FRANKFURT: Germany’s Bayer has warned that its 2019 earnings target has become harder to reach, becoming the latest agricultural supplies company to be affected by flooded US farms and trade disputes.
The drugs and pesticides maker said it was still aiming to lift 2019 adjusted core earnings, or EBITDA, to about 12.2 billion euros ($13.6 billion), excluding the effect of currency swings and the planned sale of assets such as its animal health unit.
“However, this outlook is becoming increasingly ambitious in view of the challenging environment for the Crop Science business,” the company, which last year acquired Monsanto for $63 billion, added in a statement on Tuesday.
Sales at the Crop Science unit, the world’s largest seeds and pesticides producer, jumped by almost 60% to 4.8 billion euros in the second quarter, thanks to the addition of Monsanto in June 2018.
But a like-for-like comparison of the combined business showed a 9.9% sales decline, also adjusted for currency swings.
