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BASF SE said Friday that net profit and sales for the fourth quarter fell, and it warned of the negative effects of the coronavirus for the current year.
The German chemical company BAS, -1.76% said net profit for the period was 150 million euros ($164.2 million), compared with EUR348 million a year earlier.
Quarterly earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose to EUR1.49 billion from EUR1.30 billion. EBIT before special items was EUR765 million for the period, up from EUR621 million a year earlier.
Sales fell to EUR14.69 billion from EUR14.99 billion, BASF said.
For the full year, BASF had net profit of EUR8.42 billion, EBIT before special items of EUR4.54 billion and sales of EUR59.32 billion.
Analysts expected net profit of EUR9.05 billion, EBIT before special items of EUR4.53 billion and sales of EUR61.18 billion for the year, according to a consensus provided by Vara Research.
BASF proposed a dividend of EUR3.30 a share for 2019, an increase of EUR0.10 from the previous year.
Looking ahead, the company said it expects to sales for 2020 to be between EUR60 billion and EUR63 billion and its EBIT before special items to be between EUR4.2 billion and EUR4.8 billion.
The company expects the negative effects of the coronavirus to have “a significant impact world-wide,” especially in the first two quarters of this year. This forecast doesn’t take a world-wide spread of the virus into account, it said.
“However, we do not expect the corona effects to be fully offset during the course of the year,” the company’s Chief Executive Martin Brudermueller said.
