The Kobe-based retailer, which secured a $4.4 billion debt-relief package from its main creditors earlier this year, agreed to sell shares of Captaincook to Sodexho Japan on July 22 for $633,000.

Sodexho Japan will also assume $30 million in debt held by Captaincook, said Daiei company spokesman Mitsuru Sano.

Daiei will keep a 5 percent stake because Captaincook serves food to Daiei store workers, said company spokeswoman Yuko Seno.

Japan's most indebted-retailer is selling the stake as part of a plan to cut long-term debt built up during its expansion in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

For Sodexho Japan, which provides meals for hospitals and other social service facilities mainly in northern Japan, the acquisition means it can expand its network across the nation, it said in a release.

Daiei's shares rose about 16 cents, to $2.06, while Sodexho's shares rose about 93 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $6.86.

"People must have welcomed the move as Daiei is actually taking steps to sell assets,'' said Akihida Kinugawa, who helps manage $170 million at T&D Asset Management Co.

"What matters is not the total amount (of the Captaincook share sale), but Daiei's efforts to execute its asset liquidation plan,'' he said.

Daiei, which owed $20 billion at the end of February, will book a one-time gain of $20 million from the sale for its fiscal year that started March 1.