Japan's Nippon Paint to Acquire Akzo Nobel's Southeast Asian Decorative Paints Business in $1.35 Billion Deal

04:29 AM EDT, 10/05/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Shares in Akzo Nobel (AKZA.AS) rose on Monday morning after the Dutch paint company agreed to sell its decorative paints business in Southeast Asia to Nippon Paint at an enterprise value of $1.35 billion. The deal, expected to generate net cash proceeds of $1 billion, covers the decorative paints businesses in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Akzo Nobel will retain full ownership of its coatings activities and global business services organization. Japan's Nippon Paint previously made efforts to acquire the entire decorative paints business from Akzo Nobel. In a July announcement, Akzo Nobel confirmed that it had received multiple conditional and non-binding proposals from Nippon Paint for the entire business at an indicative enterprise valuation of 7.5 billion euros. Akzo Nobel, which had already sold its decorative paints businesses in India and Pakistan, said the transaction concludes a review of its Asian decorative paints portfolio. The company now plans to focus fully on completing its all-stock merger of equals with US-based Axalta Coating Systems. "The successful completion of our Asia portfolio review is part of an ongoing strategy to focus our portfolio on areas where we can achieve differentiating scale and strengthen our position," Akzo Nobel Chief Executive Greg Poux-Guillaume said. Subject to regulatory clearances, the sale is expected to close in mid-2027, except for the sale of the Indonesian business, which would complete separately in late 2026. The company's shares were up more than 2% in early trading in Amsterdam.