Japanese owner of 7-Eleven receives takeover approach from Canadian rival

Good morning. Today we’re covering:

• Beijing’s latest restrictions on investment data

• The hurdles ahead for Kamala Harris

• The western airlines slashing flights to China

But we start in Tokyo, where the Japanese owner of 7-Eleven has received a takeover approach from Canadian convenience store rival Alimentation Couche-Tard, which controls the Circle K brand.

Couche-Tard’s approach to Seven & i Holdings follows more than a year of on-off talks between the two retailers and is the biggest foreign-led takeover attempt to target a Japanese company.

Seven & i’s shares rose 22 per cent yesterday, pushing the market capitalisation of the company to $38bn.

In a statement, Seven & i said it had set up a special committee of non-executive board directors to examine the proposal from Couche-Tard, which seeks to acquire all its outstanding shares.

The approach is the first to fully exploit recent changes in M&A guidelines to make it harder for Japanese company managements to ignore unsolicited or unwanted offers.

Seven & i has for some months been working to fortify itself against what it saw as the rising threat of a foreign-led acquisition, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. David Keohane and Leo Lewis have more details.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Hong Kong publishes its consumer price index for July.

• Monetary policy: The People’s Bank of China makes its loan prime rate announcement and Australia’s central bank release the minutes of its August policy meeting.

• US presidential election: The first day of the Democratic National Convention will be capped off with a speech from President Joe Biden (Monday evening local time).

Thanks for reading FirstFT. Do you have burning questions about the news, or anything you’ve wanted to ask an FT reporter? Email firstft@ft.com or hit ‘Reply’ with your questions, and remember to include your name. We’ll answer as many as possible in a special weekend edition of the newsletter.

Five more top stories

1. Chinese authorities have restricted a key source of data on inward investment as global funds continue to pull money out of the country’s stock market, threatening to make 2024 the first year of equity outflows. The move is not the first time Beijing has restricted access to data that could be interpreted negatively.

• Markets news: Investors who slashed their equity exposure during a bout of market volatility in early August sharply increased their holdings as global stocks rebounded last week, Deutsche Bank flow data shows.

2. China and the Philippines traded accusations of ramming each others’ ships in the disputed South China Sea yesterday. Here’s what we know about the latest flare-up, which comes despite a détente between the sides last month.

3. Mike Lynch, one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs, is among those missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily in bad weather. Among the passengers on Lynch’s 56-metre yacht were members of his legal team and their families, who had been invited on the trip to celebrate the former Autonomy chief executive’s recent courtroom victory.

4. The US said it had made progress towards a Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal yesterday, saying Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a “bridging proposal” that aimed to resolve differences between Israel and Hamas.

5. The German government is under fire from politicians across the political spectrum after it emerged that finance minister Christian Lindner has written to colleagues to veto new military aid for Ukraine. Here’s what the letter said.

The Big Read

US Democrats meet today for their party’s convention after rapidly rallying around a new presidential candidate. So far, their wager on Kamala Harris seems to have worked. The vice-president has caught up with Donald Trump, eclipsing the Republican nominee in some polls and raking in contributions from donors. But the second phase of her campaign is about to begin and the hurdles are far bigger.

In the latest edition of our US Election Countdown newsletter, the FT’s reporters discuss what they’re looking out for as they cover tonight’s DNC on the ground in Chicago. Sign up for the newsletter here.

We’re also reading . . . 

• India’s broadcasting bill: The withdrawal of the legislation last week does not mark the end of the government’s ambition to censor online content, writes Nik Sunil Williams.

• Asia’s ageing population: Greater investment in healthcare can contribute to a “silver dividend”, writes Albert Park, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank.

• Ad giant: The world’s biggest retailer Walmart has built a massive advertising business, putting it in competition with traditional media companies for marketing dollars.

Chart of the day

Western airlines are slashing flights to China as a combination of low demand and the high cost of flying around Russian airspace saps their ability to compete with local carriers.

Take a break from the news

The longlist for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year is here. We reviewed more than 600 entries to bring you this list of 16 vying to be judged the “most compelling and enjoyable” business book of 2024. From Donald Trump’s finances and Bill Gates’s influence to the challenges of AI, here are the titles still in the running.

Additional contributions from David Hindley and Tee Zhuo