Kirin-owned Australian brewing group Lion is set to cut up to 300 jobs following a strategic review of its domestic business.

Lion, which owns brands including Toohey’s, Little Creatures Brewing and XXXX, confirmed redundancies were in the pipeline, but declined to comment on the specifics of the restructuring.

The job cuts are focused on group functions such as administrative roles, with limited change in sales, brand teams and breweries, and most will come from Lion’s Australian business which has about 2000 staff.

A company spokesperson said CEO Sam Fischer had conducted a strategic review of priorities for the upcoming three years, following his appointment to the role in February last year.

“We are transforming Lion to empower our geographic business units and focus capital, marketing investment and capability behind our brands and innovation,” the spokesperson said. “We are working through detailed organisation design and communicating transparently with our team as we move through this.

“This will require some tough choices and while we’ll be making significant investments, particularly in data, analytics and growth-orientated functions, unfortunately, some roles will be made redundant.”

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The spokesperson added employees made redundant will be offered alternative employment where possible.

The news follows a filing made by Lion with a regulatory body in March which showed the group recorded a A$300m (US$196m) impairment to the value of its local business.

Lion’s gross profit increased 0.9% to A$983.3m in the year ending in December 2022. Its sales, meanwhile, only grew by $19m to A$2.12bn.

The company spent $96m in rationalisation and restructuring costs over the course of the year, and ended the 12 months with net loss of A$168m, compared with A$128m profit the previous year.

Earlier this month Australian wine giant Treasury Wine Estates had confirmed it is looking to divest assets amid a challenging market for entry-level wines. The winery is also undertaking a restructuring which could see up to 200 jobs cut.

In a trading update published on 25 May, the Penfolds brand owner predicted group net sales revenue to decline by 2-3% in its current financial year.