In the dark post-Lehman weeks last year, AB InBev committed to $7bn of disposals to repay a tranche of the $54.8bn bank debt it assumed in its mega-takeover of Anheuser-Busch. Few fancied its chances of pulling these off at much above distressed prices. Yet Thursday’s $2.23bn sale of central and eastern European beer operations to CVC takes its disposal proceeds to at least $8.3bn. The world’s biggest brewer could earn up to an additional $400m from this month’s sale of its US theme parks to Blackstone, and $800m from the central European businesses, if the buyers beat return on investment targets.

Both sides are cagey about the multiple that CVC is paying. Evolution Securities estimates $2.23bn represents about eight times 2009 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. That is some way below the 10 times-plus of big boom-era beer deals but for AB InBev it is respectable enough, given the potential extra $800m payments. Those help address the fact that these assets have been hit hard by the east European downturn, but could bounce back to strong growth. Moreover, though CVC raised $1bn senior debt from banks, and is getting $448m vendor financing, it is still injecting a bigger chunk of equity than it would have done pre-crunch.