Merck KGaA's 2nd-qtr results strong on revenue from Serono acquisition

German drug and chemicals firm Merck KGaA's profit jumped for the second quarter of 2008, compared to the same period of the year before, due to costs for last year's acquisition of Serono driving down comparison figures. Still the firm's revenue rose 6% year-on-year.

Total turnover was posted as 1.9 billion euros ($3.01 billion). The firm notes that this would have been a 12% increase organically, but translating local currencies into the strong euro had a negative effect on the majority of its results. Nonetheless, Lehman Brother's analysts had only predicted revenue of 1.83 billion euros.

Profit after tax was 211.2 million euros, or 0.95 euros per share, versus just 90.3 million, or 0.39 euros per share, in the year-earlier period. As a result the company has confirmed its outlook for the full-year 2008, predicting between 5% and 9% revenue growth and an operating margin increase of between 23% and 27%, excluding amortization and costs associated with the integration of Merck Serono.