The rise of Yaohan was a compelling tale of ambition and exuberance. Beginning in 1929 as a tiny greengrocer's in the hot-spring town of Atami outside Tokyo, the company blossomed into a retail empire of more than 400 stores in 15 countries as far apart as Brazil and China, selling everything from designer clothes to fast food and generating annual sales of 500 billion yen (about HK$31.7 billion).
Its flamboyant chairman Kazuo Wada - whose motto was 'without taking risks, there's no chance of making profits' - dreamed that his company would become the Sony of the retail industry. In particular, he sought to conquer the vast China market.
In 1992, Yaohan became the first multinational retailer to obtain an import licence in the mainland. Its famous Nextage store in Pudong ranked the second-largest in the world, after Macy's in New York, when it opened in December 1995.
By 1997, the year Yaohan imploded, the company had added 33 supermarkets in Shanghai and Wuxi to its portfolio. Such aggressive expansion amid a sluggish retail market in Asia proved its downfall.
Most people in Hong Kong will remember the colourful images of bargain-hunting crowds queueing for the liquidation sales, or the mad rush by frantic suppliers to claw back their goods. Nearly 3,000 people lost their jobs when the 10 Hong Kong department stores closed their doors in November 1997, with Yaohan facing liabilities of $2.3 billion.
Six years later, the month-long trial of one of the men accused of speeding up Yaohan's downfall barely attracted a spectator.