Agrium Inc. reported third-quarter consolidated net earnings of $76-million ($0.52 diluted earnings per share) compared with the year-ago $129-million ($0.80 per share). The 2013 third quarter results included a pre-tax share based payments recovery of $21-million ($0.11 per share), a write-down on our Hanfeng Evergreen Inc. investment of $12-million ($0.08 per share) and a loss of $2-million ($0.01 per share) on natural gas and other hedge positions. Excluding these items, net earnings would have been $73-million ($0.50 per share).
“Agrium’s Retail business unit had one of its strongest third quarters on record, with EBITDA of $147-million. This was driven largely by high usage of crop protection products and related application services in our North American market. The late growing season in North America, combined with uncertainty in the fertilizer markets caused many customers to delay crop nutrient purchases,” commented Mike Wilson, Agrium’s president and CEO.
“Additionally, unplanned lost production due to outages at our Redwater and Carseland facilities reduced product availability in the third quarter and will impact fourth quarter sales volumes. This is expected to impact fourth quarter earnings by approximately $0.20 per share,” added Wilson.
“Despite any short term factors or market fluctuations, we continued to demonstrate our confidence in the ability of the business to generate excess cash flow through the commodity cycle by substantially increasing the dividend in the third quarter and continuing to execute on our share buy-back program,” said Wilson.
Agrium is providing guidance for the fourth quarter of 2013 of $0.80 to $1.25 diluted earnings per share.