Japanese drugstore chain Welcia Kanto Co Ltd will team up with nursing-home operator Wisnet Co to bid for Goodwill Group Inc's scandal-hit nursing care operations, media reports said on Saturday.
According to media reports, including one in the Nikkei business daily, Welcia Kanto - a regional drugstore chain affiliated with supermarket chain Aeon Co - and Wisnet will offer to buy Goodwill's nursing care operations.
Last week Japan's Health Ministry decided not to renew licenses for 80 percent of the company's home care nursing service centres after Goodwill was found to have inflated staff numbers in license applications.
Goodwill's Comsn unit is Japan's biggest nursing care provider, operating home nursing care services as its main business and also runs nursing homes. Sources quoted by Kyodo news agency said that the two planned to take over all of Goodwill's nursing care operations and their workforce, but that they might review some services in unprofitable and sparsely populated areas. A spokesman for Goodwill declined to comment on the reports. Japanese restaurant chain operator Watami Co Ltd, said on Monday it was considering buying Comsn's nursing home division.
Goodwill, whose main business is temporary staffing, was started just twelve years ago by current chairman Masahiro Origuchi, an entrepreneur best known for establishing popular discos in Tokyo in the 1990s. The company grew rapidly and late last year bought control of its bigger rival, privately held Crystal Co, in a $750 million deal, making it Japan's largest staffing firm.
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