Japanese beer giant Asahi present in Hungary now

Asahi Group Holdings will buy a group of eastern European beer brands from Anheuser-Busch InBev for 7.3 billion euros ($7.8 billion), boosting its presence in the region in the largest international beer deal by a Japanese brewer.

Anheuser-Busch InBev agreed to sell the brands, including Czech market leader Pilsner Urquell, Poland’s Tyskie and Lech, Hungary’s Dreher and Romania’s Ursus, to ease clearance from competition regulators for its $100 billion takeover of SABMiller, finalised in October.

The deal, expected to close in the first half of next year, would be Asahi’s biggest acquisition and its latest purchase in Europe, where it has also bought SABMiller’s Italian brand Peroni and Dutch beer Grolsch.

It was announced on Tuesday morning, less than 24 hours after the deadline for final bids, according to sources close to the matter.

Asahi said on Tuesday that the business had annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 493.8 million euros in the year to the end of March.

Based on that figure, its bid represents a multiple of 14.8 times, which is higher than the 12 to 14 times brewing assets in mature markets normally fetch.

Asahi’s winning bid compared with the 15 times EBITDA it paid for Peroni and Grolsch, which was fueled in part by synergies in Australia with Asahi’s existing business.

Asahi, which is looking to offset sluggish growth in its home market, said the acquisition would lift overseas sales as a proportion of total sales to nearly a quarter from 16 percent in October.

Also expanding from its Japanese base, Sumitomo Corp agreed last week to buy Ireland’s Fyffes for 751 million euros in a deal that will merge the largest banana distributors in Asia and Europe.