Bud brewer InBev profit tops market forecasts

The world's leading brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev reported a 26 percent rise in second quarter net profit on Thursday, topping market expectations. The group, maker of brands such as Budweiser, Leffe and Stella Artois recorded a net profit of $1.45 billion for the three months to June, topping forecasts for $1.43 billion compiled by Dow Jones Newswires. The firm reported operating profit up 11.7 percent at $3.75 billion, slightly less than analysts' forecasts for $3.76 billion. In the United States, the group's performance was affected by poor weather and high fuel prices while in Brasil, the figures paled in comparison with the year-earlier period which was boosted in the run up to the soccer World Cup in the third quarter. AB Inbev said volumes "should continue in the same vein in the second half of the year, and in the last quarter in particular." The firm, created in 2008 by the $52 billion merger of Belgian-Brasilian Inbev and US firm Anheuser-Busch (AB), said in March that it expected a rivival in sales in the second half of 2011.