Monsanto Q3 Results Beat View; Affirms FY17 Ongoing Earnings Outlook

(RTTNews) - Agricultural products giant Monsanto Co. (MON) on Wednesday reported a nearly 18 percent increase in profit for the third quarter from last year, reflecting strong sales growth in the agricultural productivity segment and a lower tax provision. Looking ahead, the company affirmed its outlook for fiscal 2017 ongoing earnings.

he St. Louis, Missouri-based seed and agro-chemical company's net income for the third quarter was $843 million or $1.90 per share, up from $717 million or $1.63 per share in the year-ago period.

Excluding special items, earnings per share were $1.93 on an ongoing basis, compared to $2.17 per share in the year-ago period. On average, 16 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $1.76 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net sales for the quarter edged up to $4.23 billion from $4.19 billion in the same quarter last year and topped analysts' consensus estimate of $4.17 billion.

Segment wise, seeds and genomics revenues declined 2.5 percent to $3.13 billion. Corn seeds and traits sales, accounting for 47 percent of the segment sales, declined 6.2 percent.

In the Agricultural Productivity segment, net sales increased almost 12 percent from last year to $1.10 billion.

Operating expenses rose 8 percent from last year to $1.22 billion.

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Monsanto said it expects to receive the benefit of about $70 million in non-core asset sale gains from strategic deals. Roughly half of these gains are expected to benefit the Agricultural Productivity segment, and half are expected to benefit the Seeds and Genomics segment.

For fiscal 2017, Monsanto updated its forecast for as-reported earnings to be at the high end of the range of $4.09 to $4.55 per share, and affirmed its outlook for ongoing earnings at the high end of $4.50 to $4.90 per share. The Street expects earnings of $4.89 per share for the year.