Asahi To Buy AB InBev's Eastern European Beer Brands For $7.8 Billion: Report

Tokyo: Japan's Asahi Group Holdings Ltd has agreed to buy five eastern European beer brands from Anheuser-Busch InBev for about 900 billion yen ($7.8 billion) in a deal to be announced as early as Tuesday, the Nikkei business daily said.

Asahi declined to comment.

Anheuser-Busch InBev had agreed to sell the brands, which include the Czech market leader Pilsner Urquell, Poland's Tyskie and Lech and Hungary's Dreher, to help get clearance from competition regulators for its $100 billion takeover of SABMiller.

Asahi has already bought SABMiller's Western European brands Peroni and Grolsch, and a source had told Reuters Asahi was a favourite to buy the Eastern European brands given its existing global distribution channels.

($1 = 115.0500 yen)