Nippon Paint Co., Ltd. (NPC) of Osaka, Japan announced plans to purchase the majority of Rohm and Haas Company’s (ROH) Automotive Coatings business. Specifically, NPC will purchase the wholly-owned Rohm and Haas business in North America and Rohm and Haas’ 50% share of the existing joint ventures with NPC. This includes Morton Nippon Coatings (MNC) in North America and Nippon Bee Chemical (NBC) in Japan and other Asian countries. Rohm and Haas had acquired these businesses through the acquisition of Morton International, Inc. in 1999.

“This transaction enables NPC to further enhance and expand its automotive coatings business by combining the automotive body coatings business and the plastic coatings business under a single global strategy,” said Makoto Matsuura, NPC president. “This will improve customer satisfaction through customer relationship reinforcement, higher product quality and manufacturing efficiency.”

The businesses being acquired collectively represent a leading position in the global automotive plastic paint market with strong positions in North America, Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea. The predecessor company to the Rohm and Haas business, Bee Chemical, was originally founded in Chicago in 1945 and has been collaborating with NPC in this market since the 1960’s with the first joint venture established in Japan in 1971.

“We anticipate great success by combining NPC’s strong global relationships and tradition of innovation in the automotive industry with Bee’s expertise in the plastic paint market,” said Koichi Kimoto, executive director and general manager, corporate planning, research and development international for NPC. “This transaction will allow us to create additional business opportunities, expand our current business and strengthen our overall competitiveness.”