Singapore tycoon’s Nippon Paint seeking acquisition deals

TOKYO – Nippon Paint Holdings will seek acquisitions overseas and finance the deals by borrowing in Japan where interest rates are low, the co-president of the company said.

Borrowing costs are likely to remain low even if the Bank of Japan’s new governor, Mr Kazuo Ueda, moves to end the central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy, Nippon Paint’s Mr Yuichiro Wakatsuki said in an interview.

Mr Wakatsuki, a former banker, advised Singapore mogul Goh Cheng Liang’s Wuthelam Holdings in 2021 when the holding company took a majority stake in Nippon Paint, the world’s fourth-largest paint manufacturer, in a US$12 billion (S$16 billion) deal.

Mr Goh, 95, is

Singapore’s second-richest person,

with a net worth of US$14.3 billion, according to Forbes’ latest billionaire list. 

Nippon Paint has been on a four-year 700 billion-plus yen (S$7 billion) push to buy assets overseas and seek growth abroad.

“Even if long-term interest rates go up in Japan in the future, it will probably be in the range of 2 per cent to 3 per cent,” said Mr Wakatsuki, who became Nippon’s co-president two years ago. “That is still much cheaper than borrowing in United States dollars.”

Nippon Paint’s balance sheet showed 1.29 trillion yen in total liabilities at the end of December. Mr Wakatsuki declined to comment on whether he has any acquisitions currently in the works. BLOOMBERG