WEST PATERSON, NJ – Cytec Industries Inc. has announced net earnings for the third quarter of 2008 of $46.3 million, or $0.96 per diluted share, on net sales of $963.0 million. Included in the quarter are special items that total $4.9 million of after-tax expense, or $0.10 per diluted share. Excluding these special items, net earnings were $51.2 million or $1.06 per diluted share.
Net earnings for the third quarter of 2007 were $52.4 million, or $1.06 per diluted share, on net sales of $875.1 million. Included in that quarter was an after-tax net restructuring charge of $2.2 million or $0.05 per diluted share and a tax benefit of $3.5 million or $0.07 per diluted share. Excluding these items, net earnings were $51.1 million or $1.04 per diluted share.
David Lilley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer said, “Our third-quarter results reflect the continued strong performance of our Engineered Materials segment, delivering higher selling volumes versus the same period a year ago. In the Surface Specialties segment, we continued to experience weak demand in North America, and we began to see a further-than-expected slowdown in both North America and Europe toward the end of the quarter. The Performance Chemicals segment’s excellent results were led by strong growth in the Mining Chemicals product line. The Building Block Chemicals segment was adversely impacted by a major hurricane as well as declining demand for acrylonitrile.”
Looking forward, Lilley commented, “Despite our solid performance in the first nine months of 2008, we are now faced with weaker market conditions in Europe and North America, and an ongoing strike at one of our major customers. Accordingly, as we communicated in last week’s press release, we have revised our prior guidance for full-year adjusted diluted earnings-per-share estimate to be in a range of $3.75 to $3.85 per share, down from our original estimate of $4.15 to $4.35 per share.
“On the input side, we continue to operate in a very challenging environment. While feedstock prices have been declining in the market, the benefit has not yet translated to the propylene-related derivatives we procure, as one would expect. In fact, some of the materials are in tight supply related to the impact the hurricanes had on numerous chemical operations in the third quarter. This tightness is slowing down the process of raw material cost decreases in the fourth quarter. Therefore, we do not expect to realize the benefit from reduced materials cost until late in the fourth quarter.”
