Air Water Materials (AW Materials) of the Air Water Group made an investment dated April 8 in Hong-Kuang Hi-Tech (HK) of Taiwanese specialty gas distributor in the amount of NT$625 million acquiring the issued shares of 21.9% for affiliation.

The acquisition is based upon the strategic tie-up agreement between Air Water and Mitsui dated February 24 for globalization of the industrial gas business. Mitsui also invested in HK on April 25 acquiring 13.1% share. Both companies will come to possess a total share of 35% with the investment.

HK founded in 2010 is a trading company dealing with liquid carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, fluorine gas for the electronics market of Taiwan. The company forecasts its sales of about JPY1.5 billion in 2022, and is now going to reinforce the business further by such a means as the planned construction of distillation and purification equipment in Taiwan (600ton of CO2 and 80t of nitrous oxide per month each) by 2025 in order to cope with the customer’s increasing demand for a higher purity and more supply. AW Material which used to be an HK’s business friend now says, “We deeply comprehend each other’s business contents, and the investment at this time was decided foreseeing the growth of the semiconductor and the related field.”

Taking advantage of HK’s customer network, the AW Group is planning to promote the gas business globally based on the HK’s new plant while reinforcing the current business so far developed by AW Material in Taiwan. It was added that they would reinforce HK’s management as a whole and develop a global business making the most of Mitsui’s resources, wishing to raise the current JPY15 billion sales of the AW Material’s SPG business up to JPY 20 billion by 2025.