InBev postponed a $9.8bn (€7.2bn) rights offering on Tuesday that it hoped to use to finance its $52bn takeover of Anheuser-Busch, blaming “unprecedented volatility in the global capital markets”.

The Belgian brewer insisted that the move would not affect its plans to complete the deal by the end of the year and said it would monitor market conditions to determine when to launch the offering. It had set the date for its rights issue for October 3, immediately before last week’s worldwide equity markets rout.