Earnings, deals and disclosures from Japan's listed materials & chemicals companies, in English.
Tokyo Steel now forecasts a ¥1bn operating profit for the year to March 2027, from a ¥4bn loss, on higher shipment prices and cheaper scrap, while asset sales help lift its interim net income guide.
Nippon Shikizai cut its full-year consolidated operating profit forecast to ¥261mn from ¥394mn, saying a sharp standalone shortfall from weak domestic orders and unrecovered oil-derived costs outweighs French subsidiaries it expects to beat forecasts.
Ahresty raised its full-year sales forecast to ¥180.8bn and cut operating profit to ¥300mn, with net profit undetermined until it finishes reviewing asset values in its Asian and North American die-casting businesses.
Slow price pass-through on thick steel plate has pushed Chubu Steel Plate to guide for an ¥800mn first-half operating loss and cut full-year operating-profit guidance by 75% to ¥300mn.
Kumiai Chemical now expects full-year sales of ¥175.0bn, up 8% from its December guidance, but has cut operating profit guidance 62.5% to ¥2.7bn after generic rivals crushed prices for one of its export herbicides and forced an inventory writedown, even as equity-method gains and yen-driven forex gains cushioned the ordinary-profit line and the dividend forecast stayed at ¥24 a share.
Miraial's interim profit rose 52% on AI-linked semiconductor demand for its plastic components, but a debt-funded marine-instrument acquisition added ¥826.7mn of goodwill and a ¥1.9bn covenanted loan, pulling its equity ratio down to 71.3% from 85.7%.
Generative-AI datacenter demand pushed first-half net income at resin maker Miraial up 52% to ¥431mn, even as its April acquisition of a marine-instrument maker piled on ¥1.9bn of new borrowing and forced the company to introduce an adjusted-profit metric to smooth out the deal's goodwill and M&A costs.
Nippon Paper Industries lifted its expected non-consolidated gain from a share sale to about ¥82.7bn, up from ¥26.3bn, and added a previously undisclosed ¥36.2bn consolidated gain, in a September 2 correction that also adds a newly disclosed event dated September 1.
Tri Chemical Laboratories now expects ¥6.57bn in net profit for the year to January 2027, up from a ¥4.6bn forecast in March, after chipmakers' capital spending in China and Taiwan and stronger Korean memory output pushed first-half earnings well past plan.
A server-board adhesion chemical and semiconductor process materials drove Shikoku Kasei's first-half operating profit up 80%, and the Japanese chemical maker has now raised both its full-year earnings guidance and its dividend outlook.
Mec's chemical additives for semiconductor packaging boards posted a 34% sales jump and a six-point margin gain in the six months to June, as generative-AI data-center chipmakers buy more of its CZ-series adhesion promoters across Japan, Taiwan and China.
Commodity prices and a weaker yen, not one-off accounting, drove Sumitomo Metal Mining's 55% increase in its annual profit forecast to ¥216bn, and the company's own price assumptions for the rest of the year are already more conservative than what it saw in the first quarter.
DIC's operating profit nearly doubled to ¥51.9bn in the first half as AI chip demand and quick price hikes offset raw-material costs, prompting the chemicals maker to raise its full-year outlook, lift its dividend to ¥150 a share and authorize a buyback of up to ¥10bn.
A one-off ¥7bn gain from selling two chemical units, not just stronger toothpaste and detergent sales, drove more than half of the increase in Lion's first-half operating profit.
Optical-cable and connector demand tied to data-center buildouts pushed Furukawa Electric to raise its full-year operating profit target by ¥28.0bn, to ¥123.0bn, and its interim profit forecast by ¥14.5bn.
A petrochemicals spin-off is cutting Resonac's revenue guidance by ¥145bn this year, but AI-linked demand for chip packaging materials is driving its profit forecast up 40% to ¥196bn.
JFE Holdings has replaced the undecided first-half guidance it published in May with hard numbers: ¥65bn in profit, more than double last year's ¥26.7bn, alongside a fixed ¥40-and-¥40 dividend split and a roughly ¥45bn land sale at its Kawasaki steelworks.
Kao's first-half operating profit rose 38.5% to ¥95.8bn, with ¥11.5bn of that from a land sale tied to a logistics overhaul; even excluding the gain, profit was the strongest since 2019, and the company raised its full-year operating-profit target to ¥190bn from ¥182bn.
Nippon Paper withdrew its ¥1.22tn sales forecast for the year to March 2027 after a fatal tank collapse at its Washington-state unit and earthquake damage shut its Kumamoto mill, and it has not said when a new number will arrive.
Sumitomo Chemical's net profit swung to ¥40.8bn from a year-earlier loss, driven largely by a ¥32.7bn turnaround at its Rabigh refining joint venture in Saudi Arabia and steadier crop-chemical sales, while management left its ¥70bn full-year profit target unchanged.
Nippon Steel raised its full-year net profit forecast to ¥290bn, up nearly a third, as stronger US steel prices and a turnaround at United States Steel outweighed rising raw-material costs and falling Middle East exports at home.
Nippon Light Metal Holdings raised its full-year operating profit target 22% to ¥33bn and lifted its dividend to ¥110 a share, citing recovering orders for aluminum plates used in semiconductor manufacturing equipment and sustained lithium-ion battery material sales.
First-quarter operating profit jumped 61% at Sumitomo Electric on booming data-center optical demand tied to generative AI, prompting the company to raise its full-year sales and profit targets.
Higher manufacturing costs and weaker sales volumes crushed operating profit in Tokuyama's core chemicals business by 81% in the quarter to June, yet the group is still lifting its dividend for a fourth straight year.