(Adds CEO quote, details on currency effects and outlook, context for net profit decline.)

 
   By Anthony Shevlin 
 

Merck KGaA (MRK.XE) said Wednesday that third-quarter net profit fell, but it raised its full-year organic sales growth expectations on the performance of its Healthcare and Life Science businesses in the quarter.

The German chemical and pharmaceuticals company reported net profit for the quarter of 340 million euros ($382.7 million) compared with EUR644 million a year earlier. The company said the decline was due to a one-off gain of EUR321 million from its divestment of the Biosimilars business reported the previous year.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization was EUR919 million.

The company said sales for the quarter were EUR3.75 billion, up 6.6%. On an organic basis, sales rose 8.8%, the company said.

The negative foreign-exchange hit for the period was mainly attributable to the worse-then-expected deterioration of the Argentine peso and Brazilian real, said Merck.

Merck's Healthcare business delivered organic sales growth of 9.9% in the quarter while its Life Science business grew 9.8%.

"2018 was a challenging year for Merck. We made future-oriented decisions that will lead to profitable growth as of 2019," said Stefan Oschmann, chief executive of Merck.

The company now expects full-year organic sales growth of between 4% and 6% compared with previous expectations of between 3% and 5%. Merck confirmed its organic Ebitda pre-items forecast for the year but says negative currency effects will hit its Ebitda pre-items.

"The changed estimation of foreign-exchange effects is due to the continued strong decline in value of Latin American currencies against the euro," the company said.

Taking into account the treatment of the Consumer Health business as a discontinued operation, Merck forecasts 2018 group net sales between EUR14.4 billion and EUR14.8 billion.

Write to Anthony Shevlin at anthony.shevlin@dowjones.com; @anthony_shevlin

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 14, 2018 02:01 ET (07:01 GMT)