DuPont profit up
(Reuters) — DuPont’s third-quarter profit scraped past the average analyst estimate as the company’s cost-cutting efforts helped boost operating margins in five of its seven businesses.
The company, which is the biggest U.S. chemical producer by market value, said operating earnings rose 17 percent to US$497 million, helping offset weakness in its farm products unit, which accounts for one-fifth of consolidated net sales.
DuPont said it expected “sluggish growth in the global economy, along with continuing headwinds in agriculture and from currency” in the fourth quarter that ends in December.
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The company forecast a 20 percent rise in fourth-quarter operating earnings from 59 cents per share a year earlier. It works out to 71 cents, compared with the average analyst estimate of 70 cents, according to Thomson Reuters.
Weak corn prices have been weighing on DuPont’s agriculture business. Farmers have also been cutting back on fertilizer use because of a delayed harvest and weak crop prices.
A record corn harvest depressed prices last year, prompting farmers in the United States to plant more soybean this year.
DuPont, which makes Pioneer genetically modified corn and soybean, is more exposed to corn. Corn seeds account for nearly half of its seed sales, while soybean makes up only 14 percent.
Agco posts lower profit
(Reuters) — Agco Corp. has posted a lower quarterly profit as world farmers, faced with falling prices for farm commodities, purchased fewer tractors and harvesters.
The company, which makes equipment sold under the Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra brand names, reported a third-quarter net profit of $65 million, down from $125.2 million during the comparable quarter last year.
Revenue fell 13 percent to $2.2 billion.
Rising wages lowers Asian poverty
LONDON, U.K. (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — The rise in rural wages now taking place across Asia could lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in the next decade, says a new report.
Falling birth rates and a growing demand for factory workers mean rural wages will keep rising sharply across the continent, according to the Overseas Development Institute’s Rural Wages in Asia report.
The study found that up to three quarters of the world’s poorest people, particularly those who earn less than the extreme poverty level of $1.25 a day, live in rural areas.
ODI research fellow Steve Wiggins said rural wages were crucial as they “mark the lowest returns to labour on offer.… Once people get paid over $5 a day, they leave the real misery of extreme poverty behind.”
