Photo/Illutration Tadashi Yanai, chairman and president of Fast Retailing Co., responds to a question during an interview with The Asahi Shimbun conducted in Tokyo’s Koto Ward on June 21. (Jin Nishioka)

The head of Fast Retailing Co., operator of the popular Uniqlo clothing store chain, predicts the brand is about to enter a period of growth.

Tadashi Yanai also says he has no intention of naming a new president from outside the company when he eventually steps down as chairman and president.

Yanai, 75, shared his thoughts with The Asahi Shimbun during a recent interview.

In June, Uniqlo marked the 40th anniversary of the opening of its first outlet in Hiroshima in 1984.

The company operates in more than 20 countries and regions and currently has 2,400 stores around the world, including around 800 in Japan.

It projects sales will top 3 trillion yen ($18.7 billion) for the first time in the business year ending in August.

Uniqlo has drawn flak in the past in relation to the working environment of is employees, which earned it a reputation as a “black company.”

Yanai countered that the company no longer engages in problematic work practices.

“We were putting all our energy into just surviving, and we couldn’t afford” to remedy those issues when the company was still small, he said.

But now, “it has grown quite big, and we feel more responsible,” he said. “No one will cooperate with us unless we are one of those companies. And companies that fail to obtain cooperation won’t grow. We think we are about to enter a growth period.”

In 2002, before Yanai turned Fast Retailing into a holding company, he gave up his post as president to Genichi Tamatsuka, a former member of Asahi Glass Co., the predecessor of ACG Inc., who now serves as president of Lotte Holdings Co.

Yanai has been acting as president since he returned to the position in 2005.

When asked about possible candidates as his successor, he said: “All of the (14) senior executive officers. They will run the company.”

In September last year, he handed over his position as president of Uniqlo Co., the core subsidiary of the Fast Retailing group, to one of the senior executive officers, Daisuke Tsukagoshi, 45.

“There is no way I can bring an executive (from outside the company) and make the person president,” Yanai said. “The one who knows (the company) best and has worked hard together with me will be the successor.”

As for his first son Kazumi and second son Koji, both of whom serve as board members of Fast Retailing, Yanai said he will never make either of them president.

“They will be in charge of the governance as shareholders,” he said. “It is their role to select a good management team and lay the groundwork for them to work.”

(This interview was conducted by Sho Ito and Shiki Iwasawa.)

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