Good afternoon. My name is Kara and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the third quarter 2009 earnings release conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent feedback noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question and answer session. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Parham.

Thanks, Kara. Good afternoon and thanks for joining us on today’s call. Earlier this afternoon we issued a press release announcing our third quarter results, our spring 2010 backlog, our increased outlook for the remainder of 2009, and the board’s authorization of a 12.5% increase in our quarterly dividend. With me today to discuss those results and answer your question are Columbia’s Chairman, Gert Boyle, President and CEO Tim Boyle, Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer Tom Cusick, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bryan Timm, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing Mick McCormick, and Vice President and General Counsel Peter Bragdon. Before we begin our Chairman, Gert Boyle, has an important reminder.

I like to remind everyone that this conference call will contain forward statements regarding Columbia business opportunities and anticipated results of operation. Please bear in mind that forward-looking information is subject to many risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from what is projected. Many of these risks and uncertainties are described in Columbia’s annual report on Form 10-K for the past year of December 31, 2008 and the most recently filed quarterly report on Form 10-Q, as well as subsequent filings with the SEC. Forward-looking statements in this conference call are based on our current expectations and beliefs and we do not undertake any duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform the forward-looking statements to actual results or to report changes in our expectations.

Thank you Gert, now I’ll turn the call over to Tim.

Thanks, Ron. Welcome everyone and thank you for joining us this afternoon. As Ron noted in his introduction, today’s press release contains several important pieces of information that selectively provide insight into the current state of our business and early signs of market acceptance of the strategic product and marketing initiatives that we’ve been working on for the past two years. I want to touch quickly on a couple of highlights from the third quarter and let Tom cover the financials and our improved fiscal year 2009 outlook in more detail. Most of my comments will focus on Spring 2010 backlog and what we think are the important takeaways when you look beyond the raw comparison against Spring 2009 back log. As most of you know, the third quarter is typically our largest sales in earnings quarter of the year. Overall, third quarter sales were stronger than we expected and together with better than expected gross margins, controlled spending, and a slightly lower tax rate, we produced greater profitability than forecast. Consolidated sales, while still down 4% from last year’s Q3, were more than $30 million above the outlook we gave in July. That increase was driven by the US region where we experienced greater than expected demand and better inventory availability to fulfill that demand. We also benefited from stronger international currencies. Q3 US sales declined only 1% as our operations team did an outstanding job delivering fall orders so that our retail partners could have their stores ready for the cooler weather that is already begun to settle across North America. Nothing could have pleased me more than tuning into the New England Patriots game against Tennessee this past Sunday and seeing a snow-covered field and a stadium full of fans bundled against the cold in mid-October or…

Thank you, Tim, and good afternoon everyone. I’ll begin with a brief overview of our Q3 operating results and financial position and then provide an update on our full year 2009 outlook. Our third quarter came in significantly better than the outlook we provided in July, primarily due to the greater than expected demand for fall products in the US as Tim commented on earlier. Third quarter sales decreased 4% to $434.5 million with changes in foreign currency exchange rates contributing 1 percentage point of that decrease. Looking at Q3 2009 sales on a regional basis compared with Q3 2008, US sales decreased 1% to $267.4 million. This decrease reflected a mid-single digit decline in our US wholesale business, due in part to the liquidation or reorganization of several wholesale customers this year. Offsetting that was a significant increase in our US retail business. We exited Q3 2009 with 47 stores, 18 more than the same time last year. On our product category basis, the 1% US sales decrease reflected a low single digit percentage decline in our Columbia brand apparel business, with the decline skewed more towards sportswear than outerwear, partially offset by a low teens percentage decrease in US footwear sales driven by that Sorel brand. EMEA sales declined 13% to $67.7 million including a 3 percentage point drag from foreign currency exchange rates. Our EMEA distributor business declined by a low double digit percent reflecting difficult macro economic conditions in our largest distributor region, partially offset by a shift in false shipments into the third quarter from the second quarter as compared to the same periods last year. Sales in our EMEA direct business showed a low teens percent decline including a 6 percentage point negative effect from foreign currency exchange rates. The remaining decrease reflects challenging…

Thanks, Tom. We believe we are in a much better place today as a company than we have been for a long time. The brand rebuilding strategies and the product initiatives that we had launched two years ago are beginning to bear fruit. We have remained focused on the things that we can control and on using the financial flexibility of our strong balance sheet to position ourselves for when the economy recovers. Clearly our improved outlook for 2009 and our spring 2010 backlog contain reasons for optimism. But significant challenges remain in each of the regions that we do business in and we expect the macro environment to constrain growth for the foreseeable future. In the US consumer demand is unlikely to mount a sustained recovery until employment improves and debt delinquencies and mortgage foreclosures decline. The upcoming holiday season will determine whether or not we has seen the last of significant retailer liquidations and reorganizations in the US or if additional retailers will fall victim to lower consumer demand and heavy debt loads. In the EMEA region we face continuing severe macroeconomic challenges in Russia along with our continued brand rebuilding efforts in Western Europe. In the LAAP region, Argentina and Chile are suffering weak economies and we have begun to see some softening in Japan. Despite these challenges we intend to continue focusing on product innovation and on using our portfolio of outdoor brands to meet the needs of outdoor consumers. Based on our Q3 results and our spring 2010 backlog we believe more strongly than ever that these strategies are right. They simply need more time in these treacherous economic conditions to play out as we believe they eventually will. Thank you very much for listening. We'd like to open up the call to questions.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Kate Mcshane – Citi Investment Research.

Can you help us understand a little bit better the mechanics of how you're going to manage the fourth quarter? I think you said last quarter that you didn't take on a lot of speculative inventory so it would be hard to service the reach [inaudible] and some business in the fourth quarter. So is there no additional inventory? Is there any room for upside on the top line for Q4?

Well, I think we've diligently worked on the various components of the Q4 top line number which include, as you might imagine, multiple geographies and currencies. So our best visibility on that is what we've given today.

And then my other question is on the backlog you had said in your comments that you believe you're taking market share with your spring backlog, which is great to hear. Can you remind us the last time you saw the spring backlog take market share? And also you mentioned that there were some accounts that no longer exist that you had orders from last year that don't exist this year. But are there any new accounts that you are selling to this spring that help offset maybe some of the economic weakness in the rest of the backlog number?

Yes, so I want to make sure I got the last part of your question written down. So let me answer that first one. You'll have to remind me again on the first part of the question. So as it relates to customers that aren't in business today or have restructured there are a number of them and most of them, frankly, are significant. We have not added any significant new customers to our 2010 book. However, our existing customers, many of which have responded to the product offerings that we've given and that we've offered and increased their business, some significantly, so not any one particular customer was responsible for the offset. And then as it relates to market share, I think that was the first part of your question. It's been a number of years since we've been able to talk about gains in the business in the way we have today. And my guess is that the bulk of that gain is coming from maybe second tier vendors that have been having trouble with their financing and so maybe that's where a portion of it came. A portion of it came out of private label. And, frankly, a portion of it probably came from other brands, larger brands that we compete with when our products were compared against theirs.

Your next question comes from the line of Bob Drbul - Barclays Capital.

A couple questions, first, thus far in October, Tim, have you seen any reorders in the business with the good weather that we've seen around the US?

Yes, Bob, we get new orders every day and we get some cancels every day. I think for us we're quite pleased with the weather conditions as they're coming through now. It bodes well for the inventory initiatives that the company's undertaken certainly in the US. And we hope they continue. October's a relatively small volume month by comparison to November and December. So we're hoping that this bodes well for the balance of the fall for sure.

And then just a couple of questions on the backlog, similar questions to Kate but a little bit different - for the bankruptcies and liquidation is there a dollar number that you could give us on the backlog ex your [bank] that your customers that are still out there, if you just took like for like on that is there a number you can put on your spring backlog for that? And then the other question is similar. You talked about increased orders on specialty stores. Can you put a number on that as well in terms of when you broke it down by channel, what was the percentage increase on the specialty store orders?

We don't specifically talk about customers either in backlogs or in prior backlogs. So I won't be able to answer that portion of the question. But I can tell you that when we compare our business this year to prior years excluding customers that aren't in business any longer or who've reorganized we have a slight increase on our backlog in the US. Again, as it relates to specialty stores we don't capture that backlog information on that kind channel, on a channel basis, but I can tell you that the growth in that business has been gratifying and the expectations are that it will continue.

Can you talk a little bit about the sporting goods retailers and how they’ve received the product?

Certainly. Sporting goods customers have been by far and away the bulk of the customers that the company has dealt with, whether they be specialty outdoor stores or full line sporting good stores and our experience in virtually all those kinds of sporting goods operations has been quite good. We’ve had good selling in fall and that’s really the heart of where our business has been historically and the expectation is whether it’s an outdoor specialty store or a full line sporting goods store. The future of the business is going to be in that kind of a specialty operation.

Your next question comes from Reed Anderson - D. A. Davidson & Co. Reed Anderson - D. A. Davidson & Co.: On the direct business, would it be possible for you to just kind of quantify where we are today as a percent of your business that’s coming out of direct, whether it be [inaudible] stores, obviously internet, can we go there yet or not?

We’re really focused on maintaining the company’s structure as a wholesale business and we believe that’s the future of the business. Our forays into direct have been either on the outlet basis to help us to right size our inventories should there be a cancel or some other issue and then on the full line and e-com parts of the business, those are by far and away the major driver for those initiatives are for brand building, so we just want to make sure that people don’t consider us a retailer and we continue our status as a wholesale business. Reed Anderson - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Would you be willing to share just kind of the trends though that you’ve seen maybe at the more mature stores, would you be comping up, would you be down, just a sense of what that piece, how that might have been performing year-over-year in the last quarter.

Well again, we want to make sure we aren’t considered to be a retailer but I can tell you that in stores that we’ve had open for a period of time and new stores, customers continuously comment that they didn’t know the breadth of the product that the company offered and they’re pleased to be able to find a better selection, so both of those comments regularly come from consumers that are shopping in the retail stores and it bodes well for our initiatives as it relates to a broader collection of merchandise and it allows us to really talk about the science of our products that perhaps a multi brand retailer can’t do. Reed Anderson - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Getting back to the notion of your comments of picking up share relative to kind of what the industry had been or what kind of averages it had been, is it also your sense just anecdotally as you look at your orders and your customers that you’re maybe even getting more floor space at some of your major retailers or is it too early to tell?

I think that’s definitely the case. We’ve definitely picked up space in the store and it’s hard for us to say where that space is coming from but retailers have a higher degree of confidence in the brand and the products that we’re giving them, so that’s terrific and they’re giving us money that went elsewhere, we obviously don’t know elsewhere where that came from but we’re pleased to have it. Reed Anderson - D. A. Davidson & Co.: Just thinking about the fourth quarter and the notion that it could be promotional depending on what you’re saying, are you thinking about doing anything differently, working with some of your major partners to make sure your pricing sharp enough or what’s just kind of your thought in that sort of area at this point?

When we talk about the promotional activity, that’s primarily a discussion of our inventory levels in both Korea and in Japan but primarily in Japan, but we expect some promotional activity there to get our inventories closer in line. We don’t really expect any promotional activities here in the US. We firmly believe that the channel is late on inventory and that it’s a good opportunity for our retailers to continue to be profitable, especially in the outerwear category as the weather improves.

Your next question comes from Michelle Tan - Goldman Sachs.

A had a couple questions. First, when you look at the business outside of the US and Europe, I know you’ve been working through product issues for a while, but could you help us understand a little bit better there how much of the issue is macro related versus some of the product hiccups that you’ve had and what kind of reception you’re getting to the revamped product that you’ve got in that marketplace now for Spring 2010.

Certainly. We wish that we could blame every problem on macroeconomic conditions, but in the case of Eastern Europe, we actually can. That’s been very significant impact on our business and much more than any other avenue or any other issue that’s impacted the business in total. On the Western European side, as you remember, we replaced almost the entire management team over there and we’re thrilled with the results so far, even though they’re happening at a slower pace than we wanted. I think we can tell you that we grew in something like 6 out of 10 markets in Europe. We had sales growth for 2010 spring, and in those areas where we didn’t, we certainly had solid businesses and there may have been one or two issues. So we’re very excited about the way the team is progressing, but more so what we’re hearing from retailers as it relates to the product improvements and the brand enhancing science that we’re adding to the products.

So as far as when we should start to see that pan out in terms of traction, do you expect a bigger inflection point outside of the US then in the second half of 2010 if that product sells through kind of ex macro environment?

It’s hard to be able to predict what will happen in some of these countries where the economies have been so devastated i.e. Russia. A large part of our business historically. It’s also difficult to predict what the currencies will be doing there so in the case of Korea where we have mid teens growth and a 1% dollar decline when we translate that, so we’ve been trying to manage the business on a local currency basis when we look at how things are progressing and from that standpoint, our expectations are that we’ve handled those issues that are our purview that we can handle and those other ones are sort of outside our control.

My last question is on the operating margin guidance for the full year. It seems like third quarter came in well ahead of the plan and I guess how much of that fourth quarter guidance not being raised as cushion versus the true climbing shift. How conservative do you think you’re being with the fourth quarter number?

Hi Michelle, this is Tom. So it’s really most of that resides in the SG&A line so if our outlook 90 days ago was for SG&A to be just south of 37% of sales, we’re still there, and on the incremental revenue growth, that implies $12 million-ish of incremental SG&A in the back half and I guess in the simplest terms the way to bucket that would be about a third of that is FX, a third of that is the incremental sales, and then we’ve got some incremental costs that weren’t necessarily planned a quarter ago associated with internalizing elements of our sales organization in North America and Europe and then there’s other project based initiatives that will fund in the fourth quarter and a little bit of movement and some discretionary spend from Q3 to Q4.

Your next question comes from Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co. Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: This is actually Kevin [Ken] calling for Mitch. Tim, you mentioned that excluding the bankruptcies that your US spring backlog would have been up slightly. Can you break that out between your other geographies?

I don’t think we can. We didn’t have the kind of massive bankruptcy impact in markets other than the US really between the backlog period last year and this year. We had one major bankruptcy in Germany but other than that we didn’t have the kind of impact that we had here. Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: On the subject of speculative inventory first for spring 2010. I know that at the end of Q2 when you guys had your conference call you said that you’re going in pretty tight, but given now that things have improved a little bit or maybe how the bleeding has stopped, are you bringing that up a little bit?

Spring for us is typically a net cancel season so we’ve never been a proponent of carrying speculative inventory in the spring so I would say we’re not going to take a speculative position in the spring. Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: I guess from the retailer standpoint, is it possible to increase their pre-book order given the lead times at this point?

We’ve had some increases in our spring book since we cut off the book for the purposes of backlog, but we typically get orders and frankly cancels after the backlog cutoff date, but in certain instances it would be possible for a retailer to buy some of our merchandise and have us deliver it. Yes, that’s possible, but it would have to happen quickly. Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: And then as far as input costs, what do you guys see for the forward winter?

For the forward winter? Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: I’m assuming that you guys have some prices starting to lock in for second half of 2010.

Yes, so maybe I’ll let Bryan speak to that specifically.

I think if we go to Spring ’10 we’ve had certainly with some of the capacity in Asia, we’ve been able to do a good job as it relates to our costing but I think it’s a bit premature as Tim mentioned, certainly we’re trying to build better products to elevate the brand, and so a piece of that would potentially give rise to some ASPs but also the standard cost of those goods. So maybe a bit premature to talk about the effects on margin for next year. Analyst for Mitch Kummetz - Robert W. Baird & Co.: Can you quantify the benefit for Spring ’10 line?

It’s exactly what I was referring to. Spring ’10, Fall ’10. I was talking more on the respective spring.

There are no further questions in the queue.

All right, thank you for listening in. We look forward to talking to you in January with our fourth quarter release.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your line.