Dow Chemical Revenue Climbs

By Joshua Jamerson 

Dow Chemical Co., looking to complete its merger with rival DuPont Co., said revenue rose in the latest period amid growth in its agriculture segment, where sales have lagged behind so far this year.

Shares rose 2.8% to $55.26 in premarket trading.

On Thursday, Chief Executive Andrew Liveris gave a rosy outlook on Dow's business environment, pointing to "steady growth" in North America and Europe that it sees continuing.

Agriculture sales rose 5.8% to $1.24 billion on volume and pricing. Year-to-date, sales in the segment are down 6.7% compared with 2015.

Sales in plastics, Dow's largest segment, edged up 0.8% to $4.7 billion, while performance materials and chemicals sales fell to $2.38 billion, a 25% drop primarily reflected in the divestiture of Dow Chlorine Products.

The chemicals and agriculture giant's marriage with DuPont now looks more likely to wrap up in early 2017 rather than this year as the companies had previously said. The companies are in deep discussions with antitrust officials in the U.S., Europe, Brazil and China. The companies announced the merger in December 2015.

DuPont, which reported better-than-expected earnings earlier this week, and Dow have said their aim is to unite to form an industrial behemoth worth about $122 billion before breaking up into companies agriculture, materials, and specialty products like enzymes and electronic components.

Over all for the September quarter, Dow earned $804 million, or 63 cents a share, compared with $1.38 billion, or $1.09 a share, a year ago.

Excluding items the company earned 91 cents a share, up from 82 cents a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected 79 cents a share.

Revenue rose 3.7% to $12.48 billion.

Write to Joshua Jamerson at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2016 07:49 ET (11:49 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.