AB InBev calls off sale of Beck's beer brand: report

Anheuser Busch, Inc. World Headquarters in St Louis, July 14, 2008.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR) has walked away from a planned sale of its German beer brand Beck's to U.S. buyout firm Bain Capital, a German magazine reported.

Contracts had been ready to sign and Bain had secured financing for the projected 1.7 billion Euro ($2.54 billion) deal, weekly Wirtschaftswoche said on Saturday in an excerpt of an article to be published on Monday, citing financial sources.

Nobody at Anheuser-Busch InBev was immediately available for comment.

The sale of 13 eastern European breweries for 2.2 billion euros in October eased Anheuser-Busch InBev's debt burden enough for the brewing giant to call off the Beck's deal, Wirtschaftswoche reported. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt and Jan Strupczewski in Brussels, editing by Mike Peacock)