WPCIA Washington October 13, 2020

　　Nippon Paint Holdings Co., Ltd. (NPHD) announced the merger of its U.S. automotive businesses.

　　The merger is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2021. NPA Coatings Inc., NB Coatings, Inc., and NPAA Chattanooga will merge into a single company and operate under the name Nippon Paint Automotive Americas, Inc.

　　The merger will bring about a one-company solution for pretreatment, electrocoat, body paint and paint-on-plastic product offerings specifically designed to meet the needs of the automotive coatings market.

　　NPAC, located in Cleveland, Ohio, manufactures and sells E-Coat, body paint, and pretreatment chemicals to automotive OEMs and suppliers primarily located in North America. NB Coatings (Lansing, Illinois) manufactures and sells coatings for paint-on-plastic applications for automotive OEMs and their Tiers, also primarily in North America.

　　In addition, the third location in Chattanooga, Tennessee was recently established as the site of a new manufacturing facility.

　　It will primarily produce E-Coat and topcoats for the automotive market. The Chattanooga location will be a new 270,000-square-foot LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified manufacturing facility, which will leverage some of the most advanced technologies available to optimize productivity and sustainability.

　　"This is an exciting announcement for us that we believe will yield important benefits to our customers while ensuring the continuity of our business relationships," said Tetsuro Fujita, president and CEO of Nippon Paint USA. "As a leader in automotive coatings, we pledge our continued commitment to providing superior products for all steps of the coating process. This merger builds upon Nippon Paint’s continued expansion into the North American automotive coatings market and we will continue to invest in our plants and in customer-driven technical innovation with the potential to create new products, new markets, and services."