Mitsui Chemicals pays the equivalent of 11.6 billion dollars for JSR, Japan's specialist in light-sensitive chip materials

Japanese chemicals group Mitsui Chemicals, together with the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), is taking over chip materials maker JSR for 1.84 trillion yen, about 11.6 billion dollars including debt. The board approved the deal on Monday, TNGlobal reports, based on Mitsui's official disclosure. The seller is JIC Capital, linked to the state-backed Japan Investment Corporation, which took JSR private in 2024.

Reuters had already reported last week that a sale was coming, for more than 1.3 trillion yen. According to the news agency, JIC had paid about 900 billion yen for JSR and is now benefiting from higher valuations of chip companies driven by the AI wave. Japanese news agency Jiji described it as the largest acquisition ever in Japan's chemical industry. JSR is one of the major suppliers of photoresists, the light-sensitive materials used to pattern fine circuits on chips, and owns Inpria in the United States, which develops such materials for EUV lithography.

Mitsui will hold all voting rights; DBJ is investing 200 billion yen in non-voting preferred shares. The rest is financed with a 1.64 trillion yen bridge loan, which will temporarily push Mitsui's net debt above four times its earnings. The company is targeting about 40 billion yen in additional annual profit by 2035 and aims to complete the takeover in the second half of the financial year ending March 2028, subject to regulatory approval.