FMC beats third-quarter profit estimates on strong North America sales, lower costs
Oct 29 (Reuters) -Agrichemicals firm FMC FMC.N beat Wall Street estimates for quarterly profit on Tuesday, helped by strong sales in North America and lower costs.
FMC, which makes insecticide and fungicide, had seen a sharp drop in demand in 2023 as high inventory levels of crop chemicals across several regions had weighed in on earnings.
In August, the company said that it expected demand to bounce back in most regions except India, after a year of downturn in the industry due to high inventory levels.
FMC, which competes with the likes of Syngenta and German firms BASF BASFn.DE and Bayer BAYGn.DE, said its North America revenue rose 48% compared to last year.
"Strong volume growth in Latin America and North America more than offset lower pricing, particularly in Brazil and Argentina which accounted for two-thirds of the total company price decline," CEO Pierre Brondeau said.
FMC took a range of actions as part of its restructuring plan announced in December last year, including layoffs in its Brazil business. It also agreed to sell its global specialty solutions (GSS) business to private equity firm-owned Envu for $350 million.
The company forecast fourth-quarter revenue in the range of $1.30 billion to $1.41 billion after adjusting for the imminent sale of the GSS unit.
Wall Street estimates fourth-quarter revenue of $1.37 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The Philadelphia-based company posted adjusted income of 69 cents per share for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with the average analysts' estimate of 53 cents per share.
Reporting by Sourasis Bose and Pooja Menon in Bengaluru; editing by Alan Barona
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