China Resources Beer is looking to raise $1.2 billion by issuing rights shares.

China's biggest beer maker, in a statement issued on Wednesday, said that it would raise HK$ 9.5 billion ( approx. $1.2 billion) via rights shares to buy the remaining stake of its Snow beer joint venture with SABMiller Plc.

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The proceeds of the rights shares would enable the company to buy the remaining 49 percent stake in the joint venture. "The company will provisionally allocate one rights share for every three existing shares held by each qualifying shareholder," the company said.

China Resources Beer's chairman Chen Lang said that the company would continue to explore business expansion opportunities through both organic growth and acquisitions. "To capture these growth opportunities, we consider the rights issue to be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders as whole," he said.

The Hong Kong stock market immediately responded to the announcement as China Resources Beer's shares fell to a two and half month low.

The state-supported brewer recently decided to purchase SABMiller' 49 percent stake in their Chinese joint venture.

China is the biggest producer and consumer of beer globally. The country produced around 47 billion liters of beer in 2015. The per capital consumption of beer ( 35 liters) is much more than global average. China is also one of the largest beer markets in the world. China Resources Snow Breweries, Yanjing Beer, Carlsberg, Tsingtao Brewery and Anheuser-Busch InBev are the five major players in the industry. 

Tagschina, China Beer, China Resources Beer, Snow Beer, SABMiller