South Africa's Adcock says to fall into 9-month loss

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's No.2 drugmaker Adcock Ingram will post a loss in the first nine-months of its fiscal year, it said on Tuesday, a sign a turnaround plan led by top investor Bidvest is yet to gain traction. Adcock is lagging behind rivals as it grapples with slowing sales, over-reliance on a heavily regulated home market and poor distribution network. Industrial conglomerate Bidvest, which owns about 34 percent of Adcock, has been pushing through changes after blocking a $1.2 billion takeover bid of Adcock from Chile's CFR Pharmaceuticals earlier this year. "The effects of the corrective action are unlikely to yield significant improvement in the short term," Adcock said in a trading statement. "The board, however, remains optimistic about the company's long term prospects." Adcock Chief Executive Kevin Wakeford, appointed weeks after CFR dropped the bid in February, is reorganising the company to match the decentralised model of Bidvest in a bid to make the different units more nimble and increase accountability. The company has declined to say how long it would take before it returned to profit. Shares in Adcock fell more than 2 percent shortly the trading update, which had no details on the size of the loss. By the close of trading, shares recouped the bulk of losses, ending around 0.4 percent lower at 52.10 rand.