DowDuPont beats 3Q profit forecasts

DowDuPont posted better than expected third-quarter earnings, but shares fell as the company continues to sell off divisions required as part of its complicated merger.

The chemical giant, which had net income of $514 million for the quarter, also announced it would be cutting jobs, but did not say how many.

DuPont and Dow finally closed the long-delayed $62 billion merger in August after years of delays. The company is in the process of shedding parts of its business to comply with U.S. regulatory orders.

DowDuPont eventually plans to spin off into three public companies, one focusing on agriculture, one on material science and one on specialty products. The company hopes to save $3 billion in the process.

On a per-share basis, the Midland, Michigan-based company said it had profit of 32 cents. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and to account for discontinued operations, came to 55 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 45 cents per share. The company had adjusted earnings of 50 cents per share in last year's third quarter.

The specialty chemicals maker posted revenue of $15.35 billion in the period, up from last year's $12.48 billion. It had earnings of $719 million in last year's third quarter.

DowDuPont shares fell more than 2 percent in morning trading but have increased about 35 percent in the last 12 months and more than 10 percent since the merger was completed on August 31st.

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This story was generated in part by Automated Insights using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on DWDP at https://www.zacks.com/ap/DWDP