Brussels, Sept 16 - Private equity firm CVC Capital Parnters has gathered a group of banks to finance a possible purchase of Anheuser-Busch InBev assets in central and eastern Europe, Belgian daily De Standaard reported on Wednesday.
De Standaard said the group of about a dozen included banks operating in Belgium such as ING, KBC and BNP Paribas Fortis as well as Barclays, Eerste, HSBC, Intesa, JP Morgan, KFW, Mediobanca, SG, Unicredit and West LB.
CVC had received pledges for more than 500 million euros ($734 million) so far, the paper said.
CVC has made the only bid, of about $2 billion, for AB InBev's 11 breweries in the region, sources have told Reuters.
AB InBev, the world's largest brewer and maker of Stella Artois, Budweiser and Beck's, has said it wants $7 billion from divestments to help repay $45 billion of loans for InBev's $52 bilion takeover of U.S. peer Anheuser-Busch last year.
It has reached about half that target with divestments to date.