BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - German science and technology company Merck KGaA (MKGAY.PK) reported that its second-quarter net income rose 90.8% to 471 million euros from 247 million euros in the previous year. Earnings per share increased to 1.08 euros from 0.57 euros last year.
Earnings per share pre climbed by 25.2% to 1.54 euros from 1.23 euros in the previous year.
EBITDA pre rose sharply by 23.8% to 1.1 billion euros from 920 million euros last year. The increase primarily stemmed from organic growth of 20.3% and was driven by the milestone payments in Healthcare and the very good performance in Life Science. It was supported by positive exchange rate effects of 3.3% and slight portfolio effects of 0.3%.
Quarterly net sales grew 6.9% to 4.0 billion euros from 3.7 billion euros in the prior year. Organic sales growth were 5.6%. sales grew organically in all regions, with especially strong growth in Asia-Pacific, its largest reporting region. Sales also increased due to slightly positive exchange rate effects of 1.5%, which were primarily due to the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen, as well as a slightly negative portfolio effect of -0.2%.
Merck continues to forecast for the full year 2019 a moderate organic net sales increase of 3% to 5% over the previous year. It still expects annual net sales to be between 15.3 billion euros and 15.9 billion euros.
The company still projects annual Group EBITDA pre to be between 4.15 billion euros and 4.35 billion billion euros. It confirmed its original expectation of a strong organic increase of 10% to 13% in EBITDA pre compared with the previous year and continues to expect a slightly positive foreign exchange effect of 0% to +2% compared with the previous year.
For 2019, the company anticipates earnings per share pre to be in the range of 5.30 euros to 5.65 euros.
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