By
Reuters
Published
Aug 11, 2009
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Aeon to buy Mitsubishi's TV shopping unit

By
Reuters
Published
Aug 11, 2009

TOKYO, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Japan's second-largest retailer, Aeon Co Ltd (8267.T), said on Tuesday 11 August it will buy Mitsubishi Corp's (8058.T) TV shopping unit as it seeks to expand beyond bricks-and-mortar stores.


www.Aeon.info

Aeon will acquire a majority stake in Digital Direct Inc, which also runs catalogue-order and online shopping operations. Aeon did not disclose the terms of the deal.

Japan's top trading house Mitsubishi owns a 5 percent stake in Aeon, operator of the Jusco supermarket chain, as part of an alliance agreed last year.

Aeon, which runs 600 supermarkets, 1,200 grocery stores and thousands of specialty stores, said it expects to boost Digital Direct's sales to 10 billion yen ($103 million) for the year ending in March 2012, while the shopping company is likely to post 5.2 billion yen in sales this financial year.

Aeon said the acquisition would help it build non-store sales channels, which are expected to grow as Japan's population ages.

($1=96.99 Yen)

(Editing by Joseph Radford) (Reporting by Taiga Uranaka, Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore)

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