DowDuPont Inc. (DWDP) missed market estimates on revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter of 2018, sending shares tumbling by 5.9% in premarket hours on Thursday.
Net sales of $20.1 billion remained flat compared to the prior-year period, as price and volume gains were offset by currency. Volume rose 1% year-over-year, with gains in Asia-Pacific and Latin America more than offsetting declines in regions like the US, Canada and EMEA. Local price rose 1% while currency negatively impacted sales by 2%.
Net income available for DowDuPont common stockholders was $475 million or $0.21 per share compared to a loss of $1.26 billion or $0.54 per share in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EPS increased 6% to $0.88.
Ed Breen, CEO of DowDuPont said, “In our first full year as a merged company, we delivered consistently strong results. Pro forma sales rose 8% with gains in every geography. We delivered a 13% increase in operating EBITDA. And we raised our cost synergy expectation by 20% to $3.6 billion, while continuing to return significant capital to shareholders. We remain on track for the separation of the new Dow on April 1, followed by Corteva from the new DuPont on June 1.”
Also see: DowDuPont Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
In the Materials Science division, sales dropped 1%, as volume growth was offset by local price and currency. Performance Materials & Coatings and Packaging & Specialty Plastics reported sales declines while Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure posted a sales growth of 4%, helped by gains in the Asia-Pacific and US & Canada regions.
Net sales in the Specialty Products division rose 2%, with gains in most segments. With the exception of Electronics & Imaging, all segments within this business unit posted sales increases. In the Agriculture division, net sales grew 1%, helped by sales of new Crop Protection products and the timing of seed shipments in Latin America and US & Canada.
DowDuPont expects global economic expansion to continue in 2019 at a moderately slower pace than 2018. The company is monitoring macroeconomic and geopolitical developments, and remains focused on growth investments, cost synergy savings, productivity actions and advancing its spin milestones.
DowDuPont achieved cost synergy savings of more than $500 million during the quarter and has delivered over $1.8 billion in cumulative savings since the close of the merger.