After the door of the VIP lounge closed behind them, the sounds from the exhibition hall outside suddenly became much quieter.
The people from Cornes clearly knew very well when they should stay and when they should disappear.
The manager in charge of reception personally brought in the tea, simply asked about the needs of the two people, and then withdrew from the room with the other staff.
Fujita Tsuyoshi and Shimada did not follow them in either, staying outside the door respectively.
As for Ayako and Reiko...
Before entering, Satsuki had already let the two of them continue looking at cars outside.
Anyway, that entire row of cars just bought had been completely purchased, and they were enthusiastically discussing which car's colour looked best, so they probably would not feel bored for a short while.
The room quietened down again.
Satsuki sat down by the window and moved the freshly served tea a little closer to herself.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki sat down on the sofa opposite her.
The man who was just outside acting like he was accompanying a young girl visiting a car dealership had, at this moment, leaned into the sofa, and his expression had already returned to how it usually looked when handling business.
"Speak."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki looked at Satsuki.
"What are you planning to give to my brother?"
Satsuki raised her eyes.
The teasing smile she had when standing next to the F40 earlier had faded away.
"FamilyMart."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"Ryohin Keikaku."
As the second name came out, his sitting posture changed slightly.
Satsuki paused for a moment before speaking the last one.
"And PARCO."
The room fell silent for a few seconds.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki looked at her.
Satsuki did not rush him either, merely picking up her teacup to take a small sip.
"You call this 'sharing a bit'?"
"Compared to the entire Saison, it is indeed just a little bit."
Satsuki put down her teacup, her tone very calm.
"I am not interested in Seiyo, and department stores are not something Saionji needs right now. As for those other businesses, at least for now, there is no need for me to deliberately touch them."
"So I only pick what is needed."
After listening, Tsutsumi Yoshiaki did not refute.
This really looked like Satsuki's habit of doing business.
Her appetite was huge, but she rarely shoved everything into her own hands just because things were cheap or someone else was willing to sell.
Especially in the past two years, after Japanese companies fell into funding problems one after another, the assets outside willing to be sold to Saionji were already too numerous to count.
What she actually took down, on the contrary, was only a very small portion of them.
"What about FamilyMart?"
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki picked the most familiar piece first.
"I remember three years ago, you already put it through quite a lot of trouble."
"You had a hand in it too."
Satsuki reminded him.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki looked at her.
Satsuki's expression did not carry much of a joking intent.
"Three years ago, if Uncle Tsutsumi had not been willing to help, Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji probably would not have handed over FamilyMart's supply system so easily."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki certainly remembered that incident.
Satsuki ran to Akasaka Prince Hotel to find him with a bunch of lunch boxes.
In the end, he was persuaded by this little girl, and taking his older brother's most needed land and guarantee conditions, gave a hard push from behind.
As a result, not long after, FamilyMart's food, logistics, and sales data began to integrate into the Saionji system on a large scale.
Later, even 7-Eleven and Lawson followed in succession.
Over the past few years, most of the fresh food sold by Japanese convenience stores had already come from Saionji's hands—from the production source to warehousing to logistics, all of it.
"Since you have already done it to this extent, what do you still want FamilyMart for?"
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki asked.
"Because those things are ultimately just the backend."
Satsuki crossed her hands on her knees and slightly adjusted her sitting posture.
"Right now, FamilyMart's central kitchen, fresh food supply, logistics, and some sales data are deeply connected with Saionji. For us, continuing to make money through supply contracts is indeed no problem, and the profits are also very good."
"But Saionji still does not have a single convenience store that truly belongs to itself."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki immediately caught her meaning.
"You want the terminal."
"Mhm."
Satsuki nodded.
"S-Mart can solve family procurement, but convenience stores face another kind of consumption."
"Buying a bento temporarily before a meal, taking away a bottle of drinks on the way back from work, or going downstairs to buy whatever is missing at night within a few minutes. A person might only stay inside for three minutes every day, but this kind of three minutes happens millions of times a day."
She reached out to pick up the teapot and added a little tea to her cup.
"Saionji can now produce things, deliver things to the stores, and even know faster than before what sells well and what does not sell."
"Then taking another step forward, turning one of them truly into our own, is not that a matter of course?"
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki was silent for a moment.
He did not run convenience stores himself, but that did not mean he could not see the value of this step.
Especially since a supply relationship that others found difficult to replicate in a short time had already been established between FamilyMart and Saionji.
If a completely unfamiliar acquirer were to step in, they would first need to re-coordinate.
But Saionji hardly needed any coordination at all.
"How do you plan to take it?"
"First strive for the shares in the hands of Saison and Seiyo."
Satsuki answered very quickly.
"FamilyMart is already a listed company, so naturally it is impossible to just sit here and hand it over to me entirely with a single sentence."
"But as long as Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji is willing to release the part they can control, Saionji will resolve the remaining shares itself."
"What I want is stable control over operations in the end; buying the company one hundred percent is not necessary."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki gently nodded.
Up to this point, he did not hear any obvious problems.
"What about Ryohin Keikaku?"
"This one is simpler."
Satsuki said.
"S-Collection and UNIQLO handle clothing, and S-Mart currently mainly handles food and daily family procurement. What Saionji lacks in retail is precisely a piece that can put home goods, groceries, stationery, food, and clothing into the same brand logic."
"Muji has already walked this path out."
Speaking of this, she paused.
"Three years ago, I even told Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji that a person like him is more suited to thinking about how to turn Muji into a philosophy."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki clearly remembered it too.
"You are now preparing to buy away his philosophy?"
"I will pay."
Satsuki glanced at him.
"And I will not pay less."
"Out of my respect for philosophy, I can even give Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji a substantial 'cultural fund' in addition."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki's mouth corners twitched slightly.
"Then do I still have to thank you on behalf of my brother?"
"That will not be necessary."
Satsuki did not pick up his teasing at all.
"Ryohin Keikaku has now become independent, and its scale is not yet too large to trade with difficulty. Taking control at this time makes the cost and integration difficulty quite appropriate."
"Its own brand is already mature to the point where Saionji does not need to re-teach consumers what Muji is."
"Doing this kind of thing from scratch would instead waste a few years of time."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki picked up his teacup, but did not drink, just holding it in his hand and slowly turning it around.
"So what you have your eyes on are the things Seiji has already nurtured for you."
"You can understand it that way."
Satsuki did not shy away from it.
"Then what about PARCO?"
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki finally asked about the last piece.
"Did not you just finish buying clothes there this morning?"
"So?"
"So you strolled for a whole morning and are now preparing to buy their company as well?"
Hearing this, a very faint smile finally surfaced on Satsuki's face.
But it was quickly pulled back.
"Whether I go today or not will not change PARCO's own value."
She leaned back slightly.
"Saionji already has more and more things in its hands that directly face consumers, but the commercial places it is truly good at operating are still not many."
"S-Mart is more like a supermarket, and the operating rights inside the stations are also mainly doing business around commuting traffic."
"PARCO is different."
Satsuki thought of the shopping mall crowded with young people that morning.
Brightly coloured clothes, trendy music.
Things that had just started becoming popular in magazines.
And those people who clearly did not have a clear shopping plan, yet were willing to spend an afternoon inside.
"What is truly valuable about it is not that building."
"What I want to buy is its management style—knowing how to make young people willing to go in, willing to stay there, and then spend their money."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki looked at her for a while.
If Seiji himself heard this evaluation, he would probably be very happy.
His older brother had spent so many years trying to prove that commerce is not just selling things, and that culture and lifestyles themselves can likewise create value.
As a result, the person who finally saw this point most clearly turned out to be the little girl in front of him once again.
"You also want control?"
"There is no need to go to that extreme in one step."
Satsuki shook her head.
"PARCO is also a listed company. If Mr. Tsutsumi Seiji is willing to yield the main shareholding over there, Saionji can first become an important shareholder."
"Subsequent matters can be taken slowly."
After finishing, she picked up her teacup again.
The three things had already been discussed.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki still had not expressed his stance.
He sat there, going through what Satsuki had just said once again.
FamilyMart filled in the convenience store terminals.
Ryohin Keikaku filled in the lifestyle retail brand.
PARCO provided young consumer groups and urban commercial operation capabilities.
Satsuki obviously did not just casually pick three pleasing names and want to buy-buy-buy.
After a while, Tsutsumi Yoshiaki put the teacup back on the table.
"You have talked for so long."
Satsuki raised her head.
"All these things belong to you."
"Mhm."
"FamilyMart is given to you, Ryohin Keikaku is given to you, and you are also allowed into PARCO."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki looked at her.
"Then what can Seibu get?"
Satsuki did not pause for long because of this question.
"Customers."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki's eyebrows twitched slightly.
"And rent, land value, as well as along-the-line development."
Satsuki continued.
"What is truly most valuable about Uncle Tsutsumi was never convenience stores or department stores to begin with."
She looked at the man in front of her who had operated railways and real estate for decades.
"Your railways, your stations, and the land accumulated along those lines—these are the foundation of Seibu."
"Seibu transports millions of people from one place to another every day, but where they go after arriving at the station, and why they deliberately take a train to a certain place on the weekend—these things do not necessarily all have to be solved by Seibu itself."
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki had gradually understood.
Satsuki was still continuing.
"If FamilyMart continues to expand its stores in the future, the stations and properties along Seibu's lines can be prioritized."
"When Ryohin Keikaku opens new stores, they can also enter Seibu's suitable commercial facilities with priority."
"As for PARCO—"
She paused slightly.
"If there are new urban commercial projects in the future, under equivalent conditions, Saionji can give priority to considering land with development conditions along Seibu's lines."
After this sentence came out, Tsutsumi Yoshiaki finally straightened up a bit.
Everything before that could be understood by him as ordinary rental cooperation.
This final item, however, had already touched upon Seibu's most core business.
Why are railways valuable?
Ticket prices are only one of the factors among them.
Once a line is laid down, the land, foot traffic, and commerce around the stations will all be re-priced accordingly.
Seibu continuously bought land and built railways for decades, and then used railways to turn the land in its hands into residential areas, hotels, and commercial districts—that was this whole set of business from the start.
But in this model, railways and land are only the foundation.
What truly determines whether a station can continuously keep people, and whether it can make passengers willing to make a special trip to consume there besides commuting, still requires sufficiently mature commercial content.
This part happened to be what Tsutsumi Seiji was best at over these years.
Seiyo, Seibu Department Store, PARCO, and a distribution system built around culture, art, and youth consumption were essentially all solving the same problem—how to make a commercial space itself become a destination that consumers are willing to go to.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki himself had never been very interested in commercial development.
Compared to personally operating these retail brands, what he was better at was railways, land, hotels, and large-scale along-the-line development.
And what Satsuki proposed now seemed like she was preparing to connect the commercial capability from Tsutsumi Seiji's system that was best at attracting consumers onto his railways and land.
Tsutsumi Yoshiaki was silent for a while.
"You mean..."
"You want the things in my brother's hands that are suitable for retail and commercial development."
"And then bind them together with Seibu's railways and along-the-line development?"
"Not limited to stations."
Satsuki corrected.
"Moreover, I do not want Mr. Seiji's complete distribution system."
"I only want the part suitable for Saionji."
She reached out and swiped gently across the tabletop between the two of them.
"If Seibu develops land in front of stations in the future and needs commercial content, it can come directly to Saionji."
"We have S-Mart, UNIQLO, and S-Collection. If this talk succeeds, in the future there will also be FamilyMart, Ryohin Keikaku, and PARCO's operating capabilities."
"In terms of dining, entertainment, and events, S.A. can also go in together."
"You hold the land and railways in your hands."
Satsuki raised her eyes.
"I will be responsible for making people willing to go there."