Japanese conglomerate Sekisui Chemical has purchased a majority stake in one of Queensland’s 4th largest builders, Ausbuild, for $335 million, securing 51 per cent of the business.
Everyone will focus on the number of zeros on the cheque, but the more interesting question is:
What does Sekisui, and the string of Japanese companies before it, see in Australia’s housing market that makes a Queensland home builder worth paying this much for?
The answer is quite simple: population growth.
Population growth impact: Australia vs Japan
Australia’s population is growing by about 1.5 per cent a year, and in South East Queensland that number is closer to 3 per cent, while Japan’s is shrinking by around 0.5 per cent a year.
That gap may sound small until you put it in raw numbers:
- Australia has added roughly two million people in the last five years, while Japan has lost about three million.
- Australia now needs to build more than a million new homes every five years just to keep up. Japan needs a million fewer; so, it’s a tough time to be a home builder in Japan.
Several Japanese companies buy share in Australia builders
This is why the Ausbuild deal isn’t a one-off; it’s the latest move in a pattern that goes back more than a decade.
- Sumitomo Forestry bought into Queensland’s fifth largest builder, Henley and Plantation Homes in 2009.
- Sekisui House, a separate company from Sekisui Chemical, bought AVJennings’ contract building division in 2010.
- Asahi Kasei bought Queensland’s sixth largest builder, Brighton Homes in 2017.
- Toyota Housing bought our 10th largest, Homecorp in 2018.
- Sumitomo Forestry then doubled down, buying 51 per cent of Australia’s biggest builder and Queensland’s third biggest, Metricon in 2024.
What the Japanese companies are actually buying
Japanese companies now control four of the state’s seven largest home builders. Rather than the headline number, there’s a more valuable insight buried in the price tags.
Sekisui Chemical is paying around $335 million for a business building roughly 600 homes a year.
Sumitomo Forestry paid $115 million for 51 per cent of Metricon, a business building around 4,000 homes a year.
Run the numbers per home built and Ausbuild looks wildly expensive next to Metricon, that is until you realise neither buyer was really buying a construction business at all.
Most of Sekisui’s cheque is paying for control of Ausbuild’s land bank: a pipeline of roughly 4,500 blocks across the state’s southeast.
The building company was the way in. The land was the point. And that has implications well beyond home builders.
Lesson for Australians
Population growth drives demand for everything, not just houses; and its absence does the same in reverse.
Japan’s shrinking population means shrinking demand across every industry; Australia’s growing one means the opposite for the Asian nation.
