Eneos Eyes Possible Swoop for JSR’s Synthetic Rubber Operations

摘要

Petroleum and metals conglomerate Eneos Holdings Inc. (TYO:5020) is understood to be considering a move to acquire JSR Corp.’s (TYO:4185) Elastomers business, which the latter is looking to sell off as part of a structural reform. With a lineup largely consisting of general-purpose products, JSR’s Elastomers business has found itself easily affected by market conditions for chief raw material butadiene. Moreover, with recent years seeing a spate of new manufacturers from Asia and the like come on to the scene, competition in this space has only intensified. And the situation has then been compounded by COVID-19, which has made for declining demand due to sluggish business in customer-centric industries like the automotive sector. With all this then driving worsening profit losses for general-purpose products, expectations are that JSR’s books will show a second straight year in the red when the company releases its results for fiscal 2020.