CHICAGO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- DowDuPont issued a profit warning on Thursday for its agriculture business in the first quarter of 2019 due to March floods that hit the U.S. Midwest.
The agricultural division of DowDuPont reported that the floods had caused transportation disruptions, halted farming operations and severely delayed seed deliveries into the early part of April, the company said in a statement.
Rain and melting snow in March caused flooding that impacted many areas in the Midwest, with the farming states of Nebraska and Iowa hit hardest.
"Less than 50 percent of planned seed deliveries in the last 5 days of the quarter occurred, resulting in a greater than anticipated impact on first quarter performance," said DowDuPont.
The agricultural division of the holding company now expects to record net sales of 3.4 billion U.S. dollars and operating EBITDA of about 665 million dollars, down 11 percent and 25 percent respectively over the same quarter last year.
For the first half of 2019, the division anticipates net sales to be down low-single digits percent and operating EBITDA to be 3 percent to 5 percent below the same period last year.
DowDuPont is a holding company comprising Corteva Agriscience and DuPont, which are expected to separate on June 1, 2019.
As a result of the warning, its shares on the New York Stock Exchange slid about 1 percent around noon time.
