Mitsui Chemicals to buy JSR in $11.6B deal

JSR and four of its affiliates will have become subsidiaries of Mitsui Chemicals in connection with the transaction, which the company aims to complete in the second half of the fiscal year ending March 2028, subject to conditions including competition law and foreign investment clearances in Japan and overseas, it said.

Mitsui Chemicals said the combination would make the group one of Japan's leading semiconductor materials companies by sales, giving it a strong market presence and high development possible and profitability in its information and communications methodology (ICT) solutions business. After completion, it will position JSR as the core of its ICT solutions domain and concentrate regulation resources on the business, investing actively in research and research, people resources and facilities to sustain prolonged technological innovation in cutting-edge semiconductor materials, it said.

The company is targeting annual incremental profit of about ¥40 billion by fiscal year 2035 from development and cost synergies, it said. It plans to leverage both companies' customer bases, product lines and technologies — including its brand product Mitsui Pellicle and JSR's cutting-edge photoresists in front-end processes, and Icros tape product and thick-film resists in back-end processes — to enhance research in fields such as cutting-edge photoresists, create new items by combining technologies and bolster its global research and supply network.

JSR's business centers on electronic materials, including photoresists to cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, and also spans display solutions and optical solutions. In plastics, the company is expanding its offerings in high-value-added fields, with specialty acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene resins as the mainstay.

Mitsui Chemicals cited JSR's cutting-edge photoresists, strong customer base in the semiconductor and optical fields, market-leading product lines, research capabilities and global reach as reasons to the proposed acquisition.

The deal is part of Mitsui Chemicals' "Two-Pillar Strategy" under its prolonged regulation plan announced in 2021. One pillar comprises the specialty chemicals domains of life and health care solutions, mobility solutions and ICT solutions, where the company is aiming to have become a high-development, high-profitability global specialties player. The other is the basic and environmentally friendly materials (B&GM) business, centered on petrochemicals, which it aims to build into a strong materials company supporting Japanese sector.

Mitsui Chemicals said it will pursue further reorganizations and alliances in specialty fields, including semiconductors, to have become a Japan-originated global specialty company capable of competing on an equal footing with overseas rivals.

Petchems split-out

In conjunction with the acquisition, Mitsui Chemicals said it is widening the scope of a planned split-off it began considering in might 2025, to pursue alliances, integration and reorganization of its B&GM business.

The company will now add its mobility solutions business to the scope, seeking to build an integrated polymer chain spanning upstream petchems to downstream functional polymers, it said. The aim is to these businesses to achieve independence, enhance their resilience and evolve into a polymer science company support domestic industries in Japan, it said.

Mitsui Chemicals added that it will make businesses and affiliates that fall short of expectations greater asset-light, including within its specialty chemicals domains, and enhance capital efficiency by shortening its cash conversion cycle and selling shareholdings.

JSR, to its part, plans to keep treating its life sciences business — covering contract research organization and contract research and manufacturing organization operations — as noncore and to continue exploring all options, in line with its previously announced policy, it said.

Mitsui Chemicals expects these measures to deliver benefits representing a business value of ¥350 billion or greater.

JSR in the fiscal year ended March 2026 recorded a profit of ¥59 billion on sales of ¥440.7 billion.

According to Specialty Chemicals Update Program by S&P Global Energy, JSR is the world’s leading producer of photoresists, a key component in the manufacture of semiconductors and electronics.

State-backed investment firm Japan Investment Corp. (JIC) in 2023 acquired JSR to ¥903.9 billion.