SUMITOMO CHEMICAL News Releases

2025-03-11T01:28:36Z

Sumitomo Chemical will participate in the Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC) 2025 Exposition to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, from Monday, March 17 to Wednesday, March 19, 2025. This event has been held annually in the U.S. since 1986, and brings together the latest products and technologies in the field of power electronics, which deals with technologies for controlling, converting, and supplying electric power, from all over the world.

Sumitomo Chemical will exhibit gallium nitride (GaN) substrates and high-purity GaN-on-GaN epitaxial wafers (GaN substrates with a crystalline layer of high-purity GaN formed on the surface), which are expected to be used as semiconductor materials for next-generation power devices. GaN power devices are expected to contribute to reducing the energy consumption of servers in data centers, where power consumption is increasing due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as to improving battery power conversion efficiency and thereby extending the cruising range of electric vehicles (EVs).

1. Overview of the Exposition
APEC 2025 Exposition
Date: Monday,March 17 to Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Venue: Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia, the United States
Website: https://apec-conf.org/exposition/
Sumitomo Chemical’s booth number: 2144

2. Sumitomo Chemical’s Exhibitions
GaN substrates
Sumitomo Chemical is developing 6-inch GaN substrates to meet the wafer size requirements for power semiconductor processing by refining crystal growth and processing technologies for 2-inch GaN substrates, which have been mass-produced for use in laser applications. In this development project, the Company is striving to improve crystal quality to contribute to making power devices smaller and more efficient.

GaN substrates. From the left: 2-inch GaN substrates (mass-produced), 4-inch GaN substrates (mass-produced), and 6-inch GaN substrates (under development).

Contact

Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.
Advanced Inorganic Products Division
Phone: +81-3-5201-0325
/sciocs/english/

2025-03-06T00:32:03Z

Sumitomo Chemical will begin selling its polymer material polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) made from methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer produced through chemical recycling. LG Display Co., Ltd. of South Korea and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. of Japan have decided to use this chemically-recycled material for their products. Sumitomo Chemical will accelerate the implementation of chemical recycling in the MMA supply chain as an industry leader.

In 2022, Sumitomo Chemical constructed a new pilot facility for the chemical recycling of PMMA at its Ehime Works located in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. It has also implemented such initiatives as a joint project with Niihama City to recycle PMMA protective partition panels, which are used for reducing the spread of droplets, in the area, as well as providing its chemically-recycled PMMA as raw material for the acrylic jewelry sold by Star Jewelry Co., Ltd.

In addition, Sumitomo Chemical has received third-party certifications, such as the ISCC PLUS^* certification, and is making efforts to globally implementing practical recycling systems using the mass balance approach.

Sumitomo Chemical will provide its chemically recycled PMMA produced in mass production facilities for applications that require high quality, such as electronics and automotives. The Company will start selling the product to LG Display as raw material for light guide plates used in backlight units for liquid crystal displays and to Nissan Motor as raw material for lenses used in vehicle headlights.

Sumitomo Chemical is making a significant shift in its petrochemicals-related business to create value through technologies that reduce environmental impact. The value of recycled materials and products is being increasingly recognized. Staying in step with this progress, Sumitomo Chemical will scale up its chemically recycled MMA materials business, while also making the products widely available across society through technology licensing, to contribute to achieving a sustainable society.

Liquid crystal display applications (image)

Automotive applications（Provided by Nissan Motor）

*An international certification system to ensure that sustainable raw materials, such as recycled raw materials and biomass-derived raw materials, are properly managed in the supply chain, including in product manufacturing.

2025-03-05T05:06:32Z

2025-03-04T00:06:39Z

Executive Summary

Sumitomo Chemical will focus investment on Agro & Life Solutions and ICT & Mobility Solutions, the two sectors serving as its growth drivers, including:
(i) 220 billion yen in R&D investments (an increase of 30% compared to the period from fiscal 2019 to 2021)
(ii) 180 billion yen in strategic investments (80% of overall strategic investments).
The Company will strive to significantly improve its profitability and capital efficiency by upgrading its business portfolio and vigorously pursuing ROIC-oriented management.
The Company aims to achieve 200 billion yen in core operating income, a ROE of 8% and a ROIC of 6% for 2027, the final year of the new Three-Year Corporate Business Plan.
The Company aims to achieve sustainable growth driven by contributions from new businesses from fiscal 2030 beyond. It will work towards achieving a ROE of more than 12% and a ROIC of more than 10% over the long term.

Sumitomo Chemical has formulated its Three-Year Corporate Business Plan for the period from fiscal 2025 to fiscal 2027. In fiscal 2024, the Company expects to achieve a V-shaped recovery as it is making significant progress on short-term intensive performance improvement measures and fundamental structural reforms. Building on this momentum, Sumitomo Chemical will begin a new management structure in April 2025, and accelerate the upgrading of its business portfolio by focusing the Company’s resources on its current growth drivers, the Agro & Life Solutions Sector and the ICT & Mobility Solutions Sector. In addition, by renewing its commitment to ROIC-oriented management, the Company will strive to significantly improve its profitability and capital efficiency, and ensure return to a growth trajectory.

1. Sumitomo Chemical’s Long-Term Vision

Sumitomo Chemical has a long-term vision to become an Innovative Solution Provider—a company that solves society’s challenges by leveraging innovative technologies. The Company has identified food, ICT, healthcare, and the environment as societal issues it should tackle, on the basis of its technology and business assets that give it distinct competitive advantages, and has reorganized its business sectors to address these four issues. By generating solutions from innovative products and technologies in each of these areas and widely providing them throughout society, Sumitomo Chemical will strive to continue to be a company with a global presence.

2. The Three-Year Corporate Business Plan for Fiscal 2025 to 2027

Sumitomo Chemical has positioned its new Three-Year Corporate Business Plan to be the first step toward achieving its long-term vision. Under the Three-Year Corporate Business Plan, with the slogan Leap Beyond: Returning to a Growth Trajectory, the Company will tackle five key management issues, including upgrading its business portfolio through a new growth strategy, increasing resilience through continuous structural reforms, and improving financial and capital efficiency.

(1) Basic Policy
(i) Upgrading the Company’s business portfolio through a new growth strategySumitomo Chemical will clarify the positioning of each of its business areas and implement more clearly focused resource allocation accordingly. The Agro & Life Solutions Sector, which provides solutions such as biorationals, botanicals, and crop protection chemicals, and the ICT & Mobility Solutions Sector, which provides solutions such as semiconductors materials and advanced display materials, will be the Company’s growth drivers for a foreseeable future. Sumitomo Chemical will concentrate approximately 80% of its strategic investments, including capital expenditures and mergers and acquisitions, in these areas. In addition, on top of the strategic investment, the Company will invest 220 billion yen for R&D in both areas, an increase of 30% compared to the period from fiscal 2019 to 2021.

The Advanced Medical Solutions Sector, which provides solutions for advanced medical treatments, including small-molecule active pharmaceutical ingredients, nucleic acid drug substances, and regenerative medicine and cell therapy products, will be developed as a new growth area to become the Company’s third growth driver. In the Essential & Green Materials Sector, Sumitomo Chemical will make a major shift from petrochemicals to value creation through environmental impact reduction business and green transformation technology licensing.

Sumitomo Chemical will capture the path to success in each of its businesses and accelerate the upgrading of its business portfolio.

(ii) Increasing resilience through the continuous implementation of structural reforms
Sumitomo Chemical will strive to further increase the resilience of its business structure by pressing ahead its on-going structural reform efforts, without slowing down. They include enhancing the fundamental profitability of Petro Rabigh, which begun a restructuring plan in fiscal 2024, seeking an optimal partner that can contribute to the sustainable growth of Sumitomo Pharma, which has emerged from a significant loss and taken a solid step towards growth, and carrying out structural reforms of the Company’s petrochemical business in Japan and Singapore.

(iii) Improving financial and capital efficiency
Sumitomo Chemical will renew its commitment to ROIC-oriented management and strive to maximize returns on the major investments it has made, while continuously implementing fundamental structural reforms. The Company aims to achieve a group-wide ROIC of 6% by fiscal 2027, and, in the two areas that will be its growth drivers, will set a target ROIC of 8% for Agro & Life Solutions and 11% for ICT & Mobility Solutions. The cash generation efforts that the Company has advanced as part of its short-term intensive performance improvement measures until the end of fiscal 2024 will continue in the new Three-Year Corporate Business Plan, with a new target of generating cash of 200 billion yen (a total of 900 billion yen from fiscal 2023). By optimally allocating a total of 1.1 trillion yen in cash, including operating cash flows, the Company will strive to improve its financial position and achieve a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.8 times to less than 0.9 times.

In addition to the three issues above, to achieve sustainable growth, Sumitomo Chemical will also implement (iv) an R&D strategy centered on the Company’s three X’s—BX (biotechnological transformation), DX (digital transformation) and GX (green transformation), the Company’s assets that give it distinct competitive advantages, and work on (v) enhancing its management foundation to support the Company’s new growth strategy.

(2) Financial performance targets
Sumitomo Chemical has set the following consolidated financial performance targets for this Three-Year Corporate Business Plan.

(Billions of yen)

	FY2027 targets	FY2024 forecast
Sales revenue	2,400.0	2,600.0
Core operating income	200.0	100.0
Net income attributable to owners of the parent	100.0	25.0
ROE	8%	3%
ROIC	6%	2%
D/E ratio	0.8 to less than 0.9 times	1.1 times

Sumitomo Chemical has set fiscal 2025 as the starting point for a new Sumitomo Chemical, and will continue to advance further transformation. The Company will strive to achieve its financial performance targets set under the new Leap Beyond Three-Year Corporate Business Plan and accomplish a significant leap beyond the expectations of its stakeholders.

Corporate Business Plan

Cautionary statement

Statements made in this material with respect to Sumitomo Chemical’s current plans, estimates, strategies and beliefs that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements about the future performance of Sumitomo Chemical. These statements are based on management’s assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it, and involve risks and uncertainties. The important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, general economic conditions in Sumitomo Chemical’s markets; demand for, and competitive pricing pressure on, Sumitomo Chemical’s products in the marketplace; Sumitomo Chemical’s ability to continue to win acceptance for its products in these highly competitive markets; and movements of currency exchange rates. Factors that may impact the performance of Sumitomo Chemical are not limited to only those outlined above.

2025-03-03T01:58:01Z

2025-03-03T01:08:36Z

2025-02-13T01:06:55Z

Sumitomo Chemical, aiming to create a society where humans live in harmony with nature, established the Sumitomo Chemical Biodiversity Guideline ("the Guideline") in 2011. Since then, the Company has proactively disclosed information about its initiatives and engaged in dialogue with stakeholders both inside and outside the Company. Sumitomo Chemical hereby announces that it has made revisions to the Guideline.

Biodiversity_Guideline.pdf

Key points of the revision

Beyond the conservation of biodiversity, Sumitomo Chemical will also work toward the conservation and restoration of natural capital*¹.
These initiatives will be integrated with efforts toward achieving carbon neutrality and circular economy.
Sumitomo Chemical will promote these initiatives from the perspectives of both obligation*² and contribution*³, and will continuously engage in societal contribution and awareness-raising activities.

One of Sumitomo Chemical’s management philosophies is to contribute to the development of human society through its business activities. Since the Company’s founding, it has carefully cultivated a culture of environmental conservation and has addressed biodiversity through the promotion of responsible care activities.

Following the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties in December 2022, the Japanese government declared its aim to achieve a nature-positive*⁴ economy through The National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) of Japan 2023-2030 announced in March 2023. In addition, in March 2024, the Japanese government positioned the concept of nature conservation as a key issue in the value creation process of companies in the Transition Strategies toward a Nature Positive Economy. As a result, companies are increasingly required to contribute to these initiatives. In line with this trend, the Sumitomo Chemical Group has been expanding its initiatives, which has led to this revision.

The Sumitomo Chemical Group will continue to promote initiatives towards a nature-positive world. It aims to create a society where humans live in harmony with nature through the power of chemistry.

*1 Capital made of natural resources including forests, soil, water, the atmosphere, underground resources, and biological resources. Natural capital is one of the essential forms of capital that support people’s lives and the foundations of corporations.
*2 Continuously reducing the environmental impact of Sumitomo Chemical’s business activities and endeavoring to conserve and restore biodiversity and natural capital by taking characteristics of local communities into consideration and cooperating with stakeholders in the Company’s supply chains.
・   Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy and processes
・   Appropriate chemical substance management
・   Reduction of waste emissions
・   Effective use of water resources
・   Promotion of sustainable procurement initiatives
*3 Contributing to conserving and restoring biodiversity and natural capital across Sumitomo Chemical’s value chain through the development and provision of technologies, products, and services.
・ Provision of products and technologies that promote regenerative agriculture
・ Development and implementation in society of technologies that contribute to recycling plastics and other resources
・ Provision of products, technologies, and services that contribute to GHG emissions reduction
*4 Halting and reversing biodiversity loss to put nature back on a path to recovery.

Contact

Inquiry about Sustainability
/english/contact/sustainability/

2025-02-10T00:15:45Z

Sumitomo Chemical has acquired the asset of a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) neat resin business from Syensqo SA/NV ("Syensqo"), a company based in Belgium. By incorporating the products and technology acquired from Syensqo through this acquisition, the Company will strengthen its system for meeting new market needs and further expand its LCP business, particularly in ICT and mobility applications.

LCP is a type of super engineering plastic known for its excellent heat resistance, fluidity, and dimensional accuracy. It is used in various applications, including electronic components for PCs and smartphones. Sumitomo Chemical has been expanding its LCP business by leveraging its market-leading technical strengths in the research and development of polymer materials and their applications to meet market needs.

In recent years, LCP has garnered attention as a material for such things as power devices to meet increased electrical demand and the shift to EVs, next-generation millimeter-wave radar for autonomous driving, and high-capacity connectors for data centers. From this, the LCP market is expected to achieve further growth.

The LCP neat resin product technology Sumitomo Chemical has acquired from Syensqo is known for its high heat resistance. By incorporating Syensqo's lineup and technology, the Company will be able to better meet the needs of society. In addition, by utilizing Syensqo's LCP patent and production technology, Sumitomo Chemical expects to expand its product lineup, not only in the ICT and mobility fields, but also across a wide range of applications.

Sumitomo Chemical will continue to position the LCP business in which growth is anticipated as one of the Company’s key businesses, and will expand it through such options as various partnerships with other companies. Through this, Sumitomo Chemical aims to double the current sales revenue of the business by the early 2030s.

Overview of Syensqo

Company Name	Syensqo SA/NV
Location	Brussels, Belgium
Date of Establishment	December 2023 (following the partial demerger from Solvay SA)
CEO	Dr. Ilham Kadri
Description of Business	Research, development, manufacturing, and sales of specialty chemicals

2025-02-06T05:56:46Z

2025-02-04T00:53:29Z

2025-02-03T02:12:20Z

2025-02-03T02:10:27Z

2025-02-03T01:56:47Z

JFE Engineering Corporation
Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.

JFE Engineering Corporation (President and CEO: Kazuyoshi Fukuda, Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, “JFE Engineering”) and Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. (Representative Director and President: Keiichi Iwata, Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, “Sumitomo Chemical”) today announced that they have reached an agreement for JFE Engineering to acquire 66.6% of the shares in Sumitomo Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. (“Sumitomo Chemical Engineering”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by March 31, 2025.

As a comprehensive engineering company within the JFE Group, JFE Engineering is widely engaged in engineering businesses that support people's lives and industries across various fields such as energy, environment, and bridges & steel structures, and it has a solid business foundation both domestically and internationally. The chemical plant engineering sector, which is projected to see continued market growth, has been designated as a core focus area for EPC^*1 by JFE Engineering. Through this share acquisition, JFE Engineering aims to expand both its customer base and service areas.

Sumitomo Chemical Engineering, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical, is a chemical plant engineering company with extensive experience in design and construction of plants both domestically and internationally across a broad range of fields, including petrochemicals, fine chemicals^*2, and the semiconductor manufacturing.
Significant changes are anticipated in both domestic and international business environments as part of global efforts toward realizing a carbon-neutral society. In these circumstances, Sumitomo Chemical has determined to proceed with this share transfer since the deal would contribute to the sustainable growth and enhancement of corporate value of Sumitomo Chemical Engineering through leveraging the combined management resources and business expertise of Sumitomo Chemical and JFE Engineering to develop higher value-added businesses.
Sumitomo Chemical Engineering intends to change its corporate name following the share transfer. However, it will maintain its strong relationship with the Sumitomo Chemical Group while maximizing synergies with the JFE Group.

JFE Engineering and Sumitomo Chemical will continue their collaborative efforts in the construction of advanced chemical plants and the development of innovative technologies, thereby contributing to the realization of a carbon-neutral and sustainable society.

*1 Engineering, Procurement, and Construction
*2 High-quality materials used in pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fragrances, and functional resins

Overview of the Company to be transferred

Company Name	Sumitomo Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd.
Location	1-7-1 Nakase, Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba
Established	September 1964
Capital	1 billion yen (Ownership: Sumitomo Chemical 100%)
Sales	27.1 billion yen (for fiscal year ended March 31, 2024)
Number of Offices	three in Japan (Chiba, Osaka, Ehime), two overseas (Singapore, Malaysia)
Business	Planning, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and maintenance related to the construction of basic chemicals, functional chemical plants, and chemical supply systems for semiconductor manufacturing
Corporate Website	https://www.scec.co.jp/front-en/

2025-02-03T01:54:52Z

2025-02-03T01:53:18Z