Syngenta Q3 Sales Rise, Sees Full Year EBITDA Margin Below Last Year

(RTTNews) - Swiss crop chemicals firm Syngenta AG (SYT) Thursday said third-quarter group sales were $2.975 billion, compared to $2.916 billion last year. The growth was 2 percent on actual as well as currency-neutral basis.

Integrated sales rose 3 percent at constant exchange rates to $2.8 billion, with prices up 3 percent and volumes unchanged. Excluding solo glyphosate, which is being reduced to improve profitability, sales were up 5 percent.

Mike Mack, CEO, said: "Performance in the second half of the year is primarily driven by Brazil, where the season is just now under way and is still dependent on rainfall. We are seeing strong demand for our newly launched fungicide ELATUS for which we are on track to achieve targeted sales."

Syngenta said for the first nine months of this year, profitability has been affected by adverse currency movements and sales mix. As a result the full year EBITDA margin will be below last year's level.

In the fourth quarter, the company expects a higher rate of sales growth and for the full year continue to target integrated sales growth of around 6 percent at constant exchange rates.

The firm said in July that it continues to expect full-year integrated sales growth of around 6 percent at constant exchange rates. Profitability in the second half of the year is expected to benefit from the non-recurrence of the seeds inventory write-down incurred in the second half of 2013, it had said.

"In a challenging market environment, our focus is on improving profitability and we are on track to realize the first benefits from the implementation of our operational leverage program in 2015," Mack added.