault and former PSA / Fiat Chrysler as lines of defense against Hyundai Motor Group for ex. (Because Trump already implemented tarrifs recently, but of course, please see Scotty Kilmer’s YouTube video on how Toyota and Honda would partner with each other.)
Stop it …
April 1.
HAHA!
Lawson is kind of the Honda of Konbini if you think about it…
I had my money on KFC.
Gimme dat Nissan Bluebird KF-C in zinger red with a gravy-brown leather interior please!
Almost convinced but remembered me and my wife both exclaimed “Rabbit Rabbi, ot’s Aprilt!” when we woke up this morning. Laff….
Its a bit like Putin’s merger with Ukraine.
I thought Nissin transportation, or Nissin noodles bought Nissan.
And hired Hussien as CEO.
Just another dot.son merger I wrecking.
Had me going there for a moment, but y’know, it’s 2025, crazier things have happened that no-one had on their dystipia bingo card.