Japanese glass maker 'to buy Pilkington'

Japan’s Nippon Sheet Glass has sealed a $3.8bn (€3.6bn) deal to acquire world-famous British firm Pilkington, which makes glass for cars and buildings, it is reported today.

New York’s Wall Street Journal said Nippon Sheet Glass, which already owns about 20% of Pilkington, planned to use bank loans and would issue some stock to finance the deal. The paper cited unnamed people familiar with the deal as its source.

A spokeswoman for Pilkington’s US unit in Toledo, Ohio, did not return a call for comment and Nippon Sheet Glass said in a statement that no decision regarding Pilkington had yet been made.

The deal would mark the latest acquisition of a British manufacturer of industrial and building materials as the buyers of such products become increasingly global, the Journal reported on its website.

The acquisition of Pilkington would give Nippon Sheet Glass, which is smaller than its British rival, manufacturing operations in 24 countries as well as sales in more than 130 countries.

While the deal will yield some cost savings, the rationale of the combination was driven more by creating global scale, the Journal reported, saying the companies had several complementary operations and product lines.