EBIT excluding special items is expected to reach 8.3 billion euros
EBIT is expected to reach 8.5 billion euros (up 36% year-on-year)
BASF Group unveiled its unaudited results for FY 2017 in advance: the company expects sales before interest and tax and EBIT excluding special items will both be significantly higher than last year's levels, with earnings performance well above analyst expectations.
Sales rose 12% to € 64.5bn (2016: € 57.6bn). Ex-EBs excluding special items are expected to reach € 8.3bn, up 32% over the same period of the previous year (2016: € 6.3bn). The increase was mainly driven by strong earnings from the chemicals business segment: high sales and high margins for the Unit, Petrochemicals and Intermediates businesses were the major factors, while substantial gains in the oil and gas and other business sectors also contributed to Excluding the significant increase in EBIT for special projects, BASF Group recorded lower EBIT before tax due to special items in its specialty products, functional materials and solutions business, mainly due to higher selling prices that did not fully compensate for the increase in raw materials The impact of price hikes and the rising fixed costs associated with the start-up of new equipment, as pre-tax gains on non-special items in the agriculture solutions business have remained about the same as last year due to the substantial increase in revenues in the fourth quarter.
EBIT gain is expected to grow by 36% to EUR 8.5 billion (2016: EUR 6.3 billion) for the full year 2017. Net profit is expected to increase by 50% compared with 2016 to approximately EUR 6.1 billion (2016: 4.1 billion Euro.) Due to the US corporate income tax rate cut from 35% to 21%, the one-off non-cash deferred income tax revenue for the fourth quarter of 2017 was approximately 400 million euros.
BASF's main earnings performance for FY17 far exceeded analysts' expectations. For more information about BASF's monthly forecast, please visit: www.basf.com/analysts-estimates (English version).
BASF will release the Group's 2017 earnings report (which includes the audited consolidated financial statements) on February 27, 2018 (Tuesday) and Beijing time at 14:00 (German time: 7:00), and will release the consolidated financial statements on the same day at 17:30 GMT (German time 10: 30) and 21:00 (Germany time 14:00) held an annual press conference and analyst and investor conference call, introducing earnings data