On Tuesday, Asahi confirmed that it would pay $7.8bn to acquire a package of central and eastern European beer brands from Belgium-based brewing giant AB InBev – among them, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel and Tyskie. Analysts are calling the deal a win for AB InBev, with most forecasts placing the expected value of the deal lower at between $5bn and $6bn. The deal is expected to close in early 2017.

Mutually beneficial

Anheuser-Busch InBev has been offloading selected assets over the last year in order to salve the concerns of European competition regulators following its megamerger with rival SABMiller. Meanwhile, Japanese brewer Asahi has been aggressively pursuing international expansion in order to combat the effects of a stagnating beer market in Japan. The deal will grant Asahi control of operations in five different countries and brands that are market leaders in Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – according to Asahi, the country with the highest per-capita beer consumption of any in the world. The proportion of Asahi’s revenue generated from overseas operations is expected to jump to 24 per cent following the merger.

Sources: Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal; New York Times