Earnings, deals and disclosures from Japan's listed materials & chemicals companies, in English.
Hokuetsu booked a ¥1.442bn operating loss on 5.6% higher sales in the first half, blaming raw-material and fuel costs and weaker overseas pulp prices, yet it left its ¥3bn full-year operating profit target unchanged.
Artience booked a ¥9.197bn third-quarter impairment, citing a delayed customer battery plant start in Hungary that left Japanese assets idle and a worsening operating result at its Turkish liquid-ink subsidiary.
DIC lifted its full-year operating-profit forecast to ¥100bn from ¥78bn, citing AI semiconductor demand for epoxy resins, higher-value inks and quick price rises, while display pigments slowed after a World Cup-linked TV surge.
Mitsubishi Materials raised its operating-profit forecast for the year to March 2027 to ¥165bn from ¥130bn, citing higher tungsten and copper prices, carbide-product repricing and semiconductor volumes, while holding its ¥116 dividend forecast.
Resonac lifted its full-year core operating profit forecast to ¥250bn on advanced chip demand, but cut operating profit guidance to ¥115bn as graphite-electrode strategic-option losses entered the forecast.
Tokyo Ohka Kogyo raised its sales forecast for the year to December 2026 to ¥300bn and operating profit to ¥63.5bn, and expects to beat the final-year targets of its mid-term plan a year early.
Sumitomo Metal Mining's ¥42.6bn charge at its Coral Bay nickel subsidiary pushed smelting into a half-year loss and cut full-year pretax guidance to ¥260bn, even as group pretax profit for the half-year rose 91.9%.
Shiseido now forecasts ¥87bn of core operating profit, up from ¥69bn, while expecting real sales growth of 1%, down from 3%; cost control, currency effects and one-off tariff refunds are the stated contributors.
Mitsui Kinzoku will spend about ¥190bn on a Malaysian plant for MicroThin and VSP copper foil, funded from cash and borrowings, with staged start-up from April 2031, as it also lifts its dividend target to 4.0% of equity.
Nippon Steel reported a ¥263.0bn half-year net profit against a loss a year earlier, with U.S. Steel the steel segment's main earner, domestic margins weaker, and a ¥96.1bn tax credit inside the net figure.
Nippon Paper booked a ¥15bn extraordinary loss in its standalone interim accounts for fixed-asset impairment, inventory write-downs and shutdown fixed costs at its earthquake-hit Yatsushiro mill; the filing gives no restart date.
Kobe Steel's construction-machinery subsidiary signed a deal to buy 70% of two new CNH-built companies for $700mn on an enterprise-value basis, funded by bridge loans, with closing subject to competition-law approvals and planned for the third quarter of fiscal 2027.
JX Advanced Metals lifted its operating profit forecast for the year to March 2027 by ¥23.0bn, pointing to AI-server volumes, better pricing and a higher copper assumption, while still allowing for lower mine output.
Mitsui Chemicals will buy JSR from JIC Capital funds with DBJ for ¥1.84tn, funded by a ¥1.64tn bridge loan that it says will temporarily lift net debt above four times EBITDA, with closing targeted for the second half of fiscal 2027.
Furukawa Electric lifted its operating-profit forecast for the year to March 2027 to ¥136bn from ¥123bn, saying data-center demand is driving optical solutions sales, while the first-half optical segment earned ¥23.6bn.
Fujifilm's first-half operating profit fell 10.9% to ¥141.2bn as healthcare profit shrank 85.8%, even as electronics and imaging earnings rose; the full-year profit forecast is unchanged at ¥365.0bn.
Shinto Paint shareholders vote on 15 January 2027 on a deal giving them 0.0824 Dai Nippon Toryo shares for each Shinto share held, with delisting planned for 22 February and neither company having obtained a fairness opinion from its valuer.
Unicharm's nine-month sales rose 5.1% to ¥729.3bn with pet care up 13.0%, and it closed a Brazilian pet-food acquisition on June 30, while Asia's core profit fell 18.3% and attributable profit slipped 6.6%.
Oji Holdings cut its full-year operating-profit forecast to ¥45bn from ¥60bn, citing Middle East fuel costs and slow pulp recovery, but held net profit at ¥35bn by relying on sales of shareholdings.
Three idle Yatsushiro paper machines will not restart after earthquake damage, Nippon Paper decided, while the mill's household-paper project is under review and new uses for the site are being studied.
Nippon Steel lifted its net profit forecast to ¥440bn from ¥290bn, with a one-off ¥96.1bn Arkansas tax credit at U.S. Steel inside the total, while its business profit forecast rose ¥90bn to ¥720bn.
Mitsubishi Chemical Group has cancelled its exit from needle coke and pitch coke at Kagawa after finding it difficult to reach its carbon fiber targets with other companies' feedstock; production pauses in the business year beginning April 2027, with a restart expected a year later.
Sumitomo Bakelite lifted its full-year operating profit forecast to ¥50bn from ¥37.5bn as semiconductor-materials revenue rose 37.7% in the first half, and it completed a ¥28.5bn purchase of part of Kyocera's chemicals business on October 30.
Rasa Industries raised its full-year operating profit forecast to ¥7.4bn from ¥6.2bn and its year-end dividend to ¥25, saying a Taiwan high-purity phosphoric acid line that started in April ramped up faster than expected.