Fresenius Medical Care (FMC), the world's leading supplier of renal care products and services, said Thursday it was confirming its outlook for the current year after a strong first quarter.

FMC, which publishes its accounts in US dollars, said in a statement that bottom-line net profit soared by 68 percent to $370 million (279 million euros) in the period from January to March on a 9.0-percent increase in sales to $3.249 billion.

The net profit figure was, however, inflated by an investment gain of $127 million related to the acquisition of Liberty Dialysis holdings, the statement explained.

Excluding this one-off factor, net profit grew by 10 percent to $244 million.

On the back of this "strong operating performance," FMC said it was sticking to its forecast for full-year sales of around $14 billion and net profit, excluding the investment gain, of $1.14 billion.

In 2011, FMC booked a record net profit of $1.071 million on sales of $12.795 billion.

Separately, FMC's parent company, healthcare group Fresenius, said it was launching a 3.1-billion-euro takeover bid for one of Germany's largest private hospital operators Rhoen-Klinikum AG.

Rhoen-Klinikum has annual sales of 2.6 billion euros and net profit of 161 million euros and operates some 53 hospitals with around 16,000 beds.

Fresenius plans to merge it with its HELIOS group of hospitals to create the country's largest private hospital operator.

Fresenius, which publishes its accounts in euros, said it, too, got off to an "excellent" start to 2012, with net profit jumping 18 percent to 200 million euros on a 13-percent increase in sales to 4.419 billion euros in the first three months.

On the basis of that strong performance, Fresenius said it was raising its full-year forecasts and was now projecting net income growth of 12-15 percent, instead of eight-12 percent previously.

Sales were expected to come out at the upper end of the forecast range of 10-13 percent, Fresenius added.

In 2011, Fresenius booked net profit of 770 million euros on sales of 16.5 billion euros.

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