Japanese brewer Asahi has agreed to buy a group of Eastern European beers from Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal worth 7.3 billion euros, marking its largest acquisition to date.
The brands acquired include Czech market leader Pilsner Urquell, Tyskie and Lech, Dreher and Ursus, taking Asahi further into the European market.
The deal is Asahi’s latest in Europe, after buying Peroni and Grolsch from SABMiller earlier this year.Anheuser-Busch InBev had looked to sell several of its brands to ease the clearance of its $100 billion takeover of SABMiller, agreed in October.
Alongside the acquisition, which was agreed on Tuesday morning less than 24 hours after the deadline for final bids, Asahi announced annual earnings before interest and tax of 493.8 million euros in the year to the end of March.
If the deal goes through, Asahi will take 9 percent of the European beer market, excluding Russia, according to Bernstein analyst Trevor Stirling.
Asahi (TYO:2502) shares fell more than 6 percent before recovering slightly to before close down 4.6 percent.
Several Japanese firms have looked to Europe to expand, as a stagnant economy and continually weak domestic conditions make it difficult to make profits. In a statement, Asahi said it was trying to establish a “leading premium brand portfolio” and that the acquisition would lift overseas sales as a proportion of total sales to nearly a quarter from 16 percent in October.
According to data from Thomson Reuters, Japanese companies have spent $77.6 billion on outbound mergers and acquisitions this year. Including the Asahi deal announced today, the total figure will push closer to the record $87 billion Japanese companies spent on overseas M&A deals in 2015.
Last week Japanese fruit producer Sumitomo Corp announced its intention to buy Ireland’s Fyffes for 751 million euros, merging the largest banana distributors in Asia and Europe.