DuPont announced first-quarter operating earnings1 of $1.26 per share, basically unchanged from a year ago as the company’s agriculture business got off to a better start in 2016
Earnings came in above analysts’ estimates.
DuPont is slated to merge with Dow to become DowDuPont, with the combined company to split off into three separate publicly traded companies. Two of the businesses will have headquarters operations in Delaware.
DuPont is completing a restructuring that will eliminate 1,700 jobs in Delaware.
Accepted accounting principles earnings were $1.39 per share, compared with $1.11 per share in the prior year.
First-quarter sales totaled $7.4 billion, a decline of 6 percent from a year ago, due to a negative impact from currency and to a lesser extent lower sales volumes.
“Solid execution, local price and product mix gains, and higher corn area led to a strong start to the year for our Ag business,” said Ed Breen, CEO of DuPont. “Our other businesses generally performed well, slightly above our expectations. We made progress with our global cost savings and restructuring plan and are on track for savings of $730 million in 2016, including significant improvements in our corporate cost performance.” He added, “We also continued to achieve key milestones in our intended merger of equals with Dow, and as we look ahead to the rest of the year, we remain focused on accelerating our value-creation work, investing in our core franchises, and closing the intended merger of equals.”
DuPont’s board of directors approved a second-quarter dividend of $0.38 per share, the 447th consecutive quarterly dividend since the company’s first dividend in the fourth quarter of 1904, a release noted.
The company released its earnings report at the end of trading on Monday, a change from its usual practice of releasing the numbers earlier in the day.
DuPont share prices were up slightly in after-hours trading after being down slightly in Monday trading.
DuPont’s share price of nearly $66 has been rising from earlier lows in the past few months but is still below the $80 recorded in March of year when the company was waging a proxy battle against activist investor Nelson Peltz.
Breen joined the board as part of a management slate that prevailed over Pelt’s choices.
DuPont CEO Ellen Kullman later retired or was forced out by the DuPont board, which went on to name Breen CEO.
Kullman and others within DuPont later confirmed that Dow had long expressed an interest in the company.
