ICN, Under Serb Attack, Reports Profit Rise

ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc., seeking to stave off investor concerns after Yugoslav police occupied a factory in Belgrade, said operating profit before provisions rose 15% in 1998 and predicted record earnings for 1999. Chief Executive Milan Panic said at a Vienna media briefing that 1998 sales at the company, the biggest drug maker in Eastern Europe, were about $800 million, a 6.4% increase from $752 million in 1997. While Eastern European sales fell 6%, he said, North American sales rose 25%. He gave no figures for operating profit, though the increase was before provisions for Eastern European currencies, which have fallen since Russia devalued its currency in August. On Friday, Serbian police broke down the gates and tried to eject about 600 people from a Belgrade factory belonging to ICN Yugoslavia. Costa Mesa-based ICN, which contends it bought 75% of the factory from the government in 1991, said Belgrade asserts the drug maker owns only 35%. ICN shares fell $3 to close at $23.25 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday after trading was interrupted on news the government was about to seize the plant.