According to foreign media citing people familiar with the matter,
government-backed fund Japan Industrial Innovation Investment Corporation (JIC)
is considering selling chip-materials maker JSR. Two years ago JIC took JSR
private in a roughly $6.0 billion transaction. JIC, regulated by METI and
established in 2018 to bolster Japanese competitiveness through corporate
investment, has drawn acquisition interest from Fujifilm and Mitsubishi
Chemical, the sources said. Large-scale investment in artificial intelligence
has driven up valuations across the chip supply chain; JIC had initially planned
to use JSR to promote consolidation in the materials sector but is now weighing
a sale to capitalize on favorable market conditions. Founded in 1957, JSR is a
leading photoresist maker; photoresists are used to transfer circuit patterns
onto semiconductor wafers. In the fiscal year ended March this year, JSR posted
net profit of 60.7 billion yen and revenue of 400.7 billion yen.
