Retiring the Showa Denko name: the formation of Resonac (2023)

Why a takeover in which the small swallowed the large was called a second founding

In January 2023 the group moved to a holding-company structure and, on the same day, changed its name from Showa Denko to Resonac Holdings, with the acquired Showa Denko Materials — the former Hitachi Chemical — renamed Resonac and taking over the operating businesses. Formally this was the closing step of the 2020 acquisition; substantively it settled which of the two companies would define the merged one. The acquirer was the smaller party in research base and customer franchise, and by giving up its own name it conceded that the point of the deal was not to absorb Hitachi Chemical into Showa Denko but to build a different company out of both.

President Takahashi Hidehito was explicit that the aim was to concentrate resources on semiconductor and electronic materials and compete globally, and that the 1939 name had to go for that message to be legible inside and outside the company. A name is the cheapest thing a company can spend and the hardest to get back; retiring one that had stood for eighty-four years of diversified chemicals removed the option of quietly reverting to the old shape. Calling it a second founding is therefore less rhetoric than description — the question it leaves is whether the businesses can grow into the claim.