The company announced that its profits declined much less in the second quarter than analysts had expected it to and its business will improve in the second half of the year.

A) had expected it to and its business will improve
B )had expected and that its business would improve
C )expected it would and that it will improve its business
D )expected them to and its business would improve
E) expected and that it will have improved its business

Hi.
Please help me clarify my confusion.

(1) When I solved the question, I did not think that "would" or "will" is important because from the context I cannot determine whether "the second half of the year" passed.

However, some people say that "would", if used to express uncertainty, can only exist in sentence that has the structure "if X, then Y" or structures that indicate hypothesis. Is it correct?

If not, can "would" express uncertainty in the sentence?
----------

(2) In choice C, I overlooked an error that "it" does not match "profits", but I still eliminate the choice because "analysts expected" is wrong tense and because "X is more adj than analysts expected" is enough to convey intended meaning.

So, is "X is more adj than analysts expected X would" redundant?

Thank you.