Polaris exits Japan LCD panel business

Two entities controlled by the private equity firm offloaded approximately 1.66m shares between them for – or a 39.12% stake – JPY 1,800 apiece, according to a filing. Aimechatec’s stock jumped 25.9% to close at JPY 1,459 on September 26, a four-month high. This translates into a market capitalisation of JPY 8.21bn.

The buyers are electronic components manufacturer Juki Corp and chemical products specialist Tokyo Ohka Kogyo. Both are Tokyo listed and each will take 19.56%.

Separately, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo is being acquired by Aimechatec through an all-stock deal, with Polaris transferring shares to the vendors.

Polaris purchased Aimechatec through its third fund, which closed on JPY 39.1bn in 2012. Since then, the private equity firm has scaled up considerably, raising JPY 150bn for Fund V at the end of 2021. CEO Yuji Kimura said the increase in size was driven by a proliferation in corporate carve-out opportunities and a preference among Japanese corporates to sell to local GPs.

Its interest in Aimechatec was built on a shift in focus from LCD panels to equipment for semiconductor packaging and for next-generation displays, notably OLED. For the 12 months ended June 2021, revenue came to JPY 16.1bn, up from JPY 14.5bn, while net profit rose from JPY 291m to JPY 696m. Polaris said the 2021 revenue and profit figures represented 1.4x and 3x improvements on 2016.

Performance moderated in the most recent financial year, with revenue and net profit coming in at JPY 14.7bn and JPY 478m, respectively.

Polaris held a 97.1% stake in the company prior to an IPO in June 2021. It sold 3.43m shares in the offering, generating proceeds of JPY 6.58bn.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Industrials
• Trade sale
• Japan
• Polaris Capital
• manufacturing