AkzoNobel has turned down a €7.5 billion offer from Japan’s Nippon Paint for its consumer paints division.
The company confirmed on Monday that it had received several proposals, but said it would not take them up.
Its board and supervisory directors remain unanimously behind a planned merger with American coatings group Axalta.
Why the deal was refused
AkzoNobel, headquartered in Amsterdam, is the company behind everyday brands such as Flexa and Sikkens.
Those labels sit in its Decorative Paints business, the unit Nippon Paint wanted to buy.
Management called the Japanese bid a significant undervaluation of that division and said the Axalta route is still the better path.
The Axalta combination was announced in November of last year, and the company has kept that plan as its clear preference since then.
Earlier approaches
This was not Nippon Paint’s first attempt involving AkzoNobel.
Earlier this year, Nippon Paint joined forces with US rival Sherwin-Williams in a bid for the entire Dutch group.
That approach was also rejected, with AkzoNobel again pointing to the Axalta merger as the preferred option.
The latest proposal covered only the Decorative Paints arm rather than the whole company, but the answer was the same.
What happens next
For now, the consumer paints business stays inside AkzoNobel’s existing strategy rather than moving under separate Japanese ownership.
That means brands familiar to Dutch households and painters remain tied to the planned combination with Axalta.
AkzoNobel is one of the larger industrial names still based in the Amsterdam area, so the choice matters for how the group is structured going forward.
The company has given no sign it is open to selling the paints division on the terms offered, and it intends to keep working toward the Axalta deal.
