Mitsui Chemicals and the Development Bank of Japan will acquire chipmaking materials maker JSR from the state-backed Japan Investment Corp (JIC) for ¥1.84 trillion ($11.6 billion), according to a regulatory filing on Monday.
The Development Bank of Japan will invest ¥200 billion alongside Mitsui, which plans to fund the deal with a ¥1.64 trillion bridge loan from its main banks and a share sale worth up to ¥150 billion. Mitsui’s own market value stood at about ¥664.6 billion, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters — far smaller than the price it is paying.
It is the largest deal ever in Japan’s chemicals sector, and more than double the $4.55 billion Showa Denko paid for Hitachi Chemical in 2020. JIC took JSR private in 2024 for roughly ¥900 billion, in a move aimed at consolidating Japan’s chip-materials industry, so this is JSR’s second change of ownership in three years.
JSR makes photoresists, the light-sensitive coatings that let lithography machines print circuit patterns onto silicon wafers. In an investor presentation on the deal, Mitsui described JSR as the world’s second-largest maker of photoresists for advanced logic chips — with an estimated 30 per cent share of the global market — and the only company able to offer both leading types of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoresist technology.
Mitsui itself is the world’s top maker of EUV pellicles, the ultra-thin membranes that protect the masks used in extreme ultraviolet lithography. Combined, the two companies would form Japan’s largest integrated supplier of advanced lithography chemicals, serving the chipmakers racing to build ever smaller and more powerful processors for artificial intelligence.
JSR also owns Oregon-based Inpria, the leading developer of metal-oxide photoresists designed for the next generation of high-numerical-aperture lithography scanners. Its semiconductor materials sales rose from ¥157.9 billion in fiscal 2024 to ¥196.0 billion in fiscal 2025, and for the year ended March 2026 it reported revenue of ¥440.7 billion and core operating profit of ¥62.3 billion, with 6,951 employees.
The deal is not yet done. It still needs competition and foreign-investment clearances in Japan and other countries, and Mitsui aims to close it in the second half of the fiscal year ending March 2028. Mitsui’s presentation points to surging demand from AI data centres, which it says are becoming established social infrastructure, with the global chip market forecast to reach $1.5 trillion to $1.9 trillion.
Sources: Reuters, “Mitsui Chemicals and DBJ to buy JSR for $11.6 billion, filing shows”, 9 November 2026 — https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/mitsui-chemicals-dbj-buy-jsr-116-billion-filing-shows-2026-11-09/
