Earnings Labs

Dauch Corporation (DCH)

Q2 2008 Earnings Call· Fri, Jul 25, 2008

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Rebecca and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the American Axle & Manufacturing second quarter 2008 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 turn the conference over to Mr. Jamie Little, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Jamie Little

Management

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and for your ongoing interest in American Axle & Manufacturing. This morning we released our Second quarter2008 earnings announcement. We’ve not had an opportunity to review this announcement you can access it on the aam.com Web site or through PR Newswire services. A replay of this call will be available beginning at 5 P.M. today through 5 P.M. Eastern Time, August 1st 008 by dialing 1-800-642-1687, reservation number 524-585-57. Before we begin I'd like to remind everyone that the matters discussed in this conference call may contain comments and forward-looking statements that are within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results or conditions, but rather subject to risks and uncertainties which cannot be predicted or quantified and which may cause future activities and results of operation to differ materially from those discussed. For additional information we ask that you refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This information is also available on aam.com Web site. During the call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding these non-GAAP measures as well as the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to GAAP financial information is available on the aam.com Web site. We are audio web casting this call through our website aam.com. This call will be archived in the investor section of the Web site and will be available there for one year to later listen. During the quarter, AAM will be presenting at the following conferences; the 2008 JP Morgan Harbour Automotive Conference in Dearborn, Michigan on August 13, the 2008 Credit Suisse Global Automotive Conference in New York City on September 4 and the Banc of America Annual Investment Conference in San Francisco on September 16. In addition, we're always happy to host investors at any of our global facilities. Feel free to contact me to schedule a visit. With that let me turn things over to AAM’s Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Dick Dauch.

Richard Dauch

Management

Thank you, Jamie and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss AAM's financial results for the Second quarter of 2008. Joining me on the call with you today are Yogen Rahangdale, our Vice Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, David Dauch, our President and Chief Operating Officer and Michael Simonte, our Group Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer. This morning’s call will detail the most challenging and difficult quarter in AAM's history. There was a quarter severely impacted by an 87-day strike called by the International UAW at AAM's original US locations. The toll of the strike was compounded by the brutal market reality of a weakening US economy and steep declines in the light truck and SUV production volume. This resulted from a deep US housing recession that started in 2005, rapidly escalating fuel prices from oil shop (inaudible), the credit crisis and consumer confidence that's as low as we've seen in this country since 1991. We're currently experiencing the lowest US automotive industry selling rate in more than a decade. The June 2008 US SAR of 13.6 million units was the lowest monthly selling rate since August of 1993. This trend will likely be extended when sales results for the month of July are reported next week. Today I will provide a brief update on AAM's Second quarter2008 financial results, then I will shift focus to detailing the positive actions that we are taking to accelerate the impact of AAM's comprehensive restructuring, resizing, and recovery plan. After that, I will turn things over to Mike to discuss the details of our financial performance. Following Mike's comments, we will open the call up for questions that you men and women may have. Today, AAM has reported a net loss in the second quarter of 2008…

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Dick, and good morning, everybody. My job today is to review AAM's financial results for the second quarter of 2008. There's a lot to cover here so I want to get right to it. Sales in the quarter were $490 million, that's down from $917 million in the second quarter of 2007. The single largest driver of this reduction in our sales was the 87-day strike called by the International UAW at AAM's original U.S. locations. We estimate that the strike reduced sales by $275 million in the second quarter of 2008, reduced operating income by approximately $87 million, and resulted in approximately $1.73 per share of lost earnings. In total, customer production volumes for our major light truck product programs were down approximately 51% in the quarter versus the prior year. For the first six months of the year, production volumes in these same programs were down approximately 43%. As Dick mentioned, the rapid shift in consumer preferences away from light truck as well as the impact of the strike, high fuel prices, tight credit, the housing recession, rising unemployment, and low consumer confidence is having a major sudden impact on our top line this year. Virtually, every economic factor needed to support strong light truck sales is a (inaudible) force headwind at this time. Much of this change is structural. A good amount of it appears to be permanent and I'm not complaining about this, just explaining that for these reasons, we need to resize the company and our cost structure and that's exactly what we're going to do, with due care, with great urgency. One bright spot is that the product mix continues to be relatively strong. AAM's content per vehicle in the second quarter of 2008 was $1,312. That's approximately the same as the…

Jamie Little

Management

Thank you, Mike and thank you, Dick. We have reserved some time to take questions. I'd ask that you please limit your questions to no more than two. At this time please feel free to proceed with any questions you may have.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) Your first question comes from Himanshu from JP Morgan. Himanshu Patel – JP Morgan: First, Mike, the contribution margin on the loss strike related revenues, looks like that was about 30%, and it looks like the contribution margin on the non-strike related revenue decline was about 20%. Are those normal number we should use going forward?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Himanshu, this was anything but a normal quarter. I think that the contribution margins or the strike business which is of course centered in our US business in line generally with our expectations around 30%. Recall that we were ramping up our production in our Mexican operation so what you have there is a combination of a reduction in the U.S. business and an increase in the Mexican business. In the volumes that we ran and the overall decline in our non-strike related business you do see the benefit of the lower fixed cost structure and lower operating cost structure that we have in Mexico. So as we told you before, our attention is to reduce this variable contribution margin on the downside, back down to about 25% and I think what you're seeing there is a little bit of a glimpse into the future at a company that's a little bit more weighted towards cost competitive locations such as our Mexican operation. Himanshu Patel – JP Morgan: Okay. And then do you have a sense of what sort of ballpark proceeds you could generate from asset sales?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Himanshu, we're not talking about businesses that are very significant portion of our business. Maybe aggregate sales somewhere in the 5% of total top line, and it's a little bit too early to speculate, but we do think that with all these asset sales be the book of business and the stabilizer bar, linkage area, for example, (inaudible) land and facilities that we have, and some other situations we're looking at, we probably had the opportunity to raise between $25 and $50 million over the next year. We may be able to exceed that, but to be realistic, that's what we think. Himanshu Patel – JP Morgan: Okay. And then my last question on the liquidity. By year-end, how much of your revolver do you think you will have drawn down?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Himanshu, we have the cash resources on the balance sheet that we talked about certainly at the end of the first quarter we had this discussion, just on most of the cash outflows that we anticipate in the calendar year 2008, and of course, this is in mind with the financial assistance we expect to receive from GM. So the amount of revolver products that we're going to have is going to be dependent on a number of factors including working capital movements and what we're doing with our overseas activities. You know, I'm not going to make any significant comments relative to how much revolver products we're going to have today, but what I will tell you is that we would expect our total borrowings under the long-term fixed structure to fund most of our requirements in this calendar year. Himanshu Patel – JP Morgan: Okay. Great. Thank you.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Himanshu

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Murphy with Merrill Lynch. John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: Mike, I was just wondering if you could run through the big potential – I mean you know the big cash calls that you see in the restructuring (inaudible) indicating to them over the next few quarters. Just so we can understand along with your operating cash flow what the cadence of the restructuring cash calls are going to be?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Okay, John. It's a good question. The significant element of the cash to fund this transition on the labor side, of course, is the SSP and the BVP. On the BVP, let's handle that first a little bit easier to think about, after we settle on how many associates are elected to participate in the SSP, and as we told you today looks like it's going to be more than 2,000, the remaining associates will have their (inaudible) effective on Monday and within approximately two weeks we'll make our first buy down payment and we'll make succeeding annual buy down payments in August of 2009 and August of 2010. So once we know the exact numbers we can shake that free, but it looks like somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million or so, maybe a little bit more in calendar year 2008, a little bit less in calendar year 2009 and '10, split among those (inaudible). John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: Okay.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

On the special separation program, we, of course, already during the month of July had some associates leave the business or elected early participation. That lines up with the associates that we accrued for in terms of expense in the second quarter and what we need to do now in the third and fourth quarters is really identify a detailed level of the operating plans that we're going to have to run our business, meet our customer schedule requirements and in effect is very significant, really massive change in turnover in our workforce. In 2006, it was a little bit easier for us to (inaudible) the associates who elected to participate in the program – through the program because we had so many people on lay off. Much different situation this time, so we would expect, John, over the next three quarters to see the total impact of those SSP payments to be made and I would say that's probably going to be centered around the fourth quarter and first quarter just from a practical standpoint because it's going to take some time for us to work through this on an operating basis. John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: And the aggregate payment of those?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Well the aggregate cost of the SSP is estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 to $275 million. But that includes a couple elements that are pension related, roughly 10% or so of the total program expense and this is still subject to some actual valuations that roughly 10% of the 400 to 450 I'm saying, so $45 million relates to pension adjustments that are not going to be funded in the near-term. So backing down off that, then we will be funding a portion of this from our pension trust and a portion from operating cash flow. Some of the buy-out incentives and retirement incentives were offered as part of our pension trust, that's the structure of the program. John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: Got it.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

So as we work through this, John, you know, we're probably talking somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 to $225 million of cash for this special separation program. We have an obligation to pay it by the first quarter of 2008 because all of our associates that are participating in this program will (inaudible) of the business by February 1, 2009. John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: And then the timing of the GM payments that are coming in, cash payments or their subsidy?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, the GM payments will be received by our company on or before August 1st in the amount of $15 million, on or before October 1st in the amount of $100 million, and on or before April 1st of $60 million for a total of $175 million. John Murphy – Merrill Lynch: Great. Thank you very much.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

You got it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rod Lache with Deutsche Bank. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Good morning.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Rod. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Can you just repeat please the cash debt and securitizations at the end of the quarter?

Mike Simonte

Analyst · Rod Lache with Deutsche Bank

Cash debt and securitizations. Okay. On the balance sheet, Rod, we have cash of $196 million. Let me get the specific number on debt. The long-term debt balance was $869.2 million and I'm not sure what you meant by securitization. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Do you have any securitized receivables at the end of this period?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

(inaudible) Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Okay. And can you just talk about the leverage covenants and compliance with those covenants through the production schedules that you're looking at in the back half of this year?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Rod, listen, we are in compliance with our debt covenants today and – I'm not in a position to speculate about all the different contentions that (inaudible) developed, but what I can say is that we intend to operate as we do in all of our agreements in compliance with those agreements including our bank covenants. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: On the cost savings of $350 million that you're referring to, does that include the lower depreciation that you would experience from these asset impairments?

Mike Simonte

Analyst · Rod Lache with Deutsche Bank

No, it does not, Rod. The $350 million relates specifically and exclusively to the structural cost reductions we see on the labor side. That includes the $300 million that we previously announced relating to the UAW representative associates at the original U.S. locations and now at 350 that contemplates the salary cost reductions here in the U.S. as well as the reductions associated with our IAM representative associates at the locations that we're closing. I'm speaking of the Tonawanda and Detroit forging facility. In addition to that, Rod, we will have other fixed cost reductions. You're right to point out the fact that there would be depreciation reduction associated with the asset impairments and we would see those in a range of $30 to $40 million annually. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Okay. And lastly, could you just talk a little bit about how you anticipate the timing of these hourly and salaried cost savings to kind of work out and you said you're resizing to be profitable in 2009. Can you just give us a sense of the level of production that the sort of underlying those assumptions?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Okay. First of all, in terms of these cost structure savings, they're dominated of course by the UAW labor agreements, and as we said, those agreements begin to take effect in terms of cost reductions on Monday, this coming Monday, July 28, and at that point in time, the hourly wage rate reductions that were a key part of these overall cost savings take effect of the associates who are going to continue working for our company. So that's the first element of these savings. Beginning on January 1st 2009, all of the benefit related adjustments in this contract relating to, for example, cost sharing on the active healthcare program, the freezing of our defined benefit pension associated with these associates as well as the elimination of OPEB at our Three Rivers facility and other related OPEB adjustments, these take effect on the first of next year. So, by the first quarter next year – particularly in the second quarter we should have a full run rate of the savings from the UAW representative associates. Remember that $300 million is a combination of bottom line savings we'll see on the associates that continue working for our company as well as the structural cost reductions necessary to adapt to a lower volume assumption. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Is the 2,000 people that took the attrition program, does that happen all at once or does that kind of trickle out over the course of the next three quarters?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Rod that's a great point. No, that does happen over time. The associates will be leaving our company over time. As I mention some folks have left the company in July, others will be leaving throughout the third quarter and fourth quarter and into the first quarter of next year. We will control the timing of those departures with respect to making sure that we are able to run our operation. And again, this is a pretty massive transition so really can't happen all (inaudible). So the savings associated with those associates are the third element, Rod, of achieving that total $300 million reduction and as I said that will be accomplished by the first quarter of 2009. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: And the production level that you're sizing towards?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

The production level that we're sizing to, the primary assumption is a US SAR environment of between 13 and 14 million units. We are taking counsel from our customer and their plans and their scheduled production volumes and maybe the higher end of that range is where our customer is right now, but we need to take a more broad view of what could happen here, and so we are making our plans and our restructuring around 13 to 14 million unit potential. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Okay. But would you comment on the specific production of your, I mean 13 to 14 million is one thing, but obviously it's dependent on what percentage of the market is pick ups and SUVs of course, so any color on the level of actual production or the level of demand that you're anticipating for like GMT 900?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

I'll make two quick comments. One is I'm not providing guidance today on 2009 so I'm not trying to be so specific about detail assumptions. We're in the process of building our budgets and we'll give you more color on that as we get closer to 2009, but our planning objective is around 13 to 14 million units in total. We are in line and consistent with General Motors expectations with a total size of the U.S. pick up market and the total size of the – full size SUV market and that of course is the primary and most foundational element of our planning. Rod Lache – Deutsche Bank: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rich Kwas with Wachovia. Rich Kwas – Wachovia: Hi. Just had a question, Mike, on overseas profitability. Seems like given the taxes you recorded this quarter that the overseas business was pretty strong. Is that a fair assumption and fair conclusion to come to?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Rich, good morning, and yes, it is. As we've said many times here in recent months, we have already transitioned to a fully market competitive cost structure at our (inaudible) operations. We set them up right to begin with. We locate it in the right locations to be competitive close to our customers and our supply base, and this is a very solid and important part of our financial profile. So, this activity currently is dominated by our operations in Mexico, and that is a very positive force as I mentioned earlier today and our financial performance has been and will continue to be and now that we're making transitions in the U.S. and as we take additional actions to support the growth of our business in places like India, China, Brazil by locating right from the start of the right market cost competitive locations, these are all reasons why we feel very good about our future, Rich. Rich Kwas – Wachovia: And when you – just as a follow-up to that, I think that you had provided slides where you talked about the pro forma changes reducing your U.S. sales to below 40% everything that's going on, I think the exact number was 37.7. Based on what's happened here over the last month or so, does that U.S. sales percentage decline even further?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Rich, it certainly could. I mean, some of that is speculative in terms of where we'll be in the future, but yes, just cranking down the numbers here today, that same slide based on our new lower expectations, and of course, this is in the aftermath of the announcements GM just made here in the last couple weeks. We probably would see that a little bit lower, probably somewhere 35% or maybe just a (inaudible) lower. Rich Kwas – Wachovia: And then finally on the turnover that's expected over the next several months, how do you feel about backfilling with new employees I assume most of that is going to occur outside of the U.S. What's your situation down South to be able to back?

Richard Dauch

Management

Rich, good morning, this is Dich Dauch. We're in excellent shape as to how to transition our folks out as was indicated earlier. Management will control that process. Secondly, we have built the reservoir of qualified talent as need be to replenish in the appropriate spots, and that's all suffice to other country locations for our company. Rich Kwas – Wachovia: Okay. Thank you.

Richard Dauch

Management

You're welcome. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Ceraso with Credit Suisse. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: Thanks, good morning.

Richard Dauch

Management

Good morning.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Chris. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: A couple items. First, Mike, on the evaluation allowance, just a housekeeping question, that goes on the tax line in terms of sort of a pro forma P&L, correct?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

I'm not certain exactly what you mean, but let me say this. The $54 million charge ran through tax expense and any adjustments that we make up or down through the evaluation allowance in the future will also run through tax expense. That's a key factor. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: And you went through this a little bit but just to reconfirm here, so, clearly there's some look back here, but the expectation is that profitability in the U.S. is expected to remain challenged in the near-term, right? That's part of what goes into the assumption when you make this kind of adjustment?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Chris, that's right, you need to look forward, but the most important of an instrument accounting perspective really is the look back to the most recent three years as evidence of whether or not the business can support those tax assets. So we do need to look forward. And clearly, our U.S. profitability as the business is currently constituted will be challenging. There's no question about that in terms of being able to make up for what has now been literally hundreds of millions of dollars of operating losses in the U.S. with these special charges. But, I want to say this. We have many different plans and potential plans in place to grow and improve our business in the US and these tax assets are not affected by that. They're going to be available to us and they really will not be expiring in any time frame that should give us cause that we won't be able to realize it and if we can follow through on these plans. So, we see these as a very important asset for the company still, but to follow all of the appropriate GAAP literature and based on the status of current plans, I'm not trying to be speculative about things that we want to do and feel that we need to do before we actually pull them off, it's appropriate for us to write those tax assets down. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: Understood. I know once you've taken an allowance like this it becomes very difficult to forecast your tax rate. Do you have any kind of guidance for us on how to think about taxes for the company for the rest of for the rest of this year and next year?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yes, I do. Our company’s revenue and income profile still very much dominated by our operations in the U.S. and our Operations in Mexico. And as we've had talked in the past, our Mexico earnings are taxed at lower rates than the statutory rate of 35%, substantially lower due to the manner in which those assets are owned and operated by our company. So, I would see – effectively in the U.S. now, our tax provision will be 0% on an ongoing basis. There could be some adjustments to evaluation allowances for judgments in other cumulative other comprehensive income to make this a little bit messy so we may have some items there particularly as we revalue pension and OPEB benefits for curtailments as our associates leave on the SSP, but if you too aside those one-time items and focus on a run rate, (inaudible) just the purposes, the tax rates around zero in the U.S. right now and in Mexico, it's probably 10% to 15% or lower, and on the rest of our business around the world, it is such a size of magnitude in the next few quarters to affect this very much so it should be a relatively low effective tax rate. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: Last question, Mike. In your prepared comments you mentioned a target of 12% EBITDA margin. What's the timing on that and if I'm doing the math right it looks like that implies something that's pretty well below the current '09 consensus expectation?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

I'm not (inaudible) sure what's all the consensus expectation, but what I'll tell you is that we see that transition occurring very quickly in 2009, the labor cost savings that we incurred here in the U.S. are a critical part of achieving that objective, and I would say that 12% – we mentioned 12% because that is our target and objective but we are striving for significantly higher EBITDA margins and feel that those are obtainable as we work through the next several years. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: Okay, so that’s more of a near-term hurdle than a long-term target?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, I mean, again, the magnitude of these structural labor cost reductions are very significant and I know by the question you're asking, you've looked at that and you understand that, so we're not trying to say we see it limited at 12%, we're simply saying that that's our near-term objective, that's where we're heading, and as soon as we can build a base around that, we're going to be (inaudible) forward towards higher level. Chris Ceraso – Credit Suisse: Okay. Appreciate it, Mike.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Leiker with Baird. David Leiker – Baird: Can you hear me? All right.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, David.

Richard Dauch

Management

Good morning, David. David Leiker – Baird: With where volumes are running, at your customer today, what's your current estimate of when you're going to hit that limit on the SUB payments?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

David, that is going to be dependent on two or three different factors. One of course is the volume requirements. Second is the timing and pace of how we can make this transition in our facilities to hiring and transitioning literally thousands of associates. I think at this point, David, we see that expiring or meeting the cap in 2009. David Leiker – Baird: So the weak volumes, that doesn't get pull forward at all there?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Well, it will be pulled forward certainly as compared to an environment where the volumes were higher. There's no question about that. David Leiker – Baird: Okay. On the working capital numbers, can you walk me through a little bit, just receivable inventory and payable numbers? You've got a lot of distortions there without having generated revenue in a large part of your plant where the receivable number obviously came down meaningfully, but there wasn't a big opportunity to move inventory. It looks to me across those three items just on a net basis there's about $60 million of cash that's in there. Is that a fair number?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I mentioned in fact a higher number relative to inventory which is the really key element of $75 million, but you're exactly right. The working capital (inaudible) a little bit of screw this quarter, our receivables for example, in terms of cash flow are effected by the issue that our U.S. plants had sales really only in the month of June and we don't collect that until July. David Leiker – Baird: I guess I'm thinking is that the offset of that inventory receivable number about that 60 million number?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

You know, we're going to see over the next couple of quarters the $75 million of the inventory, I wouldn't see any material issues on payables outside of normal trending. And on the receivable side, yeah, we're going to see some additional cash come into the – we're going to see some cash flow there on a relative basis because the month of December and the seasonal activity at the end of the year is still less than what it is during the month of June. David Leiker – Baird: Okay. And then if we – I don't know if there's a fair assumption or not, but if we use the assumption that the volumes you saw because of the strike of the volumes that would have been normal anyway because of end demand, that we don't add that back in, do you end up really what's like something around a $50 million loss at the operating line? And the process to walk through that would be to add a lock in your labor savings, add in your labor savings, add in your white collar labor savings from what you're going through to get to a pro forma number. Are there any adjustments you'd make to that exercise?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

You know, David, this is an interesting question, but I got enough trouble trying to figure out what the actual numbers are in explaining those, then making up a bunch of different pro forma situations so if you want to talk about that more in detail we can take that offline, I'd be happy to chit chat with you about it. David Leiker – Baird: . :

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, David.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Etah McCauley [ph] with Citi. Etah McCauley – Citi: Most of my questions have been asked, but just quickly back to cash flow, Mike. So, is it fair to assume that in the second half of the year working capital should be all in a source of cash?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Etah, yeah, we see the inventory reductions being an important source of cash for us in the second half of the year. Etah McCauley – Citi: Okay, great. And just on the CapEx, the 4% to 6% target, just how quickly do you think you can get there and where do you think you may end up roughly around in 2009?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

You know, the 4% to 6% target range is a plan, a commitment really from our perspective over time. We already had some commitments outstanding and because this ratio is based not just on our spending, but also the impact on sales, with the volatility in the demand environment we can't say for sure whether we're going to achieve that here in 2009. We did operate here down level in the first half of 2008 and that wasn't by accident, we took very significant action to manage our spending. We got some significant product launches coming in the second half of 2009 as you know, so we're going to need to spend some money. We may be a little bit higher than that range in 2009, but we're going to be trending there as quickly as we can and I think by the time we get out to 2010 and '11, we feel that it's doable, achievable and necessary for us to get there. Etah McCauley – Citi: Great. Thank you.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Thanks. We have time for one last question.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Brian Johnson of Lehman Brothers. Brian Johnson – Lehman Brothers: Good morning.

Richard Dauch

Management

Good morning, Brian.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Brian. Brian Johnson – Lehman Brothers: Can you give us a sense of just big chunks of revenue, if we think about your $4 billion target for 2013, we think about the 2 billion run rate with depressed levels we're seeing now and the 1.4 billion backlog, how we get from 2 to 4?

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Okay. First of all I think you know, Brian, in our new business backlog, we have approximately half of that or $700 million lined up for 12 different passenger car crossover vehicle product programs. These are all wheel drive systems. These are products that include rear drive modules, power transfer units, multi-piece drive shafts, a very nice expansion of our product portfolio (inaudible) adding a lot of diversity and balance to our revenue stream so a good chunk of that is the 700 million. We also have some on the light truck side we have a significant concentration of global, not U.S. but global light truck program, these are end-user market outside North America, approximately half of that backlog of $700 million will launch outside the US. That number is not mutually exclusive with the first one, but again about half of that backlog is going to be launched outside the U.S. In that light truck area we got not just rear axle and front axle, but also transfer cases that we see as a very important part of our future, as we deliver complete drive line systems to our customers. We also have some orders on the light commercial vehicle side and maybe moving up the food chain a little bit, one of our core competencies of course, rear beam axles, we see that rear beam axle demand requirement moving up the food chain a little bit in terms of commercial vehicle and so we'll be participating in that, the order with Mahindra (inaudible) joint venture in India, very important part of that and some other things that we see developing, including SUBs in our backlog. Those are very significant elements of it. Brian, we do see some improvement in operating conditions as we get up to 2011, 12…

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Two things, very important to say there. First of all, the current product programs that we run today we would anticipate to run through all most of that time period, and of course that's body on frame. Secondly, as we said very recently, and you know, Brian, that we will be participating in these programs whether they're body on frame or move to a different type of architecture and we're in the early stages of engineering all the design requirements. Some of this, the answer the – ultimate answer to your question a little bit speculative, but as we look at the requirements – product requirements necessary to deliver the appropriate drive line performance for that type of vehicle we do not see a significant fall out in the amount of content that will be necessary to achieve that.

Yogen Rahangdale

Analyst · Lehman Brothers

This is Yogen. Couple things. The products required even body on frame on unit body we are ready for both of them and prepared totally, so we don't see any impact on us which way it goes.

Richard Dauch

Management

And the other thing Brian is that first of all how are you today? Brian Johnson – Lehman Brothers: Good morning, Dick. I'm fine.

Richard Dauch

Management

We're not authorized to discuss if and when the design is going to change. As you've already heard from our customer GM, they have extended the life of the present GM 900 and delayed the next generation, so that is point one. Point two, we, AAM will continue playing a major role on that GM full size light truck program for many, many years to come as Yogen said, point three, whether it goes a design A or design B, we're going to be there. And finally, we just enjoy being the drive line supplier with exclusivity with General Motors on these full size trucks. They're still an extraordinary product. And if you look at that as it relates to full size pickup or SUV, and let's say you took the 14 million SAR, it's going to be a minimum of 10% still in the full size pick up. I'm talking a million 400,000 wherever and GM gets their 40 plus percent and the SUV piece which has gone more from let's say a 4% in the historic previous two, three years, that drops to 2.2% or 2.3% of the SAR, so you could put those two together and that's the way we're expecting it, whether it's design body on frame or whether it's unit body, we're ready either way as Yogen has indicated, and we have an extreme confidence that GM will do well and we have a total knowledge that we'll fully support them, or other customers, be it Chrysler with the Dodge division, et cetera. Brian Johnson – Lehman Brothers: Okay. Thank you.

Richard Dauch

Management

You're welcome.

Michael Simonte

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Brian and we thank all of you who have participated on this call and appreciate your interest in American Axle & Manufacturing. We certainly look forward to talking with you in the future.

Operator

Operator

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