UPDATE 2-W.R. Grace Q3 profit jumps 57 percent
* Q3 EPS 61 cents vs 39 cents
* Asset sale fueled profit
* Revenue falls 15.3 percent (Adds executive interview, Chapter 11 info, byline; updates stock movement.)
By Ernest Scheyder
NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Bankrupt specialty chemicals maker W.R. Grace & Co (GRA.N) said on Thursday its third-quarter profit rose 57 percent, due in part to recent asset sales.
"What we've seen ... is a slow and steady increase in customer demand, month to month," Chief Financial Officer Hudson La Force told Reuters.
The company hopes to emerge from Chapter 11 protection during the second quarter of 2010, he said.
W.R. Grace, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2001, sold two product lines last month for a gain of about $22 million.
For the quarter, the company posted net income of $44.4 million, or 61 cents per share, compared with $28.3 million, or 39 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding Chapter 11 expenses, the company posted earnings of $65.9 million.
Revenue fell 15.3 percent to $753.6 million.
W.R. Grace produces construction materials, as well as chemicals for the oil refining industry, and interest in those materials is slowly returning.
"It's still a very challenging environment, but we feel good about how we're performing," La Force said.
Shares of the Columbia, Maryland-based company rose 40 cents or 1.7 percent to $23.35 in afternoon trading.
The stock has traded between $2.95 and $24.97 in the past 52 weeks. (Reporting by Ernest Scheyder, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Gerald E. McCormick)
