Sekisui Chemical's board resolved on September 10 to buy 51% of Ausbuild Group Pty Ltd. and its affiliate Ausbuild Partners Pty Ltd., a land-development and homebuilding business based in Brisbane, Queensland, making it a consolidated subsidiary. The price is about A$335mn, a figure that already bundles in advisory fees and carries a purchase-price adjustment clause, meaning the final number could move. Sekisui says it plans a further purchase down the line that would take its stake to 90%, but for now the deal is for just over half.
The mechanics are unusually layered for a homebuilder deal. Ausbuild Group and Ausbuild Partners are each owned equally, one-third apiece, by three family holding companies tied to directors Matthew Loney, Michael Loney and Matthew Bell. Rather than buying Ausbuild directly, Sekisui is acquiring 51% of those three holding companies through a newly formed local vehicle, SEKISUI HEIM AUSTRALIA AC PTY LTD., capitalized at just A$100 and itself wholly owned by another Sekisui entity. Sekisui will send two directors into the deal structure. The share-transfer agreement was set to be signed the same day as the board vote, with execution targeted for January 2027 and Ausbuild expected to consolidate within the fiscal year ending March 2027.
What Sekisui is buying has grown unevenly. Ausbuild Group's revenue jumped from A$265.9mn in the year to June 2023 to A$400.3mn the following year before easing back to A$382.5mn in the year to June 2025, with net profit rising steadily across the period to A$22.3mn.
| Fiscal year to June | Revenue (A$mn) | Net profit (A$mn) |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 265.9 | 16.1 |
| 2024 | 400.3 | 21.0 |
| 2025 | 382.5 | 22.3 |
The strategic logic points to Queensland's housing math. The state's southeast is growing at 2.0% a year, a chronic housing shortage is a live political issue, and demand is expected to keep climbing ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Summer Olympics, even as rising construction labor costs and worker shortages squeeze builders. Sekisui frames this as its entry point into modular, or factory-built housing, the plan is to bring the factory-built method behind its Sekisui Heim brand, which has supplied over 680,000 homes in Japan, into Ausbuild's townhouse business within roughly three years, pending on regulatory groundwork in Queensland. Sekisui also wants to layer in solar power, batteries, home energy management systems and flood-resilient site design, citing Queensland's rising electricity prices and exposure to river and internal flooding.
Sekisui separately filed an amendment to its ¥100bn corporate-bond shelf registration the same day, whose only stated purpose is to attach the Ausbuild disclosure as a reference document; it changes no bond terms. On the acquisition itself, Sekisui says the effect on its consolidated results is still being worked out, and it will disclose further details if anything material comes up.