FRANKFURT—German pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA on
Tuesday said first-quarter net profit fell 13% because of financing
costs linked to its planned acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich Corp., but
maintained its earnings outlook for the year.
Net profit for the period ended March 31 fell to €281.7
million ($318.58 million) from €325.2 million a year
earlier.
For the full year, Merck KGaA backed its expectations that
organic sales would rise slightly, that net sales would be in the
range of €12.3 billion to €12.5 billion and
earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and
one-off items would be €3.45 billion to €3.55
billion.
The outlook doesn't factor in the expected gains from Merck's
planned $17 billion acquisition of U.S. laboratory testing
materials group Sigma-Aldrich Corp. That deal, announced last year
and expected to close this summer, is part of a larger effort by
Chief Executive Karl-Ludwig Kley to shift the company away from its
core pharmaceutical business and its need to discover new
blockbuster drugs.
First-quarter sales rose 16% to €3.04 billion from
€2.63 billion last year, driven by all businesses and
helped by the consolidation of AZ Electronic Materials. The
company's closely watched Ebitda before one-time items rose 5.7% to
€853 million, driven by its operational performance and
currency gains, it said. Analysts had forecast Ebitda before
special items of €862 million in a recent poll by The Wall
Street Journal.
Write to Christopher Alessi at christopher.alessi@wsj.com
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