Kirin bought Brazil's #2 brewer for $3.6B and sold it for €664M five years later

Kirin Holdings, Japan's largest beer company, was looking for growth outside its shrinking domestic market. In 2011, it targeted Schincariol, Brazil's second-largest brewer, whose brands included Nova Schin, Devassa, and Glacial. Kirin paid $3.62 billion total — $2.27 billion for a 50.45% stake in August 2011, then $1.35 billion for the remaining 49.54% in November — and assumed 1.1 billion reais in debt plus 2.1 billion reais in potential liabilities.

The acquisition faced problems from the start. Minority shareholders won a court injunction blocking the initial purchase, arguing their first-refusal rights had been violated. Kirin eventually prevailed in court, but the legal battle delayed integration and revealed the Schincariol family's unwillingness to cooperate with the new owners. The Brazilian beer market was dominated by AmBev, the AB InBev subsidiary that controlled roughly 70% of the market. Schincariol's brands were in the value segment, where margins were thin and price competition was relentless.

Brazil's economy entered a severe recession in 2014–2016, crushing consumer spending and beer sales. Kirin's Brazilian operations posted losses year after year. The company wrote down the value of the business repeatedly. In February 2017, Kirin sold Brasil Kirin to Heineken for €664 million — approximately $700 million at the time. The deal represented a loss of roughly $2.9 billion on the purchase price alone, before accounting for the debt and liabilities Kirin had assumed.

The sale was widely seen as a admission that Kirin's emerging-market strategy had failed. The company had paid a premium for a business it could not turn around, and the Brazilian recession made matters worse. Heineken, with its existing global distribution network and experience in Latin America, was better positioned to compete with AmBev.