3009. 7-Eleven Bear

7-Eleven is part of an international chain of convenience stores, operating under Seven-Eleven Japan Co. Ltd, which in turn is owned by Seven & I Holdings Co. of Japan.
7-Eleven, primarily operating as a franchise, is the world's largest operator, franchisor and licensor of convenience stores, with more than 39,000 outlets, surpassing the previous record-holder McDonald's Corporation in 2007 by approximately 1,000 retail stores. The US subsidiary of the Japanese firm has its headquarters in the One Arts Plaza building in downtown Dallas, Texas. Its stores are located in 16 countries, with its largest markets being Japan, the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand. On a per-capita basis, Norway, for example, has one 7–11 for every 47,000 Norwegians, versus Canada which has one for every 74,000 Canadians.

The company has its origins in 1927 in Dallas, Texas, when an employee of Southland Ice Company, Joe C. Thompson, started selling milk, eggs and bread from an ice house. The original location was an improvised storefront at Southland Ice Company, an ice-manufacturing plant owned by John Jefferson Green. Although small grocery stores and general merchandisers were present in the immediate area, Thompson, the manager of the ice plant, discovered selling convenience items, such as bread and milk, was popular due to the ice's ability to preserve the items. This significantly cut back on the need to travel long distances to the grocery stores for basic items. Thompson eventually bought the Southland Ice Company and turned it into Southland Corporation, which oversaw several locations which opened in the Dallas area. Initially, these stores were open from 7 am to 11 pm, hours unprecedented in their length, hence the name. The company began to use the 7-Eleven name in 1946. By 1952, 7-Eleven opened its 100th store. It was incorporated as Southland Corporation in 1961.
In 1962, 7-Eleven first experimented with a 24-hour schedule in Austin, Texas. By 1963, 24-hour stores were established in Las Vegas, Fort Worth, and Dallas.
In the 1980s, the company ran into financial difficulties, selling off its ice division, and was rescued from bankruptcy by Ito-Yokado, its largest franchisee. In 1987, John Philp Thompson, the CEO of 7-Eleven, completed a $5.2 billion management buyout of the company his father had founded. The buyout suffered from the 1987 stock market crash and after failing initially to raise high yield debt financing, the company was required to offer a portion of the company's stock as an inducement to invest in the company's bonds.
The Japanese company gained a controlling share of 7-Eleven in 1991, during the Japanese asset bubble of the early 1990s. Ito-Yokado formed Seven & I Holdings Co. and 7-Eleven became its subsidiary in 2005. In 2007, Seven & I Holdings announced it would be expanding their American operations, with an additional 1,000 7-Eleven stores in the U.S.