The owner of convenience store giant 7-Eleven has received a buyout offer from Canadian rival Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT), which runs the Circle K chain.
Tokyo-based Seven & i Holdings says it has formed a special committee to decide whether or not to accept the offer.
Shares in Seven & i jumped by more than 20% on the news.
That gave the Japanese firm a stock market valuation of around 5.6tn yen ($38.5bn; £29.7bn).
In a statement, Seven & i said it had “received a confidential, non-binding and preliminary proposal by ACT to acquire all [of its] outstanding shares”.
“[The] Special Committee intends to conduct a prompt, careful and comprehensive review of the proposal,” it added.
In recent years, activist investors have been pressuring Seven & i to sell some of its assets to focus the company on the 7-Eleven brand and its global convenience store business.
7-Eleven was first brought to Japan from the US in 1974 by retail tycoon Masatoshi Ito.
Ito, who died in 2023 aged 98, is credited with turning the convenience store chain into a global business empire.
Today, 7-Eleven has 85,000 outlets worldwide in 20 countries and territories and has a large footprint in Asia.
Quebec-based ACT is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and runs around 17,000 shops more than 30 countries across North America Europe and Asia under the brands Circle K and Couche-Tard.
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