Yaohan

[1] Initially a single shop selling vegetables,[3] it was expanded by their son Kazuo Wada into a major supermarket chain with most retail outlets located in Shizuoka prefecture, south of Tokyo.

The store was far more established and notable outside Japan, due to restrictive laws in Japan that made it difficult to set up new businesses, such that by the time it opened its first store in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the company was already in a state of decline due to accumulated debts from over-expansion.

[4] Typical of large Japanese companies, new employees were required to go through induction training programs that, in the case of Yaohan, had a strong religious emphasis on the principles of Seicho-no-Ie.

It has owned many companies, such as the Wonderful World of Whimsy, Millie, Santa Ana Bakery and some another fast-food restaurant.

[16] When the last store to cease operations in 1997 exited Singapore from Thomson Plaza, its staff were visibly moved and some were in tears.

[18] The first Yaohan store was opened in Thailand at Fortune Town, Ratchadaphisek Road, Bangkok in 1991 following by Future Park Bang Khae in 1994.

In 1992, Yaohan opened its first branch in Indonesia at Plaza Atrium, a shopping center in the Segitiga Senen superblock, Central Jakarta.

Rachmat, Djoko Soedjatmiko and Ali Santoso),[19] being supported with a US$10 million investment from Yaohan International Company Limited, which also licensed branding, distribution, and basic training.

This outlet closed in early 1995,[22] due to its inconspicuous location being unattractive for its target customers, resulting in rapid loss.

The group was traded on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as Yaohan International Company Limited until 11 August 1998.

Through a combination of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the stagnation of the Japanese retail market, however, the group declared bankruptcy with 161 billion yen of debts.

[24] Already at a "finanical dead-end", the super-market chain asked for protection from creditors under Japan's Corporate Rehabilitation Law on 18 September 1997.

The Whampoa , a 110-meter-long shopping centre building that takes the form of a ship in Whampoa Garden, Hong Kong, housed a large Yaohan department store on its ground and basement levels from the 1980s to the late 1990s.
Yaohan store in Little Tokyo, Alameda Street, Los Angeles, USA
Sunway Putra Mall, where Yaohan's first Malaysian store once operated from 1987 to 1997. It is still referred to as Yaohan by the locals
Yaohan Centre in Richmond, BC. The shopping centre retained its name after purchase by the President Group