Goh Cheng Liang’s Nippon Paint seeking acquisition deals, backed by debt

NIPPON Paint Holdings will seek acquisitions overseas and finance the deals by borrowing in Japan where interest rates are low, the co-president of the company said.

Borrowing costs are likely to remain low even if the Bank of Japan’s new governor Kazuo Ueda moves to end the central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy, Nippon Paint’s Yuichiro Wakatsuki said in an interview.

Wakatsuki, a banker, advised Singapore’s mogul Goh Cheng Liang’s Wuthelam Holdings in 2021 when the holding company took a majority stake in Nippon Paint in a US$12 billion deal, and later joined the paint maker.

Nippon Paint has been on a four-year 700 billion-plus yen (S$6.98 billion) push to buy assets overseas and seek growth abroad.

“Even if long-term interest rates go up in Japan in the future, it will probably be in the range of 2 per cent to 3 per cent,” said Wakatsuki, who became co-president two years ago. “That’s still much cheaper than borrowing in US dollars.”

Nippon Paint’s balance sheet showed 1.29 trillion yen in total liabilities at the end of December.

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Wakatsuki declined to comment on whether he has any acquisitions currently in the works. BLOOMBERG