Molson Coors Brewing Company said Tuesday it has agreed to pay $3.54 billion to purchase Prague-based StarBev from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
StarBev sells more than 20 regional beer brands and operates nine breweries in Eastern Europe. CVC built the company by buying local operations from Anheuser-Busch InBev for $2.2 billion in 2009. The deal with Molson Coors includes about $667 million of StarBev debt. (Anheuser-Busch InBev made its own modest, yet noteworthy, Eastern European acquisition in January, acquiring one of two Czech breweries with which the brewing giant has been engaged in a long-running battle over the “Budweiser” trademark.)
