Article courtesy of Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - MillerCoors, the second-largest brewer in the United States, on Tuesday reported a 21.6 percent slide in fourth-quarter net income reflecting a tough economy and a sharp rise in share-based salary bonus packages.

The combined U.S. operations of SABMiller Plc <SAB.L> and Molson Coors Brewing Co <TAP.N> with brands such as Miller Lite and Coors Light, said underlying net income in the October-December quarter was $106.1 million with net sales dipping 1.6 percent to $1.71 billion.

"It's tough out there, and we saw the effect of ongoing economic pressure and unemployment on beer sales, especially in the fourth quarter," said MillerCoors CEO Leo Kiely in a results statement.

The brewer said marketing and administration costs fell by 2.7 percent in the quarter and would have been around 6 percent when excluding the significant impact of increased share-based salary bonus schemes which were driven by a strong SABMiller stock price over 2009.

The company, formed in July 2008, has said it expects to make $750 million of cost savings over the first 4-1/2 years of its merger to end-2012. At the end of 2009, cumulative cost savings had reached $272 million.

The brewer has a U.S. beer market share of nearly 30 percent behind Budweiser-brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev <ABI.BR> share of around 50 percent.

Molson Coors, with operations in the U.S., Canada and Britain, is due to report later on Tuesday.

(Reporting by David Jones)