Japanese beer giant Kirin announced today a tender offer to acquire full ownership of Fancl, a Japanese cosmetics and food supplements firm, for around USD 1.4 billion (EUR 1.3 billion), as part of an effort to reduce its reliance on its lukewarm core market.

Kirin already acquired 33% of Fancl in 2019. The group now intends to buy the rest of the shares through a tender offer and share warrants which will start on Monday. Kirin expects to spend about 220 billion yen in the operation.

Through this acquisition, Kirin intends to strengthen its long-standing immunology research, its ability to develop and manufacture high value-added ingredients through fermentation and biotechnology, and its health food business base in Asia-Pacific. For the same purpose, Kirin had already acquired the Australian vitamin and food supplement manufacturer Blackmores last year for more than a billion dollars.

"By commercializing ingredients created through the natural technology of fermentation, leveraging customer understanding gained from Kirin Holdings’ and Fancl’s strong relationships with consumers, and delivering them to consumers through multiple channels in the Asia-Pacific region, the Kirin Group will contribute to solving consumers’ health issues in both the cosmetics and health food businesses and further enhance its presence in the global market in addition to Japan," said Kirin in a statement.

The beverages giant hopes to complete this transaction by the end of the year, after which Fancl will be delisted, a group spokesperson told AFP.

In 2023, alcoholic beverages represented almost half of Kirin’s turnover, and almost 60% of its operating profit. However, the group is pessimistic about the outlook for this market due to the decline of the Japanese population and changing consumer tastes.

Kirin hopes that the acquisition of Fancl will help boost the results of its health-related products division (5% of its total sales), which suffered an operational loss last year.

The global food supplement market was estimated at USD 177.5 billion in 2023 and is expected to experience an annual growth rate of 9.1% through 2030, according to analytics firm Grand View Research.