DOW Dow Inc

By Imani Moise 

Chemical giant DuPont Co., looking to wrap up its merger with Dow Chemical Co., said its fourth-quarter revenue fell as sliding crop prices continued to weigh on its agricultural business.

DuPont announced plans to merge with rival Dow Chemical over a year ago, but antitrust regulators have stalled the deal over concerns about the impact consolidation could have on innovation in seeds and pesticides. Earlier this month, the European Union's antitrust authority pushed back the end date of its review of the merger for the second time, setting a new date of March 14.

Chief Executive Ed Breen said the company is having constructive discussions with regulators and still expects to close the deal in the first half of 2017.

Regulators are scrutinizing the deal alongside other big agriculture-sector combinations like ChemChina- Syngenta and Bayer- Monsanto. Dow and DuPont were the first of the group to announce their deal, in December 2015. The merger would unite the two companies, with a combined market capitalization of roughly $122 billion, before splitting into three separate companies.

Agriculture sales slid 10% to $1.39 billion due in part to the timing of seed deliveries. The agriculture business has improved 65% year-over-year but still operated at a loss of $19 million.

The company also forecast first-quarter 2017 earnings to fall 18%, but increase 8% on an adjusted basis, driven by cost-saving initiatives but partially offset by the expected reduction of corn planted in the U.S.

Over all for the quarter, DuPont reported a profit of $353 million, or 29 cents a share, compared with a loss of $421 million, or 26 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the company earned 51 cents a share, up from 27 cents. The most recent quarter included asset-impairment charges, while the year-earlier quarter included $775 million in restructuring costs.

Revenue dropped 2% to $5.21 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast earnings of 42 cents on $5.29 billion in revenue.

Shares, inactive premarket, closed at $72.78 and have risen 3.8% over the past three months.

Write to Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2017 07:16 ET (12:16 GMT)

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