Corteva lifts sales forecast on strong demand for crop protection products, seeds

Aug 5 (Reuters) – Corteva Inc on Thursday raised its internet gross sales forecast for the yr after robust demand for crop safety merchandise similar to herbicides and pesticides helped the agricultural firm beat estimates for the second quarter.

Corteva additionally introduced a brand new $1.5 billion share repurchase program, along with a $1 billion buyback introduced in 2019, which the corporate expects to finish by the top of 2021.

The corporate’s shares rose 3.7% to $43.00 in prolonged commerce.

Final month, it elevated its widespread inventory dividend by 7.7% to 14 cents per share.

The corporate, spun off in 2019 after a merger of Dow Chemical and Dupont, has laid off staff and retired some belongings to chop prices. Final month, it mentioned Chief Govt Officer James Collins Jr will retire, months after activist investor Starboard Worth LP sought to oust him.

Corteva forecast 2021 internet gross sales between $15.2 billion and $15.4 billion, versus an earlier estimate of $14.6 billion to $14.8 billion. Analysts had been anticipating $14.82 billion, in response to Refinitiv IBES.

Web gross sales rose 8.4% to $5.63 billion within the second quarter, surpassing an estimate of $5.33 billion, whereas whole crop safety gross sales jumped about 12% to $1.85 billion on account of demand for its new merchandise together with Arylex herbicide and Pyraxalt insecticide.

Seed gross sales rose 7% to $3.78 billion within the quarter because of elevated soybean acreage in North America and better volumes on the again of extra normalized supply timing within the area.

The Wilmington, Delaware-based firm mentioned working earnings per share rose to $1.04 billion, or $1.40 per share, within the quarter ended June 30, from $944 million, or $1.26 per share, final yr.

Analysts on common had anticipated a revenue of $1.26 per share.

Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Modifying by Devika Syamnath and Maju Samuel

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