Nippon Paint inks US$12 bil alliance with Wuthelam to grow Asia business

Nippon Paint Holdings Co., Japan’s biggest paint maker, struck a 1.29 trillion yen ($16.9 billion) deal to join with Singapore-based Wuthelam Holdings Pte, seeking to create a dominant paints and coatings company in Asia.

The deal involves Wuthelam taking a majority stake by buying new shares in Nippon Paint, which will use the bulk of the money to buy out their joint ventures in China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Nippon Paint will also buy out Wuthelam’s 100% owned Indonesia business for about US$2 billion ($2.73 billion).

Nippon Paint has had ties with Wuthelam for more than 50 years and in 2013, the Singaporean firm began efforts to gain majority control of the Japanese paint company. They decided to unify their Asian businesses to seek “more ambitious moves” to grow and deliver shareholder returns, they said in a statement.