Suntory to keep focus on Beam and own beer instead of new deals

Tokyo

SUNTORY Holdings Ltd, the third-ranked beermaker in Japan by market share, wants to focus on boosting profits at its Beam spirits unit and upgrading its own beers rather than on buying SABMiller plc's Peroni and Grolsch brands in Europe.

"We studied it, but we have no interest now in acquiring any other business at this moment," president Takeshi Niinami said on Friday, when asked at a media event in Tokyo if he had looked at buying those brands. "We have to concentrate on integration of Beam - we want to concentrate on this integration say at least for three to four years."