Mitsui Chemicals to Acquire JSR in Record 1.84 Trillion Yen Deal

What happened

Mitsui Chemicals announced it will acquire semiconductor materials maker JSR in a deal valued at 1.84 trillion yen in total enterprise value including assumed debt and other obligations, the largest M&A deal in the history of Japan's chemical industry, surpassing Showa Denko's (now Resonac) approximately 964 billion yen acquisition of Hitachi Chemical in 2020. Mitsui Chemicals' board of directors resolved on Nov. 9 to jointly acquire JSR shares held by JIC Capital, a subsidiary of Japan Investment Corporation (JIC), together with the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), and a share transfer agreement was signed the same day; completion is targeted for the second half of fiscal 2027, between October 2027 and March 2028. JSR's equity value is 1.3921 trillion yen. Mitsui Chemicals will acquire 100% of JSR's voting rights and make it a consolidated subsidiary, financing the acquisition through 1.64 trillion yen in short-term borrowings from financial institutions and a 200 billion yen investment from DBJ; after closing, DBJ's common shares will be converted into nonvoting preferred shares. JSR subsidiaries, including metal oxide resist (MOR) maker Inpria, biopharmaceutical CDMO KBI Biopharma, JSR North America Holdings and JSR Life Sciences, will also become subsidiaries. The sale comes approximately two years after JIC took JSR private in 2024 for approximately 900 billion yen and delisted the company. The two companies plan to combine front-end materials capabilities (photoresists and pellicles) with back-end materials such as thick-film photoresists and ICROS tape, pursue cross-selling and jointly develop new products including materials for three-dimensional and high-density packaging. Mitsui Chemicals aims to generate an additional 40 billion yen in annual profit by fiscal 2035 (20 billion yen from increased semiconductor materials market share and new product sales, and 20 billion yen from optimizing R&D organizations and business locations), and to raise company-wide core operating profit, excluding one-time gains and losses, to more than 300 billion yen by fiscal 2030.

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Source: The Elec · 11/10/2026 · View original source