By Taiga Uranaka and Ritsuko Shimizu
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Suntory Holdings Ltd [SUNTH.UL] will need at least three years to bed down its integration with U.S. bourbon maker Beam and in the meantime it will not consider an initial public offering or any large-scale acquisitions, its president said.
Takeshi Niinami's comments, made in an interview with Reuters on Monday, put to rest months of speculation that the family-owned drinks company would go public to settle its debts and some of the $16 billion acquisition costs of the Beam deal.
"Unless we achieve successful post-merger integration, we cannot compete in the global market," Niinami said. "An IPO is done to fund large-scale acquisitions. We are not considering them. We don't see any necessity for an IPO now."
Niinami, 56, former CEO of convenience store chain Lawson Inc (T:2651), was recruited last year as the first outsider to run the family-owned drinks company.
With annual sales of about 2.5 trillion yen (13.5 billion pounds), Suntory is one of the most familiar corporate names in Japan, with "Boss" canned coffee, "Iemon" bottled green tea and "The Premium Malt's" beer.
But with the exception of whiskey aficionados, the more than 100-year-old company was not widely known overseas until last year when it bought Beam.
Niinami also said there were no assets of "strategic interest" likely to come onto the market as a result of the planned $100 billion merger of Anheuser-Busch InBev (BR:ABI) and SABMiller (L:SAB), but added that Suntory had to now "think how to be ready for acceleration in industry consolidation".
As for the Chinese beer market, Niinami said it was "not ready" for Suntory's offerings just yet.
"At this moment, it's hard to see how China's consumer behaviour is changing, whether they will seek high-quality products or become cost-conscious," he said.
"What we want to sell is premium beer, so the environment is not yet ready for us."
Earlier this month, Suntory said it had agreed to scrap a loss-making brewery joint venture with Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd <600600.SS>, highlighting the difficulties Japanese brewers face in the global beer market.
