Thursday July 30, 08:17 AM
BASF net profit slumps, sees no real upturn
FRANKFURT (AFP) - Germany's BASF, the world's top chemicals group, said Thursday its second quarter net profit slumped 74 percent and while its business appeared to have reached bottom it saw no signs of a sustained upturn.
The group said its net profit came in at 343 million euros (480 million dollars) on sales down 23 percent to 24.7 billion euros.
Core (Berlin: LJ1.BE - news) earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were 1.1 billion euros.
Analysts had forecast a net profit of 379 million euros and EBIT of 1.06 billion euros.
In the first three months of the year, BASF posted a net profit of 375 million euros, EBIT of 985 million euros and sales of 12.2 billion euros.
In a statement, finance director Kurt Bock said "overall, we think that the downturn seems to have bottomed out and there seems to be stabilization at a low level ... but we see no signs of a sustained upturn."
Owing to the global downturn and the cost of integrating the Swiss company Ciba, "BASF expects a significant decline in sales and earnings in 2009," Bock said.
"We are therefore unlikely to achieve our goal of earning our cost of capital in 2009," he added.
The global slowdown had a pronounced effect on BASF's chemicals and plastics operations, closely linked to the automotive and construction industries, the company said.
Its oil and gas activities suffered as well from a fall in crude oil prices, while agricultural products posted higher sales and earnings.
Partly owing to the integration of Ciba, a specialty chemicals group, BASF plans to eliminate 3,700 jobs worldwide by 2013, it said.
At the end of 2008, BASF employed around 97,000 workers.
|
|
|
Send Article by Email
Send Article by IM
Blog This with Y! 360
Printable View
