MON -0,8% pre market
Monsanto misses by $0.04, misses on revs; guides FY15 EPS at low end of range
Reports Q2 (Feb) earnings of $2.90 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.04 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of $2.94; revenues fell 10.9% year/year to $5.2 bln vs the $5.58 bln consensus.
- In Agricultural Productivity, the decline in gross profit was primarily volume related, as the company continued to convert from non-branded to branded volumes of Roundup, which is shifting gross profit to the second half to support key application windows for over-the-top sprays.
- EPS guidance includes $0.35-0.40 FX headwind.
- The co also is tracking to the lower end of its original free cash flow guidance of $2.0 billion to $2.2 billion.
- The Seeds and Genomics segment gross profit growth percentage for the full year is now expected to be low-to-mid-single digits, while the company's Agricultural Productivity gross profit is still expected to be down ~10% YoY due to anticipated generic glyphosate price softening and an incremental 2-to-3% due to deteriorating currencies.