Pursuits
Rakuten Weighs Europe Deals, Japan Recipe to Take On Amazon
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Rakuten Inc., Japan’s biggest online retailer, is counting on acquisitions to help break the EBay and Amazon habits of European shoppers.
Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, the 34-year-old Frenchman who joined last year as part of the company’s takeover of PriceMinister.com, is leading Rakuten’s European expansion. His goal is to replicate an online shopping mall that’s taken Japan by storm and helped the retailer increase revenue more than sevenfold to about $4.2 billion in the past six years.