The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that SoftBank Corp. and mobile payments operator PayPay are in talks to invest in retail giant Seven & i Holdings. A Reuters dispatch to The Globe says the investment will likely total several hundred billion yen and Sumitomo Mitsui Card, a unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, may also take a stake. Seven & i operates 7-Eleven stores worldwide, with Japan and the United States its largest markets. If the investment comes to fruition it would be a welcome boost for embattled Seven & i, which has failed to turn around its flagging business a year after its prolonged tussle with Canadian convenience store rival Alimentation Couche-Tard, which had sought to take it over in what would have been Japan's largest ever foreign buyout. Seven & i has been under pressure from investors for years about its lacklustre returns and faced calls for it to focus on its core convenience store business. In March, 2025, it agreed to sell off its supermarkets business -- stores that are much bigger than convenience stores -- to private equity firm Bain Capital Specialty Finance Inc. SoftBank is aiming to use its in-house artificial intelligence to improve store management.