Bayer continues positive momentum

The Bayer Group continued its successful performance in the second quarter of 2011. "We are pleased with the way our business performed,” said Bayer CEO, Dr Marijn Dekkers. "We have also achieved significant progress with products from our research and development pipeline.” Furthermore, the efficiency-enhancing measures announced in November 2010 are being implemented as planned. Bayer’s CEO is optimistic for the current fiscal year and confirmed the sales and earnings forecast for 2011 that was raised in April.
Sales of the Bayer Group grew by 0.8% in the second quarter to E9,252M (Q2 2010: E9,179M). The currency- and portfolio-adjusted (Fx & portfolio adj) increase was 5.4%. Business performance in the emerging markets made an above-average contribution to this development. The operating result (EBIT) advanced by a substantial 25.9% to E1,273M (Q2 2010: E1,011M).
In the second quarter of 2011, sales of high-performance materials increased again by 3.5% (Fx & portfolio adj 8.3%) to E2,782M (Q2 2010: E2,689M). "MaterialScience benefited from the increase in selling prices in all business units and regions, especially in Europe and North America. By contrast, volume sales were down slightly against the prior-year level,” said Dekkers. A significant expansion of volumes in Europe was not sufficient to fully compensate the declines in the Asia Pacific and North America regions. Volumes were level year-on-year in the Latin America / Africa / Middle East region.
MaterialScience still expects to raise sales by a high-single-digit percentage (Fx & portfolio adj). It remains the subgroup’s aim to grow EBITDA before special items at a higher rate than sales. However, the company considers this objective to be increasingly ambitious. MaterialScience anticipates that sales and EBITDA before special items in the third quarter of 2011 will be in line with the prior-year level.