Profit down 95% at Stella brewer

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The world's biggest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, has reported a 95% fall in three-month profits, blaming costs of restructuring the business

Its attributable profits in the last quarter of 2008 fell to 49m euros ($62m; £43m) from 900m euros in 2007.

It blamed costs linked to InBev's $52bn takeover of Anheuser - completed in November - mainly redundancy payments.

The brewer of Budweiser, Becks and Stella Artois is in the process of cutting 2,400 jobs.

The company said it planned to cut another $500m of spending from its US operations this year and reduce capital spending by $1bn, but that it did not anticipate further job losses.

It is also trying to sell about $7bn of assets this year, but has not said what it plans to offload.

AB InBev said it had already begun refinancing the $45bn loan it took out to pay for the takeover.