DuPont's Profit Beats Estimates on Cost Cuts

Chemicals and seed producer DuPont (NYSE:DD) reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly profit as its cost-cutting efforts helped offset the impact of a strong dollar and weakness in its agriculture business.

Cost reductions contributed 10 cents per share to third-quarter operating earnings of 13 cents, helping the company beat the average analyst estimate of 10 cents.

Dupont has speeded up cost cuts to counter weakening sales, and is targeting about $1.6 billion in annual savings by the end of 2017.

"Amid the current challenging macro environment, our priority is to aggressively manage what is within our control, including taking a fresh look at DuPont's cost structure and capital allocation strategy to identify ways to further improve shareholder return," Edward Breen, DuPont's interim chief executive, said in a statement on Tuesday.

Breen took over from Ellen Kullman, who stepped down from her post earlier this month.

DuPont, which gets about 60 percent of its sales from outside North America, said net sales fell 17.5 percent to $4.87 billion.

Analysts on average had expected revenue of $5.3 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income attributable to DuPont nearly halved to $235 million, or 26 per share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30.

(Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri and Sneha Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)