Japan’s Nippon Paint has offered €7.5 bn to acquire Dutch rival Akzo Nobel’s decorative coatings business, including the Dulux brand, in a renewed effort to gatecrash an industry mega‑merger. The proposal follows Nippon’s earlier bid for the entire Akzo group, which was rejected after Akzo turned down a €13 bn counter‑offer and opted for a superior all‑share merger with New York‑listed Axalta that would create the world’s second‑largest paint company.

Akzo, which plans to cut 2,200 jobs by year‑end, is grappling with rising input costs and sluggish demand post‑Covid. The decorative unit posted adjusted EBITA of €648 mn in 2025, valuing it at 11.5 times earnings under Nippon’s offer. Nippon Paint, known as an "asset assembler," has been highly acquisitive since 2017, including a $12 bn tie‑up with Singapore’s Wuthelam Holdings in 2020.

Nippon already owns Dulux in Australia and New Zealand; acquiring Akzo’s decorative paints business would bring the legacy brand worldwide under its umbrella. Akzo has yet to respond to the latest bid.

The move reflects Nippon’s strategy of opportunistic acquisitions and its past attempts to disrupt merger talks, such as the 2017 bid for Axalta that broke off Akzo‑Axalta talks.