Daimler AG has reduced the value of its minority stake in Chrysler LLC by almost two-thirds after the U.S. automaker made a 340 million euro ($529.1 million) punch to Daimler's pretax profits in the first quarter.

Daimler made the disclosures Tuesday, April 29, in its first-quarter report released in Stuttgart. Daimler retained a 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler when it sold the majority control in August 2007 to Cerberus Capital Management.

According to today's Wall Street Journal, Daimler now values its stake in Chrysler at 547 million euros ($851.2 million). At the time of the sale, Daimler valued the stake at 1.4 billion euros ($2.18 billion).

Daimler, which had written down Chrysler earlier, further devalued Chrysler in the first quarter.

"In light of falling residual values of Chrysler vehicles, Daimler had to impair these assets by 151 million euros ($234.8 million) in the first quarter of 2008," the automaker said in its report.

Daimler also said it took the first-quarter expense of 94 million euros ($146.2 million) for restructuring actions at Chrysler.

"These results are by no means indicative for the results to be reported by Chrysler LLC due to substantial valuation differences between" U.S. accounting rules and international accounting rules, Daimler said.

Chrysler, in response to Daimler's report, issued a statement Tuesday saying it has "enjoyed positive operating earnings" since the Cerberus acquisition. Daimler's first-quarter report reflects the situation at Chrysler in the fourth quarter of 2007 because of a time lag in reporting, the statement said.

Chrysler's financial results under U.S. accounting rules are "substantially better" than the international standards used by Daimler, the statement said.

Chrysler, now owned by the privately held Cerberus, no longer makes public its financial statements.