(News Bulletin 247) – Bayer said on Tuesday it expects lower year-on-year results in 2023, a warning that caused its stock to fall sharply on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Around 9:40 a.m., the Bayer title fell 3.7%, marking the largest drop in a DAX index down 0.5%.

The German giant, present in both chemicals and pharmaceuticals, justifies the prudence of its forecasts by expected prices falling this year and by the persistent effects of inflation on its costs.

For 2023, the Leverkusen group says it expects Ebitda before exceptional items and adjusted for exchange rate variations of between 12.5 and 13 billion euros.

Over the past financial year, its Ebitda before exceptionals rose by 20.9% to 13.5 billion euros, driven by the “exceptional” performance of its crop protection branch.

“2022 was a particularly successful year for Bayer despite the difficult environment,” said Werner Baumann, Chairman of the Management Board.

“We were able to achieve, despite this difficult context, the financial objectives that we had revised upwards in August,” he said in a press release.

But the company says it anticipates lower prices for its most common agricultural herbicides and pharmaceuticals this year.

After recording like-for-like revenue growth of 8.7% last year, to more than 50.7 billion euros, Bayer expects growth to moderate in 2023, expected around 2% or 3%.

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