Dow attributed the year-over-year revenue decline to currency fluctuations and lower pricing. Sales volumes rose 2%, excluding the impact of divestitures and acquisitions. The company’s sale of its AgroFresh division added $621 million to quarterly revenue and raised GAAP EPS to $1.09.
In a separate announcement, Dow said it is restructuring its participation in a group of joint ventures with Kuwait-led EQUATE Petrochemical. The first step is the sale of Dow’s stake in MEGlobal to Kuwait’s Boubyan Petrochemical for a total equity consideration of $3.2 billion, yielding pretax proceeds of $1.5 billion. Dow will retain a 42.5% stake in MEGlobal as a result of its ownership stake in Greater EQUATE.
Dow also said it will reduce its ownership interest in Greater EQUATE by the middle of next year, and that MEGlobal will build a new plant on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
Here’s what the CEO said:
We are operating from a position of financial strength as we continue to execute disciplined portfolio management, as well as start up our large growth investments on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in Saudi Arabia. All of this will drive earnings higher, enhance return on capital and generate significant cash flow, which continue to fuel our ability to return increasing value to our shareholders.
Consensus estimates call for fourth-quarter EPS of $0.72 on revenues of $12.62 billion. For the full year, analysts are expecting $3.17 in EPS and $50.4 billion in revenues.
The company’s sale of its chlorine products division (with the encouragement of activist investor Dan Loeb) added $1.5 billion in share buybacks and brought the total returned to shareholders in buybacks and dividends to $3.5 billion for the year to date.
Dow’s shares were up more than 5% in morning trading Thursday to $50.02, in a 52-week range of $35.11 to $53.80. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $53.55 before the report.
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