Japanese Giant To Buy Tri Pointe Homes For $4.5B

A centuries-old Japanese logging conglomerate struck a $4.5B deal to buy Tri Pointe Homes. 

Sumitomo Forestry Co., a logging firm founded in 1691 that has been buying up U.S. homebuilders, agreed to pay a 29% premium on the Thursday closing price of Tri Pointe’s stock in an all-cash deal that will take the company private while keeping current management and operations in place. 

The deal was unanimously approved by the boards of directors at both firms and is expected to close in the second quarter, pending a shareholder vote, the companies announced Friday. 

“Partnering with Sumitomo Forestry is a natural evolution in Tri Pointe Homes’ growth and reflects the strengths of our differentiated business strategy, premium brand, and design-driven approach,” Tri Pointe CEO Doug Bauer said in a statement. “This transaction delivers compelling cash value for our stockholders while accelerating our long-term growth strategy as an independent brand.”

Tri Pointe was founded in 2009 and builds houses in 13 states stretching from the Southeastern coast to Southwestern coast and Washington, D.C. The publicly traded firm has delivered more than 58,000 housing units since its founding, including more than 6,400 homes in 2024. 

Tri Pointe’s stock, which has traded relatively flat over the last year, jumped up more than 26% Friday to just under the $47-per-share buyout price.

Sumitomo, which has a more than $7B market capitalization on the Japanese stock market, owns several homebuilders across the U.S. and is executing a strategy to sell 30,000 homes annually in the country by 2030. 

The conglomerate “has a proven track record of respecting continuity and the autonomy of local leadership,” according to Friday’s announcement. Tri Pointe reiterated its existing financial guidance and said it will issue fourth-quarter results on Feb. 25

The builder will keep its home office in Irvine, California, and its 17 divisions and financial services operations will continue to be led by existing management. 

Sumitomo began its push into the U.S. housing market roughly a decade ago. It purchased a 60% stake in mid-Atlantic builder DRB Group in January 2016 and completed the acquisition of Dallas-based Gehan Homes later that year. It later combined with Brightland Homes and expanded. 

The conglomerate also builds rental properties across the U.S. through its subsidiaries. In 2018, it acquired Crescent Communities, which was at the time the 20th-largest multifamily developer in the country, and added merchant homebuilder Southern Impression Homes to its stable in 2023. 

With Sumitomo’s backing, the build-to-rent-focused developer has started construction on at least 1,274 homes across Florida since the start of the year.

“To have somebody like Sumitomo want to buy you is, I'd say, an honor, to say the least,” Southern Impression Homes CEO Chris Funk told Bisnow earlier this month. “They’re a 350-year-old company that’s publicly traded in Japan and just very, very reputable.”

CORRECTION, FEB. 16, 1:20 P.M. ET: A previous version of this story misstated Sumitomo Forestry Co.'s market capitalization. It is $7B.