Nippon Paper is selling nearly all the Lintec shares it owns, and Lintec is spending up to ¥30bn the same day to buy back its own stock before the sale even prices. Lintec disclosed on August 20, 2026 that its top shareholder, Nippon Paper Industries, had decided to sell nearly all of its roughly 20 million Lintec shares through a secondary offering, while Lintec's board separately authorized a share buyback capped at ¥30bn to cushion the resulting supply on the market.
The mechanics: underwriters led by Mizuho Securities and SMBC Nikko Securities will buy up to 17,095,500 Lintec shares from Nippon Paper outright, plus an over-allotment option of as many as 2,564,300 further shares that Mizuho can borrow from Nippon Paper and place if demand runs hot. Between the two tranches, the deal covers very close to Nippon Paper's entire position. A portion will be marketed to investors in Europe and Asia, excluding the US and Canada.
Lintec is not leaving the stock to find its own level in the meantime. The same board meeting approved a ToSTNeT-3 off-market buyback capped at ¥30bn and 6,910,000 shares, equal to 10.55% of shares outstanding excluding treasury stock, to run from August 24 to 26. If Nippon Paper sells shares into that buyback instead of the public offering, the underwritten and over-allotment tranches shrink by a matching amount, a mechanic spelled out in Lintec's EDINET filing. Pricing for the offering will be fixed on one day between September 1 and 3, based on 90 to 100% of Lintec's closing share price, with settlement five business days after that.
The ownership shift is blunt. Nippon Paper currently holds voting rights equal to 30.99% of Lintec, enough to rank as the largest shareholder and to count Lintec as an equity-method affiliate. Once the sale settles, that falls to 5.40%, dropping Nippon Paper to third-largest holder and out of affiliate status entirely. A Nippon Paper executive officer who has doubled as a Lintec outside director will step down from Lintec's board once the offering completes.
Nippon Paper frames the sale as balance-sheet housekeeping under its Medium-Term Management Plan 2030, which prioritizes cutting interest-bearing debt using proceeds from asset sales alongside cost reductions. It expects to book a gain on the sale of investment securities in the fiscal year ending March 2027, with the size to be disclosed once pricing is set. Nippon Paper has also agreed to a 180-day lock-up after settlement, promising not to sell further Lintec shares without Mizuho's consent outside this transaction.
One procedural detail shows how tightly bound the sale and the numbers are: Lintec confirmed the same day that its auditor, EY Shin Nihon, had completed a formal interim review of the June-quarter results specifically because of the planned offering, with no changes to the figures first released on August 6.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Seller | Nippon Paper Industries, selling nearly all its Lintec stake |
| Underwritten offering (firm tranche) | Up to 17,095,500 shares |
| Over-allotment option | Up to 2,564,300 shares |
| Lintec's ToSTNeT-3 buyback cap | ¥30bn, up to 6,910,000 shares (10.55% of shares outstanding excluding treasury) |
| Buyback window | August 24-26, 2026 |
| Offering pricing window | September 1-3, 2026 |
| Nippon Paper's Lintec voting stake, before | 30.99% (20,254,039 shares) |
| Nippon Paper's Lintec voting stake, after | 5.40% (3,158,539 shares) |
None of this is finished business. Lintec still must decide whether to execute the ToSTNeT-3 buyback before it runs from August 24 to 26, a choice that would shrink the public offering by a matching number of shares. The offering price and the exact share count going to underwriters will not be fixed until Lintec's board picks a day between September 1 and 3.