Egis Q4 net falls 93 pct on revaluations, export

BUDAPEST, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Hungarian drug producer Egis EGIS.BU said on Wednesday its fiscal fourth-quarter net profit plunged in annual terms due to the revaluation of loss-making foreign units and lower export sales.

Egis posted a net profit of 406 million forints ($2.25 million) in the last quarter of its fiscal year which ended on Sept. 30, in line with a profit warning issued last week, down from 5.88 billion a year ago, it said in its earnings report.

The figures are not fully comparative as in the same period last year the divestment of a Polish unit generated a 4.5 billion forint financial result.

But in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year the company had a financial loss of 740 million forints, mainly because it revalued "temporarily loss-making" units: Egis Ilaclari in Turkey and Serdix in Russia, Egis said.

Net sales totalled 24.04 billion forints, down 1 percent year on year, Egis said.

"The USD continued the weakening trend, while the HUF was strengthening. This caused the depreciation of international sales and of the company's foreign investments against the previous three quarters," it said in the report.

Exports, the driving force behind the firm, fell by 17 percent in dollar terms to $87.3 million in the fourth quarter.

In Russia, the firm's biggest export market, sales in dollar terms dropped by 21 percent to $25 million, while sales in Poland fell by 39 percent to $12.2 million. But on its home market, Egis managed to lift sales by 1 percent to 7.53 billion forints ($41.70 million).

Its operating profit came in at 997 million forints, down 36 percent year on year.

Egis closed at 18,850 forints, up 2.36 percent on the Budapest bourse, while the benchmark index was up 2.77 percent .BUX. ($1=180.56 Hungarian Forint) (Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Mike Nesbit)