Higher herbicide prices driven by supply shortages helped drive Bayer earnings above analysts’ estimates for the third quarter, as the company’s crop science division achieved an overall sales increase of 8.4% from the third quarter in 2021, to more than $4.7 billion.
Herbicide sales were up 45% from the third quarter in 2021, thanks in large part to prices of glyphosate-based products that had doubled since early 2021, Bayer CEO Werner Baumann said. But also on a call with reporters Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Wolfgang Nickl said prices had begun to decline in the third quarter, and that in the last three months of the year, “we expect them to normalize further.”
Sales of corn seed and traits decreased 15.8%, while soybean seeds and traits were down 8.3%. Insecticide sales were up 9.1%, “mainly driven by business in Latin America,” while sales of fungicides were level.
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The company also said that settlements from litigation, particularly over Roundup, have cost less than expected, contributing to greater-than-expected cash flow.
“We started the year with an assumption of about 2.5 billion euros,” Nickl told investors in a separate call. “We now have penciled it in at 2 billion euros.” He said that the company had won its last five cases in state court against plaintiffs alleging exposure to the herbicide caused their cancer, and that because of that, “we are in no particular rush” to settle current or future cases, which total about 30,000.
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