Tadashi Yanai, the Japanese entrepreneur behind the Uniqlo clothes brand, claimed yesterday that a possible bid for Gap, the US retail company, was “not such a crazy idea”.

Speculation that his company, Fast Retailing, was preparing an all-out M&A conquest of the global apparel business has mounted as it has organically expanded its Uniqlo store network around the world. In addition to 767 Japanese stores, it has 64 outlets in China, South Korea, the UK, France and the US.

Earlier interest on Uniqlo’s part in buying Barney’s, the US department store, or in Hong Kong’s Giordano chain has fizzled out, leading many to suspect that the company may be planning a more spectacular move.

Mr Yanai said that his group’s goal was now to become the world’s biggest clothing manufacturer and retailer with annual sales of 5 trillion yen (£34 billion) within the next decade. Uniqlo’s dominance would come, he said, as consumers recalibrate their emphasis on value and business attire becomes more casual. “To achieve our target, the Asian market is the most important, and we have already begun to expand there,” he said. “In Europe and the US it is not realistic to establish hundreds or thousands of new stores solely via our own efforts, so we want to buy a big chain business.”

Gap, whose market value is similar to Fast Retailing at about $10 billion, has grown on a broadly similar ethos and both companies have made themselves masters of catchy advertising campaigns. While saying that he had no formal plan to launch a bid for Gap at this stage, Mr Yanai described the US company as being “within the scope” of what Uniqlo was looking for in an acquisition.

Analysts have also speculated that Zara, the Spanish retail chain, may provide a better fit with Uniqlo’s business and design styles than would Gap. The Spanish brand shares with Uniqlo a reputation based on price and would offer the sort of retail access to Europe that Mr Yanai appears to have in mind.

Uniqlo’s interest, Mr Yanai said, is not just in the physical network of stores, but in a company with its own sophisticated clothes manufacturing business — the kind of operation that could readily be integrated into Uniqlo’s model of outsourcing production around Asia.

Uniqlo’s revelation that it was now firmly on the international acquisition trail and looking to buy a “major clothing chain”, comes as its mix of low-price offerings and dependable quality is playing well with recession-hit consumers. Led by runaway hit products, particularly its summer camisole with built-in bra, Uniqlo recently issued figures showing a 19.2 per cent surge in April same-store sales. Among Japanese retailers, that pace of growth puts it alongside only McDonald’s and a handful of slump-proof brands.

A keen student of international retailing history, Mr Yanai remains an admirer of Marks & Spencer but believes that the famous British brand may have lost its way. “Marks & Spencer represents British apparel retailers around the world, but is not a representative of Europe. We represent Japan, but want to be known as global representatives of Asia,” he said.

In its pursuit of global empire-building, Uniqlo’s competitive edge will arise from the high level of quality consciousness among Japanese consumers, Mr Yanai said. Uniqlo has triumphed in perhaps the world’s fussiest, most detail-obsessed retail market and believes that the battle scars will equip it for the rest of the world.

Equally critical, Mr Yanai said, was the “longitudinal advantage” of Japan’s geography — with tropical Okinawa in the south and Hokkaido in the north, where there is snow on the ground for nearly half the year. By launching the summer range in Okinawa first and doing the same with the winter range in Hokkaido, Mr Yanai said, the company is able to predict precisely how new clothes will play in the big mainland markets a few months later, giving an invaluable buffer period for tweaking the seasonal ranges accordingly.

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