Welcome to the American Financial Group 2010 second quarter earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks there will be a question and answer session. (Operator instructions). Thank you. I will now like to turn the call over to Keith Jensen, senior vice president of American Financial Group. Please go ahead sir.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to American Financial Group's 2010 second quarter earnings results conference call. I'm joined this morning by Carl Lindner III and Craig Lindner, the Co-CEO's of American Financial Group. If you are viewing the webcast from our website, you can follow along with the slide presentation if you'd like. Certain statements made during this call are not historical facts and may be considered forward-looking statements because and are based on estimates, assumptions and projections, which management believes are reasonable, but by their nature subject to risks and uncertainties. The factors which could cause actual results and/or financial conditions to differ materially from those suggested by such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to those that are discussed or identified from time to time in AFG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. We do not promise to update such forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or changes in assumptions or other factors that could affect these statements. Core net operating earnings is a non-GAAP financial measure, which sets aside items that are generally not considered to be part of ongoing operations, such as net realized gains and losses on investments, the effects of accounting changes, discontinued operations, significant asbestos and environmental charges and other certain other non-recurring items. AFG believes this non-GAAP measure to be a useful tool for analysts and investors in analyzing ongoing operating trends and will be discussed for various periods during this call. A reconciliation of net earnings attributable to shareholders to core net operating earnings is included in our earnings release. Now, I am pleased to turn the call over to Carl Lindner III to discuss our results.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. We released our 2010 second quarter results yesterday afternoon reporting quarter earnings that were in line with our expectations. Despite increased catastrophe activity, decreased commercial demand resulting from a depressed economy and soft pricing, we’re making solid progress towards our operational goals for 2010. I’m assuming that the participants on today’s call reviewed our earnings release and the supplemental materials posted on our website. A review of Q2 highlights and focus today’s discussion on key issues in our outlook for the remainder of 2010. Let’s start by looking at our 2010 2nd quarter results summarized on slides 3 and 4 of the webscast. Our 2nd quarter core net operating earnings were $102 million or $.91 per share, about 13% below the prior year period. These results reflect improved results in our duly and supplemental insurance operations which were more than offset by lower property and casualty underwriting profit and lower investment income. Results for the 2nd quarter and first 6 months include increased borrowing costs associated with a $350 million debt issuance in 2009 which were more than offset by reduced expenses associated with the company stock portion, our employee retirement plans and higher earnings from our managed investment annuities. ,: To put this in context, the total shares repurchased in the 1st 6 months of 2010 represent about 5% of AFG’s outstanding shares at the beginning of the year. We believe the purchase of shares below book value is an appropriate means of increasing shareholder value. There are approximately 2 million shares remaining under our current repurchase authorization. We plan to seek an additional authorization at the next meeting of our board of directors as we anticipate continued share repurchases through the end of the year, subject to market conditions and…

We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. (Operator Instructions) We have a question from Joe Cohen from Bank of America. Jay Cohen – Bank of America: Yeah, it's actually Jay Cohen and a couple of questions. The first is you suggested that the 2Q numbers were basically in line with your expectations. What then accounts for the increased guidance? Let me start there then I’ll ask the other one.

Yeah, Jay this is Carl. I think…it's probably a couple of things; I think the condition of our…the crops and the crop pricing and then also I think I alluded to…we’ve built in the sale of the unearned premium on that runoff automotive business that would add to operating earnings at the point that we would complete that. And I think we – in our own internal modeling, our second quarter was above kind of what our internal modeling was; probably the combination of those three things caused us to increase our guidance. Jay Cohen – Bank of America: Got it and then the second question has to do with the specialties financial proposed transaction. So I guess your recorded gain which you will run through your core earnings, any estimates of what that gain is going to be?

Yes, we expect that gain is going to be probably plus or minus about $10 million. Jay Cohen – Bank of America: Okay, and then the last question, I understand you don’t break out the California Comp business but there was at least one other competitor that had a pretty rough quarter in California Comp and you obviously suggested you need rate there. Can you give us at least a qualitative feel for how that business is doing from a combined ratio stand point?

Yeah, I think you can check me on those but I think the on a calendar year basis we reported around 110ish…

About 109.

Yeah, 109, 110ish and on an accident year basis, I think we feel that that business is probably 118ish today. We’ve got about 9% in rate through the first six months, we could use another 8% to 10% on top of that to get that business at least to a point where we could get low teens returns. At 104 that’s, about 15% return on equity so we need about – we need another additional 8% to 10% to get that business to a reasonable return. The market is more competitive than what it should be, for the accident year results that we see and it doesn’t surprise me, I think the industry numbers out there are 120 or 120 plus. I’ve been saying all along but I think there is going to be some surprises unfavorably at a certain competitors that have been extremely aggressive there. Our businesses have been coming down and dropping pretty significantly for the last couple of years in that competitive environment. So it doesn’t surprise me that there is a few surprises out there. Jay Cohen – Bank of America: Yeah, at this point fortunately they’re a relatively small piece of your business given those margins. That’s helpful Carl; I appreciate that, thank you.

(Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time.

Alright, thank you very much for joining us today, we appreciate your time and we look forward to reporting to you in three months. Thank you, have a good day.

This concludes today’s conference call, you may now disconnect.