Group CEO Message

First, let me express my heartfelt gratitude for the exceptional support that you have extended to Asahi Group Holdings over the past year.

I would also like to offer my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to many of our customers and business partners by the disruption to our systems following the cyberattack that occurred in Japan last September. Thanks to the kind support of so many people, we are making steady progress on restoring our systems and normalizing shipments. We are also implementing thorough measures to ensure this does not happen again, and making every effort to restore trust by bolstering the robustness of our whole system and strengthening our business continuity capabilities.

As part of the drive to put our Asahi Group Philosophy into practice, we pursue initiatives designed to achieve sustainable growth and enhance corporate value based on our Medium to Long-term Management Policy that we formulated by backcasting from pertinent megatrends.

In 2025, despite a highly uncertain global business environment characterised by a persistently elevated costs and ongoing inflation, we advanced our premium strategy and earnings structure reforms across our regions while we strengthened cooperation within the Group to create corporate value that exceeds the sum of our individual businesses. In addition, in April, we transformed to a new operational structure with three Regional Headquarters to promote swift decision-making and efficient business operations. We also transitioned to a Company with a Nominating Committee to help clarify and strengthen management’s supervision and execution roles and enhance corporate governance.

In 2026, in addition to investing in growth areas such as our global brands, including Asahi Super Dry, and beer adjacent categories (BAC*), we aim to fortify our sustainable growth foundations by pursuing broader sustainability initiatives and optimizing human capital. In December 2025, we signed a share purchase agreement to acquire Diageo’s businesses in East Africa as part of a determined ongoing drive to vigorously strengthen our business portfolio through the building of solid foundations in growth markets with considerable medium- to long-term expansion prospects. We also remain committed to increasing corporate value over the medium- to long-term by promoting growth investments based on the Key Indicator Guidelines and Financial Policy (2025-2030) that we updated in February 2025 and allocating capital in ways that both increase capital efficiency and enhance shareholder returns.

I very much look forward to your continued support and guidance over the coming year and wish you all the very best for 2026.

Atsushi Katsuki
President and Group CEO

• Categories adjacent to beer such as non-alcohol adult beverages, RTDs, and adult soft drinks