Harima Chemicals Group's board resolved on 7 October 2026 to withdraw from LAWTER (N.Z.) Limited, its New Zealand pine chemicals subsidiary. The company expects a special loss of about ¥2.8bn, a rough estimate that it says it will refine.
Why it is leaving
The subsidiary, based in Mount Maunganui, makes and sells turpentine derivatives (used as fragrance raw materials), tall oil fatty acids and tall oil rosin. It is the Oceania base of Lawter, the overseas arm of Harima's pine chemicals business.
Harima cites three pressures: sharper price competition in export markets such as Asia, higher manufacturing costs in New Zealand and unstable raw material supply. The company says several years of improvement measures did not work well enough, and that it expects the harsh conditions to continue. It concluded that a recovery was unlikely.
Harima owns 97.68% of the unit indirectly. It reports no personnel or trading relationship between the two companies.
Three years of operating losses
Sales were flat at about US$20mn, but the unit lost money at the operating level in each year to December 2025.
| Year | Sales | Operating loss |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 19.9 | -6.3 |
| 2024 | 20.0 | -2.5 |
| 2025 | 20.9 | -3.9 |
At the end of 2025 the subsidiary had net assets of US$0.7mn against total assets of US$39.6mn. Its capital is US$23.4mn.
Timetable and cost
Production is due to stop on 30 June 2027. Harima then plans to use the site temporarily as a logistics base for the group before closing the plant in May 2028. Both dates are plans, and the exit itself is a board decision rather than a completed event.
The estimated ¥2.8bn special loss covers impairment of fixed assets and one-off exit costs. Harima expects to book it in the third quarter of the year ending March 2027, and says it will announce anything further that needs disclosing as it examines the impact in more detail.
In the same quarter Harima expects to record a gain of about ¥3.7bn on the sale of its SunPine AB shares, which it disclosed on 10 July 2026. The company presents that gain separately and does not net it against the exit loss.
The extraordinary report does not say how many people work at the plant or how production or customer supply will be handled after it stops.