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Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APD)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 27, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Air Products & Chemicals' Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded at the request of Air Products. Please note that this presentation and the comments made on behalf of Air Products are subject to copyright by Air Products and all rights are reserved. Beginning today's call is Mr. Simon Moore, Vice President of Investor Relations. Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Air Products' fourth quarter 2016 earnings results teleconference. This is Simon Moore, Vice President of Investor Relations. I'm pleased to be joined today by Seifi Ghasemi, our Chairman, President & CEO; Scott Crocco, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Corning Painter, Air Products Executive Vice President, responsible for Industrial Gases. After our comments, we'll be pleased to take your questions. Our earnings release and the slides for this call are available on our website at airproducts.com. Please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure on page two of the slides and in today's earnings release. As you know, on October 1, Air Products completed the spin-off of Electronic Materials as Versum Materials, and we continue to make progress on the sale of Performance Materials to Evonik. The Q4 and FY 2016 full-year results we are sharing today include both EMD and PMD in continuing operations. Our guidance for Q1 and FY 2017 does not include EMD and we have provided forward guidance both with and without the PMD business. You will see that we also provided an estimate of the comparable prior-year quarter and full-year Air Products results. We continue to evaluate the progress of the PMD sale to determine when we will report PMD in discontinued operations. Now I'm pleased to turn the call over…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Robert Koort from Goldman Sachs. Christopher Evans - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey, good morning. This is Chris Evans on for Bob. Impressive guide given that it doesn't include the cash deployment, could you kind of talk us through the moving pieces that get you that double-digit core growth? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yes, absolutely. As I said, we are committed to deliver an additional $100 million of cost savings. That by itself is about $0.35. And then in addition to that, we have new plants that we have built, that are continuing to come on-stream, so we will have organic growth. Therefore, the combination of productivity and organic growth that we see based on the plants that we see coming on-stream, that is what gives us the confidence to deliver the results that we're talking about next year. Because that means that next year, we are not making any assumptions for any significant economic growth worldwide, we will have a currency headwind, but we feel very good about our productivity programs. Our people did a great job in delivering the $75 million more than that last year. We are confident that we will get that and on top of that with the growth rate that we see, we are – as you know, we have always been committed to promise what we can deliver and usually deliver more than what we can promise. Christopher Evans - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. And then, obviously can you comment on the potential impact of another round of consolidation among the global major gas companies? Do you think the regulatory environment is supportive of that deal, and what kind of would be the impact if it went through? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I don't want to comment on what other people are doing or might do, but Air Products is focused on a strategy which is based on organic growth and productivity improvement, and we will continue to execute that strategy. What other people might do, I don't think it will have much of an effect on us at all. Christopher Evans - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Duffy Fischer from Barclays.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah, good morning, fellas. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, Duffy. How are you?

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Good. Thanks. Probably the biggest question I am getting on your guys lately and Seifi, I'd love to get your color on this is, obviously assuming that the deal to Evonik goes through, you guys will be sitting on a big pile of cash come next year. How should we think about your ability to employ that, maybe over the proceeding 18 months or so? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Obviously, we are committed to do that. We – sitting on top of a little bit of cash for a rainy day is okay, but sitting on top of $3 billion of cash is obviously not what we intend to do. We do have – we believe we do have plans to deploy that cash properly, we are not in a hurry to do that, we are not going to do anything rash, but we feel very good about that.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then there has been a lot of noise in China this year around some of the rules and regulations in coal mining, the number of days they can run plants has changed a couple of times. Has that impacted at all the way you view the long-term coal gasification opportunity or has that impacted any of the current business you have in that industry? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, Duffy, I honestly think that there is a little bit of a confusion about what those rules are. What we see from those, we are close to that, we are on the ground. We see absolutely no effect and actually we see positive developments. We are very optimistic about those big projects, we think they will happen and we don't see anything in the Chinese government policy that would affect the kind of things that we want to do in terms of clean coal and coal gasification in China.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Terrific. Thank you, fellas. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Vincent S. Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thanks and good morning, everyone. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, Vince. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Hi, Vincent. Vincent S. Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Hi. So, Latin America, you called out some weakness and then also EMEA had minus 4% volume growth. It seems like those were a little bit weaker sequentially than at least we thought. Can you just talk about what dynamics are there and then what might have changed, particularly I guess on Europe and the minus 4% volume? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Absolutely. I think, I'd like Corning to address that. Corning, please? Corning F. Painter - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. Thank you. So, as I said in my comments, the big challenge there was in the liquid bulk area. If we think about the merchant business, there is two spaces, packaged gases and liquid bulk. Packaged gases for sometimes have been impacted just by slowing construction activity, metals fab. But, we saw a drop-off in this quarter in liquid bulk larger for us than what we had in packaged gases. But more than 50% of that was in wholesale volumes, and that goes a little bit to our drive, to just start driving an improved quality of our business, and our goal moving forward would be not to reload that business with wholesale volumes, instead shift that to retail volume for us. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Corning, you might want to also mention about the effect in Europe, about the effect of August in terms of sequentially. Corning F. Painter -…

Operator

Operator

Moving on we'll take our next question from P.J. Juvekar from Citi.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yes, good morning, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, P.J. How are you today?

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good. So for a long time, Industrial Gas executives believed that big M&A is not possible, but that notion is being challenged. Do you have any interest in big M&A or would you rather sit back and buy any pieces that may come out? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: P.J., I don't want to comment on what our competitors are doing, but we think pursuing big M&A among the four major industrial gas companies is a foolish idea and we are not going to pursue foolish ideas. So we are not going, we don't have any plans to participate, we'll sit back and if anything happens, there certainly will be a lot of pieces that comes out. We have a lot of cash that would be kind of Christmas for us if it happens.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Really thank you for that color. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you sir.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

And just a quick question on your CapEx, which is going up in 2017 versus 2016, as you start up some of these projects. What kind of EPS contribution do you expect from new projects in 2017? Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: From the projects that are – any future projects that we do whenever we announce the CapEx, you should assume that will have a minimum of 10% return. We have made that commitment. The projects that we have on-stream coming on in 2017 will be a combination of the new projects we have approved like Big River Steel and a combination of projects which were approved many years ago. That combination of the two as I said the new ones will have 10% and the old ones will probably have an average of about 5% return.

P.J. Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. Very helpful. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on we'll take our next question from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, David. How are you doing these days?

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Very good, thank you, very good. Seifi just looking again 2017 in terms of pricing benefits in 2017, how should we think about those from an EPS perspective? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, David, as you know very well, we cannot, should not and would not comment on pricing. I think I would be very hesitant to start giving you any specific number but you would expect that, that is one of the things that we do. We are focused on improving productivity, we are focused on improving our pricing and our pricing can improve not only by increasing prices to cover inflation, but it will improve based on what Corning was talking about in change of the mix, in terms of going from wholesale to direct sale and all of that. So there is some element of pricing in next year's guidance, yes.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Very good. And just on the deployment of the cash and the capital, as you bid for these projects, are they competitive bid situations or are they more one-off negotiated transactions you're looking at? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: David, I think you should assume that everything we do is a competitive situation. I don't think that for these large projects, any of the customers would just want to do a private deal with us. But we are prepared for that, we bring a lot of value to our customers not only in terms of pricing, but in terms of all of the other services we provide. So we're prepared for competition, but we remain very optimistic that we have an advantage, and we have won a lot of projects, some of it unfortunately we cannot announce, because our customers would like to keep that confidential. But we are winning more than our fair share of projects in the last two years. I'm not worried about that at all.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, Jeff.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi, good morning. By what percentage is Jazan complete? And for your Indian hydrogen project of 165 million cubic feet per day, I mean that comes on in phases, how much comes on in 2017? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: We expect our project in India to come on-stream approximately in the first half of – calendar 2017. So there will be less than half a year contribution from that project in our 2017 numbers. As for Jazan, we have made progress, and I will be hesitant to publicly talk about percentage complete. But I can say that we are moving on plan on schedule on that project, and we are obviously very optimistic and our people are delivering on that. And we have a great customer in Aramco, they are being very helpful to us and they are pushing us obviously to get the project done as soon as possible and we are on plan.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And then for my follow-up. If it turns out in the course of 2017, there is nothing that you are able to buy. And it also turns out that your share price is flat, would your share price then represent a compelling opportunity at the end of the year or it wouldn't? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, it depends on what the share price is. I mean if you are asking me that would we buy shares at $133, I'm not sure I want to comment on that, but...

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Anything – Jeff, you know better than I do the events in the world, I mean what is the market going to look like two weeks from now. A lot of things can happen. So we – the good thing is that we have the cash and we will watch what happens.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on we'll take our next question from Christopher Parkinson from Credit Suisse. Christopher S. Parkinson - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Perfect, thank you. Just an extension of your comments right there, you've obviously spoken about kind of the key macro and some of the political risks in the context of capital deployment, but can you just give us an update on how you're actually thinking about this versus let's say three months to six months ago, are there any changes in your expectations overall opportunities or evaluations broadly particularly outside of the U.S.? Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I guess, I would have to characterize it that I am more optimistic than I was six months ago about our ability to deploy the cash. But I do want to stress that there are certain events in the world that can change everything upside down, and I think it's very prudent for us rather than jumping in and doing something this minute to give ourselves a few months to see how everything settles down with the U.S. election, and with the Brexit and all of that, and then we will make the appropriate moves. Christopher S. Parkinson - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thank you. And as a quick follow-up, within the Gases in Asia, you're seeing some decent volume growth, and you are now holding price flat on both a year-over-year and a sequential basis. Can you just talk a little bit more about the broad drivers in the market specifically, any changes in merchant capacity and/or strategy that's helping the overall results? Thanks. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Corning, would you like to...? Corning F. Painter - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. So let me…

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll now take our next question from Steve Byrne from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Yes, thank you. Seifi, you mentioned in your remarks, your pipeline has some large oxygen and hydrogen opportunities in it. Can you just comment on what portion of those would you see as standalone plans versus potential pipeline bolt-on projects? And how would you see the – those opportunities relative to where they've been over the last few years, are they – are there more or less and where? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Most of the opportunities that we see are in U.S. Gulf Coast and in China, and some in Europe. Most of the opportunities are – some of the opportunities are on our pipeline and especially our hydrogen pipeline, but a lot of the opportunities are standalone plants, large plants, supplying significant amounts of oxygen and hydrogen – and nitrogen to coal gasification, refineries, and all of that live features (54:14) and project. There are not that many there you are – as you might say we are hanging on a liquid capacity.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

And... Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yes, sir.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Yeah, thank you for that. Just with respect to your $100 million cost reduction target in fiscal 2017, can you just comment on what are the key projects that will be driving that? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Those key projects are under the title of what we call Taking the Lead project that Corning has been leading and they are absolutely focused on operational improvements in our production and in our distribution and some – and those are the main key areas. But, I'd like to comment – Corning to comment – elaborate on that please? Corning F. Painter - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: We've tried to in each of the recent earnings releases just give a concrete example of one thing that we're working on. The reality of this business though it's a very distributed business, right? We don't have world class plants where you export all around the world from one site, we have over 700 plants. And so it's a business of transactions and many plants and as Seifi says sometimes, the 10,000 little things. And so a big part of this is motivating the team and keeping ourselves focused on executing across those 10,000 things. I'd say that the move towards a regional structure has dramatically improved that, including the operating control in the region and the move to an incentive plan based on that same regional structure has been a big part of this as well, but all of that together really comes down to just the commitment of the people and the focus to deliver on this. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: If I may just add to that, as we have said many times before. We do have very detailed programs region by region, in terms of what they need to do. Based on what we accomplished in 2016, I am very confident that we will deliver at least $100 million next year. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: If I could just jump in on this because this is a topic we're really happy about. We're all wearing in this room, these buttons, right with our four S's, the new culture at Air Products, and we have those plans just like Seifi talked about. And we beat them. And I think it goes one of those S's for us is speed and those regional teams we got out of the way, they were empowered, they were motivated, and they went and they got it done. And I think we are very proud around the world of what these groups have done. But I think it's a sign, right of embracing a new culture here at Air Products.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Kevin McCarthy from Vertical Research Partners.

Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst

Yes, good morning. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning Kevin.

Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst

My question relates to – good morning. With regard to Jazan what sort of incremental profit contribution might we expect in the fiscal 2017 versus 2016? And perhaps you can elaborate on the fourth quarter you just reported, and the shift from a red number to a black? I think the press release indicated a cumulative catch-up? Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Sure. I obviously cannot and should not comment on the profitability of the Jazan project. For 2017, we do not have a significant amount of contribution, but it – there will be some contribution. And quite honestly, it will depend on the exact progress that we make on all of that. But there will be some. In 2016, we did not recognize, although we were recognizing sales throughout the year, we did not recognize profit, because we wanted to get some kind of a, more of a sure footing that the project is moving forward. As you know, there has been a lot of talk about shutting down projects in Saudi Arabia and all of that, and we wanted to make sure that this project doesn't get cancelled, and then we would have to reverse profit on all of that. But then by fourth quarter, it became obvious that we have made enough progress that you should recognize some and that's what we did.

Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners

Analyst

Thank you very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on we'll take our next question from John Roberts from UBS.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Thank you. How big is electronics now for the remaining gases business, and were your nitrogen sales to electronics roughly up in line with Versum or the EMD volume numbers that you presented? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: The size of that business order of magnitude is about $0.5 billion, and we were up 11%. So, we are doing well there.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Mike Sison from KeyBanc.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, guys. Seifi, when you gave your outlook for 2017, you highlighted cost of new projects and – and is there upside in the event the industrial world does get better? And maybe just kind of your thoughts that doesn't sound, do you think it could get better, is it stable, is it getting worse? Just surprised that, you wouldn't add that as a component of potential growth next year. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, the thing is that, as compared to, and I mean we are operating the same boat compared to our competitors. I mean, we are delivering double-digit growth while other people are showing negative growth, so we are doing something right. With respect to next year, we are – there is a possibility that we will do better than what we have given you as a guidance depending on the economy and all that. But I just want to remind everybody that, we are dealing with some significant worldwide events that we have to see how they will develop. We have given you a guidance on the basis that barring any significant disruptions, we will be able to deliver that and we have – that's the way we operate. Now, the economic conditions can get better once the U.S. election is over and people are not sitting on the fence, then, yeah, it is possible that we will do better than that. But the one thing that I can assure you is that, we don't operate on the basis of just delivering the guidance. We do our best to deliver whatever we can. That's kind of our goal.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from James Sheehan from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. A question on the opportunity to buy captive ASUs. Could you say, do you think the multiple for such acquisitions would be higher, lower or the same as other M&A opportunities. And also could you frame any synergy potential of such captive ASU acquisitions? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: On that one, unfortunately, I can't give you a general answer, because it will depend on the specific situations. But what you said can apply, and it can be a specific situation that there is significant synergies. Because we already have two plants there and an addition of another two plants or three plants will add value. So, sorry, that I can't give you a general answer, but you can be, rest assured that we would only do those, if they are in line with our goal of getting a return on our – on the capital that we employ which is not less than 10%.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Great. And can you also give us a sense for any stranded cost that you still have in 2017? What the timeframe would be for eliminating those and how they affect the cadence of your earnings progression in 2017? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, we have said that those stranded costs could be in the order of magnitude of $20 million. We have programs for eliminating those in the next year and a half and our guidance obviously reflects that those costs are still with us and we need to work to eliminate those.

James M. Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we'll take our next question from Don Carson from Susquehanna Financial.

Don Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Good morning, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, Don. How are you today?

Don Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Very good, thank you. Question on your FX assumptions within your guidance. Currency was a $0.16 drag in fiscal 2016, you got some sterling exposure. Just wondering what kind of headwind you're assuming in your 2017 guidance? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: I think the number is about $0.05, but the expert on this is Scott. So, Scott? Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah, that's a tall order Seifi. Hi, Don. So, just to remind everybody how we look at currency. We don't try to speculate, we take the latest rates and we just project that forward. So, when we do that from where we are today into 2017, and then compare full year 2017 against 2016, we'd have a headwind of about $0.05 to $0.10, that's for the full year. And then on a quarter basis, we do the same approach, just move things sideways. We would have, in the first quarter, both sequentially as well as versus prior year in Q1, about a $0.01 to $0.02 headwind, principally driven by the pound.

Don Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

And then on the project Seifi, you mentioned that you're still working through some projects that were signed before you arrived. Are those pretty much over by the end of 2017, and what's the total – where does the backlog stand today versus where it was at the beginning of fiscal 2016. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: We had a detailed chart on this thing, on the slide that we have... Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Slide 29. Corning F. Painter - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Slide 28. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah, slide 28. So, you can see – and I'm sure you know very well, which ones they signed before and which ones they signed after. They will not all be over in 2017 because some of them are delayed and it will drag on into 2018 also.

Don Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

Moving on, we will take our next question from Michael Harrison from Seaport Global Securities.

Michael Joseph Harrison - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning.

Michael Joseph Harrison - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst

Seifi, you mentioned that you felt like you were gaining – winning more than your fair share of new projects in large on-site business. I was wondering if you can talk about the North American merchant business and what you're seeing in terms of new account growth there? And in particular, can you maybe comment on what the core LOX/LIN volume look like in the quarter and what the outlook is for fiscal 2017? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Sure. I think Corning can answer that very easily. Corning? Corning F. Painter - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yes. Thank you for the question. So, LOX/LIN if we were going to look at that let's just say it's the most generic product goes into the most – largest number of industries it's probably the best sort of bellwether of everything. Year-on-year that was flat for us, however sequentially we were up about 2% so showing some positive momentum there. Even in that year-on-year flat however, I'd say that during the course of the year, we did make some adjustments in our portfolio as part of our Take the Lead program. We also had one situation, not exactly the same as Carrington what I talked about but where we did shut down a liquefier and we're able to shift some load around but that also did involve shutting some customers. So, all in all I think, approximately the best indication is just the sequential moving forward which gave us 2% and I see that as a net positive for us and I think a pretty good reflection of what's going in North America.

Michael Joseph Harrison - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. And then you mentioned that within the corporate segment that LNG business was going to be a $0.25 EPS headwind next year. Is there anything that they could change in the market, that could swing that or do you have pretty good visibility based on the projects that are in the pipeline now that that's going to be weaker no matter what happens? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: No. I think, the guidance that we have given you about $0.25 is based on what we see, but there are things that can happen that can change that because a lot of these projects. We have won the projects, but the oil and gas companies have put a hold on them as you know very well because of the situation. They can change if the oil prices significantly change. They can change their mind, they can release those and therefore, we can start working on them. So the possibility of that, I don't see being great but it is possible.

Michael Joseph Harrison - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst

Yes. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: But the $0.25 is real and it is based on what we have. So I'm glad that you brought that up because if you take that $0.25 into account, then we're actually giving a pretty good guidance in terms of growth next year, but that's based on what we see right now.

Michael Joseph Harrison - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And moving on, we'll take our final question from Laurence Alexander from Jefferies.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Good morning. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Congratulations, you've got a pretty good engine going now with this business. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

A longer-term question, as your business mix continues to shift towards being more and more on-site, have you had any indication from either your large customers or from the rating agencies that their tolerance for leverage would change given the better – should the better or more stable mix of the business? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, that is something that we are hoping that would be the case but we have to wait and see, but we are pushing towards more on-site because then you get a more stable revenue growth and a more stable profitability, but we are paying attention to all parts of our business whether it's large on-sites or merchant business and our packaged gases business in the areas of the world where we are strong. So we are not neglecting any part of the business but the trend seems to be more towards the large on-sites. And obviously if we win one of those projects it adds a lot to that part of the business.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

And then just lastly, are you seeing sort of – as you have early discussions with customers about the next cycle of projects in 2018, 2020 and so on. It looks as if the size of projects just keeps getting larger. Will we get to the point where you're seeing sort of one-off, $500 million to $1 billion project agreements? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I can actually see bigger than that. There are projects that you would, like Jazan $2 billion and there are projects that might require $4 billion. So you're right, the trend is towards larger projects and that is why having the balance sheet that you can do those projects becomes very important and that has been our target because we saw that trend before and that is one of the reasons that we wanted to restructure and make sure that Air Products has a bulletproof, solid balance sheet that we can take on those mega projects. You're very right about that.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Okay. With that I would like to thank everybody for being on the call. Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule especially today with all of the announcements to listen to our presentation. We appreciate your interest and we look forward to discussing our results with you again next quarter. Have a very nice day and all the best. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And again, that will conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.