AONNY Aeon Co Ltd (PK)

TOKYO--Suntory Beverage & Food Ltd. (2587.TO) said Monday it has agreed to acquire GlaxoSmithKline PLC's (GSK.LN) drinks brands Lucozade and Ribena for Y210.6 billion ($2.1 billion) in a deal that will help power its growth strategy.

Glaxo earlier this year announced plans to divest the nutritional drinks brands.

Suntory, the distributor of PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) products in Japan, hopes for further growth through large-scale outbound mergers and acquisitions. The company is well-known among Japanese consumers for brands such as Iemon tea and Boss canned coffee.

The deal underscores continued appetite for outbound M&A deals by corporate Japan. Otsuka Holdings Co. (4578.TO) last week announced an $886 million deal to buy U.S. cancer drug maker Astex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ASTX). Meanwhile, Japanese retail giant Aeon Co. (8267.TO) and three other players are left in the running for Hong Kong supermarket chain ParknShop from an original eight, people with knowledge of the deal said Friday.

Write to Hiroyuki Kachi at Hiroyuki.Kachi@wsj.com

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