Earnings Labs

DuPont de Nemours, Inc. (DD)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call· Thu, May 1, 2008

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Melissa and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DuPont First 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 period. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Carl Lukach, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin your conference.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Thank you Melissa and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining today's webcast covering DuPont's first quarter 2008 financial results and outlook. With me today are Chad Holliday, Chairman and CEO; Jeff Keefer, Chief Financial Officer; Ellen Kullman, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales and Marketing; and Robert Fry from our Economist's Office. In addition to our normal report on the quarter, we've asked Ellen to cover what we are hearing in key end use market and Robert to share with you his key economic forecasts that we are using as a factor in our outlooks. But first, the administrative items for those of you accessing this call through our website dupont.com, we will be using slides today; please turn to slide 2. During the course of this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements. All statements that are just expectations or projections about the future are forward-looking statements. Although they reflect our current expectations, these statements are not guarantees of future performance, but involve a number of risks and uncertainties. We urge you to review DuPont's SEC filings for a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. We also will refer to non-GAAP measures and request that you please refer to the reconciliations to GAAP statement provided with our earnings news release and on our website. We have also posted to our website supplemental information that we hope is helpful to your understanding of our company's performance. With that, I will turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Keefer.

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

Thanks, Carl, and good morning everyone. Our first quarter results highlight the diversity of our products, end-use markets, and global presence. The combination of these factors produced very strong results for the quarter. Specifically, strong Ag performance, growth in emerging markets, pricing actions, favorable currency and productivity more than offset the increase in raw materials and energy, reinvestments in our businesses, and continued weakness in certain U.S. markets. With the combination of these factors, the company highlights were: global sales were up 9%; sales outside the U.S. increased 16%, and emerging markets increased 25%. Pricing gains in each platform equaled or outpaced raw material and energy increases. Fixed cost as a percent of sales improved 180 basis points as our productivity and reinvestment efforts continued. Excluding significant items, segment pretax operating income grew 13%; and further excluding pharmaceuticals, the five growth platforms' pretax operating income grew 12%. Turning to slide 3; first quarter reported earnings per share was $1.31 versus $1.01 reported in 2007. Excluding a $0.06 charge from 2007 results, earnings per share increased $0.24 or 22%. The earnings were slightly higher than the April 10th preannouncement due to finalization of our first quarter closing process. First quarter consolidated net sales increased 9%. Turning to slide 4; all segments increased sales excluding the impact of divested businesses. Agriculture & Nutrition was a standout with 18% growth. Strong global agriculture markets combined with our Crop Chemicals and Pioneer seed team's ability to deliver yield enhancing products and services produced a strong first quarter result. Electronic & Communication Technologies also had a strong quarter posting 12% sales growth, reflecting strong demand for refrigerants and photovoltaic products. Each platform will be reviewed in detail, but all segments benefited from local currency, pricing actions, as well as favorable currency. Volume declines in Coating…

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning. Before Carl review the segment results, I would like to provide some market commentary. First, I'll update our view on the impact of lower demand from the U.S. construction and motor vehicle markets, then I'll share perspectives on emerging markets. Let's start with U.S. construction and North American automotive OEM on slide 8. Last year we said our sales into these two markets were about 13% of total company sales based on 2006 sales data. That dropped a bit in 2007 to 12%, comprised of 7% in North American auto OEM and 5% in U.S. construction. Let me address the dynamics of these two markets and then discuss the overall impact to DuPont earnings. As for U.S. construction, Robert will share his outlook for the U.S. housing market. What I am hearing from our customers is that they need to differentiate themselves in this market and this has resulted in the emergence of two trends: first, rising interest in green products, both energy efficiency and reduced environmental footprint; and second, the need for builders and designers to differentiate their products at all price points in this down market. So what are we doing? Please turn to slide 9. We've introduced new products such as Tyvek, ThermaWrap, and new drainage products for commercial construction to manage both energy, efficiency, and moisture; and we have repositioned our Tyvek specialist to focus on downstream design and modeling support, so our new products are easy to use. We've introduced new products with recycle content. We have launched the Zodiaq Terra collection with greater than 50% recycled glass, and we launched 25 Corian Terra colors with up to 13% recycled content. These are beautiful colors that meet designers' needs and have a broad enough range to meet any budget. On…

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Okay; thank you, Ellen. A short word of introduction; we have asked Robert Fry of the DuPont Economists' Office to join us today. As I think you all know, the DuPont Economists' Office is the only three-time award winner of the Lawrence R. Klein Award for Blue Chip Forecast Accuracy. One of the contributing factors to their success is their knowledge of DuPont's businesses and global markets and their interactions with our business leaders and our customers. We use Robert's insights and predictions in our business planning; so if you would please turn to slide 10, Robert will provide a summary of the key macro economic forecast that he... that we have incorporated as a factor in our 2008 outlook. Robert?

Robert Fry

Analyst

Thanks, Carl. Until the fourth quarter of 2007, the slowdown in the U.S. economy was almost entirely concentrated in housing and the Detroit based half of the auto industry. Real GDP growth, excluding residential construction actually accelerated and grew at an above trend rate during the first six quarters of the housing downturn. In the fourth quarter, however, the slowdown spread to the rest of economy and to consumer spending in particular. This was the result of record high oil prices, accelerating declines of home prices, and the largely physiological impact of the subprime-related credit crunch. In terms of quarterly GDP growth, we are essentially at zero. If you look at the monthly data the National Bureau of Economic Research uses to determine when recession start and end, that's employment, income, production, and sales, you will see some small declines in recent months. If the fiscal stimulus plan fails to help these declines relatively quickly, I think the NBER will eventually designate the current period of rescissions even if GDP growth doesn't go negative. But even though the slowdown slash downturn has spread beyond housing and Detroit 3 autos, make no mistake, the weakness is still concentrated there. In terms of year-over-year growth rate, the headwinds from declining housing starts and motor vehicle production will be at their worst in the second quarter. But we think starts will hit bottom this quarter and spending on residential construction will hit bottom in the second half. Home prices, however, are not likely to hit bottom until late 2009. Despite big declines in motor vehicle production, industrial production in U.S. manufacturing has been just slightly worse than flat since the peak last July. This is really more consistent with a mid-cycle slowdown than with big declines in production that you normally see in…

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Thank you, Robert. Now we go to the traditional walk through the segments sharing key highlights that explain first quarter results and outlooks for each. Just to remind that all references to individual platform earnings are excluding significant items. First up, our Ag & Nutrition platform on slide 11. Sales grew 18% to $2.9 billion, earnings grew 21%. This strong performance reflects, as you are well aware of, robust Ag environment with growers investing in more technology to protect crops and maximize yield. These favorable market conditions created operating margin opportunities across our portfolio. The positives included, global pricing strength, richer product mix, international volume growth, positive currency impact in Europe, and targeted productivity savings. Earnings growth in the quarter was tempered, however, by much higher ingredient costs in our Nutrition and Health business and our planned increased spending in R&D. Crop protection products delivered impressive first quarter results and record sales. Earnings were up substantially, driven by market demand for fungicides, insecticides and herbicide products. Emerging market growth in Central and Eastern Europe was especially strong. In Latin America, increased sugarcane and definitive corn acreage drove increased insecticide volume and pricing opportunities for key Argentina and Brazil markets. Variable margin improved from richer mix of sulfonylurea products sales, pricing strength, currency and productivity savings. Rynaxypyr sales, our newest insecticide, is off to a strong start in 2008, the first full year of commercial launch. We received registration approval on Canada just a few days ago and expect to receive U.S. Federal and State Regulation soon, well within our timelines for product sales this season. We will continue to build momentum through 2008 with the renewed sulfonylurea portfolio that introduces six differentiated herbicide blends to meet challenge... changing control needs in corn, soybean and cereals. We are confident in our…

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Thank you, Carl. Now turning to slide 16, our customers depend on DuPont to provide products and knowledge to meet their needs. This alignment with customers supported our 22% first quarter earnings increase. Over the past five weeks since our meeting in New York, we view our equity customers, we've listened extensively to your needs. The design of today's call was in direct response to your comments. For example, Ellen addressed key market factors for developed and developing or emerging markets, which you wanted to know about. Robert has put the worldwide economy in perspective that only he can because of his knowledge of our company from the inside. Carl, Jeff, Ellen and Robert shared with you our best view of 2008. Even with all these perspectives, there is a high level of uncertainty in the world today. A company can be tempted at a time of uncertainly to wait and see before acting. Our experience is that this is a time to act and act decisively to seize the opportunities. However, we must act in full alignment with a clear corporate direction. We are focused on the next phase of our acceleration that we described for you in March and we are determined to deliver a higher level of earnings growth and significantly increase the value of our company. We want to prove not to be just in our results but also our stock price. We must keep posting the kind of performance that's impossible to discount. Our goal continues to be delivering results you simply cannot ignore. Using 2008 as a base and focused over the near-term goal of 2010, we will accelerate revenue growth from 5% to the 7% to 9% per year area. And excluding our pharmaceutical income, we'll advance earnings growth to about 13% per…

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Okay, thanks Chad. Melissa, we are now ready to go to questions from the phone lines. Question And Answer

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question is coming from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

David Begleiter

Analyst

Thank you, good morning.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Good morning.

David Begleiter

Analyst

Chad, could you detail the impact from Solae in the quarter, how much it hurt Ag & Nutrition profitability?

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Carl, he has the details on that.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Well, Dave, it's... the higher ingredient costs, certainly are a factor. It tempered our growth for the platform as well as the plant and additional R&D spendings that we made on the platform of biotechnology. Sales for that business were up substantially. Unfortunately, we didn't get the pull through to the bottom line. If you took those two factors into account, the higher Solae raw material and our spending in R&D, earnings growth for the platform would have been about 30% or more than 30%.

David Begleiter

Analyst

Very helpful. And just lastly on raws in Q2, will they exceed pricing?

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

David, it's hard to predict exactly what that's going to be quarter-by-quarter. Our goal as always is to exceed raw material cost increases with pricing. We are off to a good start this year with an 8% net benefit. And we are going to continue to drive there. However, as I covered with you, our raw materials are going up significantly this year, almost double what we experienced last year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Mark Connelly with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Mark Connelly

Analyst

Thanks, and thank you for all the detail on the hedging. I still got it wrong, but it wasn't for lack of details from you guys; so, thank you.

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

Thanks for that.

Mark Connelly

Analyst

Question for Ellen, talked a lot about what's happening in the market, but I'm curious what Western European customers are saying, particularly in coatings and materials. When we listened to Robert's comments about Europe returning to trend, that's not all that dissimilar to what happened between '06 and '07 in the U.S. So, we have seen some major impact. So I am just trying to get a sense of what customers are saying, are they cautious or are they optimistic?

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

Well, Europe is kind of tale of two cities. In Western Europe, there is a lot of caution, but the markets still looks pretty good. People are being very deliberate in the actions they are taking in terms of what they are talking to us about the growth, very high interesting new products and innovation to differentiate themselves, both in the coatings market and in the housing market quite substantially. And then in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, I tell you it's great growth. In the marketplace, we are seeing a tremendous infrastructure development and whether it's our products to go into roads or construction, or the automotive industry over there. We are putting a lot of people, a lot of products into those areas right now, and they are very optimistic about the year, so really it's a tale of two cities.

Mark Connelly

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Peter Butler of Glen Hill Investment. Please go ahead.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Yes, good morning. The essential question, the key question is not what you earned in the first quarter, but what does... what do you think DuPont's environment will look like a year from now in the first half of 2009. For instance, are the Ag results sustainable next year, will you start losing pharma income? Did you project out and Gary Pfeiffer used to give us the pluses and minuses, and maybe you could give us the pluses and minuses of next year's first half versus this year's.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Yes, Peter, this is Chad. Thanks for the question. As Robert pointed out, we don't see a significant increase in overall economic activity globally. In 2009, we might be surprised on the upside, but we think it's premature to do that. We do see our agricultural business continue to improve as our new products roll out, both crop production chemicals and our seed business and we will see more traction from them in 2009. We are very encouraged about the prospects there. And in general, our productivity work continues to gain traction. So, you put all these things together, no matter what the economic environment is, we all see some important in 2009.

Peter Butler

Analyst

Chad, on the productivity question, the way you are looking at is deceptive in the sense that your sales line is inflated with the tremendous cost pressures and so that looking at fixed cost as a percentage of sales, may be that doesn't give you the right answer. And the bottom line looks like in fact your fixed cost cost you on the earnings per share line $0.03 I think. So, are you really making any progress on fixed cost if they go up?

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Yes, absolutely, Peter. We... of course our cost if it's in euros in Europe, it's inflating too just like the revenue line is with these pressures. But what we track internally is program-by-program, project-by-project. Richard has detailed seeds, we're focused on everything because we want to know exactly where the fixed cost is coming from because we are consciously increasing, as I said in my talk, in marketing sales and R&D because we've got playing offer a well. We've got to know where it's being spent. So, I've never been more confident that we've got the right programs and right tools to control that. Thanks for the question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Zekauskas

Analyst

Hi, good morning. In Ellen's commentary this morning, did she say that she expected Auto & Construction to be a $0.20 hit for 2008, but for purposes of your guidance you are budgeting $0.40 or did I misunderstand that?

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

No, no, it was $0.20 for 2008 versus 2007.

Jeffrey Zekauskas

Analyst

Okay, and that's what budgeted into your guidance.

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

Yes.

Jeffrey Zekauskas

Analyst

Okay, follow up question is in the Ag area, Optimum GAT in corn is such an important product for you. And for the first time you will have a trade that protects us against ALS family herbicides. How much... how many acres of corn in the United States use ALS herbicides or could you talk about the prevalence of the use of ALS?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Jeff, I don't have the data on ALS; I know it's not insignificant. And you know our value proposition there with... you hit the value proposition right on the head, the expansion of tolerance to not just clidosate [ph], but also the ALS family. And just I'd add on to the sulfonylurea families included that, our flagship herbicide at DuPont. And additionally, more importantly the blends that we are bring into market that are tailored to meet specific farmer weed control problems. So, you are right; we are very excited. That enthusiasm hasn't dimmed whatsoever, and it's high priority for us to bring it to market.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from P.J. Juvekar with Citi. Please go ahead.

Prashant Juvekar

Analyst

Yes, hi, good morning. A quick question on photovoltaic business; how big is this business and what are the margins here?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

P.J., the business, I think when we first started to talking to you, the number of DuPont businesses selling to that market space. And when we first started talking to you, I think it was two years ago, it was about $100 million. This year, we should break over $300 million pretty comfortably, and margins are very attractive. Demand is strong.

Prashant Juvekar

Analyst

Okay, and second question for Jeff. Your effective tax rate was 18.6% and that was driven down by the tax impact of the exchange losses, and I understand that. My question is when you put the hedges on, do you take into account the tax impact of those hedges?

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

Yes, we do. The goal of the program is for our monetary assets on an after tax basis to be neutral. So, I think you will see that we basically have achieved that a year-over-year and no impact on our earning per share variance analysis from that program.

Prashant Juvekar

Analyst

So, in your guidance on tax rate, do you take into account the impact of that?

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

No, that's why I give you a base tax rate, which is about 26% for this year because again the goal of that program is to have zero impact on our earnings on an after tax basis.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Sergey Vasnetsov with Lehman Brothers. Please go ahead.

Sergey Vasnetsov

Analyst

Good morning. Do you expect the difference Ag and Chemical earnings distribution between the first and second quarter of this year compared to the historical pattern?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

I'm sorry; do you mean sales, Sergey?

Sergey Vasnetsov

Analyst

No, profits.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Profits, there is some natural business differences between the first quarter and the second quarter in the North American season that... I doubt that they will be that visible or meaningful to you, but corn versus soy mix, as you know, flips from 60-40 to 40-60, something like that. In the crop protection chemicals area, our outlook is sensitive being more or less in line with the first quarter in terms of what demands for and what products and what markets.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

This is Chad. The question is we see major different patterns, first quarter, second quarter this year versus previous year is not really. It's a matter of just... a little better earlier selling and couple of products in Europe, but that would be enough to shift it. Other factors are soy and corn mix will probably be bigger factors and it's just too early to say what that's going to shake out to be.

Sergey Vasnetsov

Analyst

Okay. And secondly, with higher contribution from Cozaar earnings based on Merck's comments yesterday, it seems like your guidance for the second quarter is very conservative.

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

Yes, Merck guidance gave yesterday show that the U.S. sales were declining. Our agreements with them are heavily loaded in the U.S. as many of the exclusivity in other countries in the world are expiring. So, our guidance is consistent with what we will see based on our contracts.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Kevin McCarthy with Banc of America. Please go ahead.

Kevin McCarthy

Analyst

Yes, good morning. On slide 7, you are guiding to $1.05 for the second quarter, which would represent a 20% sequential decline versus the $1.31 that you posted. If I look back over the last six years, your sequential change is nearly flat versus the first quarter. So, I am wondering given the Ag seasonal pattern being similar to what it normally is, are you just taking a conservative tack here given the macro economic backdrop, or are there some other larger company-specific factors that would cause a more precipitous decline in 2Q?

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

Yes, thank you very much for that question, Kevin. First of all, I think, as you saw, we are off to a very strong start in the first quarter. And as we look at the second quarter and the rest of the year, there are uncertainties, but there are two big factors to consider. One is corn seed planting in the U.S. less than 5% at this point; and secondly, the increase in the raw material cost, which as you know, is over $115 a barrel. So, we've given you our very best judgment on guidance for the second quarter and the balance of the year given the uncertainties.

Kevin McCarthy

Analyst

Great. And then a follow up if I may, on the subject of decoupling versus re-coupling and maybe it's tied into some of Robert's comments. If I look at your Asian volume as a proxy for what's going on in emerging markets, slowed a little bit, but still healthy at plus 6% volume versus plus 10 in the fourth quarter. Do you see any evidence of material deceleration in your emerging markets or do you think it's more of a case of decoupling in those markets proving very resilient to what's going on the U.S. and Western Europe?

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

Well, I think the answer of that is mixed depending on which platform you are talking about. We see continued... in automotive markets continued strength in Asia and emerging markets in safety and protection products. There are some areas in polymers where we are seeing a little bit of mixed signals in terms of volume with some of the higher performance polymer still growing, but some of the lower end stuff that might go into things like toys and garden furniture not growing as greatly. So, I do think that the answer there is not straight forward with our mix of products that we have. I think we will weather this as well as we can with a lot of those materials going into local consumption.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Mark Gulley with Soleil Securities. Please go ahead.

Mark Gulley

Analyst

Good morning, I've got two questions. First of all, I get the sense there maybe in order to hold market share from North American corn seed that perhaps you have this stepped up your promotional activity, perhaps we see other promotional moves in order to achieve that goal? Am I reading perhaps a little bit too much into what I am hearing?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

I think you are reading too much into it. I think that '08 is on track with what we said back in August in our December call. We are valuing used pricers that's at work. You see in the data that net price was up substantially for the platform as well as in Pioneer in the first quarter, Mark. So, I'd say straight out and that's not the case.

Mark Gulley

Analyst

Okay. And secondly, appreciate the comments about the Ti02 plant in China. If I try to reboot those lines, it almost sounds a bit like you're trying to drag your feet there with respect to getting your business permits. And you wouldn't mind if the on stream date were four years hints. Again, am I perhaps reading too much into those comments, Carl?

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Mark, it's Chad. Yes, you are reading too much into that. We are very respectful of governments and letting them go to through their processes. We are very pleased that we have got these environmental approvals with a lot of work and a lot of data. And we just don't want to preempt and tell a government when they are going to make a decision; that's their call. And we are working through that process in an orderly way; as soon as we get that business license, we will start to moving toward that plan. But we don't have it yet, and we are going to let the government sort it out properly.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Robert Koort with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Robert Koort

Analyst

Thanks very much. Two questions if I might; one, on the pricing front, obviously quite remarkable pricing. How much of that is sustainable as raw materials or demand starts to erode? In other words, how much of that is true value pricing and how much of that is in preparation for a raw material surge? And then secondly, Robert might help us out, back in the good old days, I think you used to produce a DuPont market index. And I am just trying to get... when I see U.S. GDP up 2% in '08, but the first quarter volumes were down 5% for DuPont. Can you help us characterize a little bit more what your end markets would look like as opposed to the overall economy? Thanks.

Ellen J. Kullman

Analyst

I can take the fist question on pricing, and clearly in some of our chemicals businesses and in some of our performance materials business, we do and are able to pass through raw material increases and the contracts are set up that way. But the vast majority of our pricing and our revenue is from value in these pricing. And we do not connect to raw materials per se, it's based in the value of the product and use of the customer, and we continue to drive that as our primary means of gaining in price.

Robert Fry

Analyst

As far as the DuPont market index goes, over the last couple of years, we moved away from making that public. We regard it as a proprietary tool to be used internally for planning purposes. Looking at some of the major markets, as we talked about earlier, housing and autos are down much more than the overall economies, no surprise there. If you look at the rest of industrial production, it's actually not done too bad, it's just down slightly since last July; that's mostly export driven strength. So, outside of housing and autos, it's not that bad right now.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Mike Judd with Greenwich Consultants. Please go ahead.

Michael Judd

Analyst

Yes, quick question for Robert here. What are your assumptions about the $1 in the second half of the year? And lastly, do you have... is there an assumption built in there on which political party interblending the election? The reason I ask that is from a... one of things evidently the Democrats are talking about a lot is a changing some of these free trade agreements. So, it's an important issue. And again, these comments are really focused more on our next year perhaps than this year.

Robert Fry

Analyst

I'll answer the second question first, but the kind of stuff that we are doing, we are looking at business cycle developments on a rather short-term basis. I don't think the election has that big an impact, it has a much larger impact on longer-term growth rate and of course the trade agreements and tax policy will have a big impact over that. But as far as the short-term business cycle fluctuations that we often look at, not a major impact there. I think Jeff will address the dollar question.

Jeffrey L. Keefer

Analyst

Yes, let me just comment on currency. We use the... we don't... we use the same forecast from major financial institutions. And so, our view, you can get just from the blue chip consensus basically, and that's... so if you look at that, that's kind of what we are thinking about exchange rates.

Michael Judd

Analyst

Thanks for the help.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Chris Shaw with UBS. Please go ahead.

Chris Shaw

Analyst

Yes, hi, good morning. And thanks to having Robert on; that was really helpful.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Great, thanks Chris.

Chris Shaw

Analyst

In the seed business, are you guys seeing any last minute acreage changes because either the weather or because where our commodity price has gone since the USDA reports, particularly in corn. And also as a corollary, are you guys sold out in triple stacks, so... there were some late changes, could you guys still provide triple stack?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Okay. Chris on the first question, I'm sure you are thinking as we are too about the USDA reported yesterday that plantings were a bit behind. I talked to Shickler last night, and the team out Des Moines, and our read on the situation right now is that we don't anticipate a material change in the corn acreage levels from those that were released in the USDA's planning intention report. So, I think that there is time, it's still early. And we are not picking up any signals of shifts between the crops right now. On your second question about availability of triples, we continue to feel that we've got adequate supply to meet all farmer needs for triples in all the markets where it's needed.

Chris Shaw

Analyst

Great, that's it. Thanks.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Chris.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Frank Mitsch with BB&T Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Frank Mitsch

Analyst

Good morning all. Chad, you initially guided three months ago to $1.12 to $1.17 for this quarter, and it come in at a $1.31. Can you talk about some of the major deltas that occurred over the past three months that led to this very large upside?

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

The productivity continues to perform at the upper end of our expectations. Our ability to get the new products out and price effectively, I think you saw our very strong pricing in the first quarter. We are very proud of what happened here and that's why I started off my comments talking about customers because it's taken that value to customers that I think our people did an extremely good job of, and it's managing these supply chains very effectively. Obviously Ag was a strong first quarter and the Ag business is sometimes hard to predict, and that was a part of having a stronger first quarter than we thought. And then these other factors, the overall corporate costs and all were managed quite well.

Frank Mitsch

Analyst

And looking at that, I mean, the three of these factors, look like they will continue into the second quarter. Can you talk a little bit about the monthly trends through the first quarter and here we are at the end of the year quarter of the second quarter... I am sorry, first month of the second quarter. Can you talk about business activity trends on a monthly basis?

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

I don't think we saw enough of a change month to month from the first quarter that would be instructed to you or us to managing our business. And it does vary tremendously across the individual marketplaces, but if what's got behind your question is there are some trend there that's instructive of the second quarter, I think that would be way too soon to call.

Frank Mitsch

Analyst

All right, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Don Carson with Merrill Lynch.

Donald Carson

Analyst

Yes, thank you. Coming back to the Ag side, a couple of questions; one is on corn seed, you talked about stabilizing share of 30%, Monsanto stocks of being up 3% to 5%. So I guess my question would be who is the big loser here? Is it all the number three player collapsing or is it just broad based gains, because I know this market does appear to be evolving into a bit of a duopoly. And then secondly on the soybean side, you haven't talked too much about that, but if in fact we do meet the USDA numbers, which are quite high, do you have enough seed to maintain your market share lead in U.S. soybeans?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Well, I wouldn't want to pick up on the second question; let me take that first on. Yes, we definitely have what we think would be ample supply of soybean supply for the season, and we are excited about it. I think I mentioned in the script that the orders are up and the business is looking up during the second quarter. In terms of market share, we are looking at our business, and we are focused on those fundamentals, how many acres are going to be planted, what we are offering county by county, farm by farm and it's that detailed background that we have that gives us the confidence that we are going to be able to meet our goal to hold our share in 2008.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

I guess, Carl, an increased share of soybean, right?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

An increase... we expect an --

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

Under any scenario that we think is reasonable right now, Don, we will still be increasing share of soybeans.

Donald Carson

Analyst

Okay. And then a question on crop chemicals, you talked about positive pricing trends there. Does the significant increase that we are seeing in glyphosate pricing give a nice price umbrella for your sulfonylurea, is that what's helping on the pricing front here?

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

It's not really Don, no. I'd say that our price gains in the first quarter were in line with the industry averages which were kind of low single-digit price increases in local prices. Now, on the other hand there is favorable mix going on in our crop chemicals business. We are offered for sale and sold a greater number of the SU blended products there. As you know well, are very tailored to a specific farmer weed control problem. So that's helping the overall variable margin and profitability business.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Hassan Ahmed with HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hassan Ahmed

Analyst

Good morning guys.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Good morning.

Hassan Ahmed

Analyst

Clearly very good results in the Ag segment, pricing up a good 15%. My question is that obviously there is more and more chatter these days about food price inflation and you have countries like India coming out and stopping rice exports and then you have Saudi Arabia lifting import duties in a variety of food products. I guess the question is that how should we going forward think about crop pricing? And obviously in turn pricing within your Ag segment, particularly in this environment where a variety of these emerging markets, countries are coming out and trying to curb food price inflation.

Charles O. Holliday, Jr.

Analyst

It is Chad, thanks for the question. We believe that commodity crop prices will be up for an extended period of time over their historical levels. We think this is a natural results of people moving up the standard of living chain and wanting more of their protein from chickens, from pork, from cattle, an it's a natural impact. That's why we believe our new products both on the seed side and chemical side are so important to increased productivity. If you look back at the last 10 years, population's gone up 13%, the demand for these major products such as soy, corn have gone up about 30% and land has only gone up to 6%. And so we got to have more productivity to get it out and that's why we think this a right area for research to put our money to invest and grow, and we were very encouraged about that. Secondly, as we know, there will be other pressures for biofuels, we think our cellulosic biofuels and our move to biobutanol are the right ultimate steps to answer that question. So, we are not stressing the food crops as much for biofuels. We think right now, we do need to use food crops or biofuels. But we need to go through a natural evolution as we have in other products. So, I hope that responsive to your questions. We are also are keenly aware of, when you talk about these restrictions and exporting rice, if our numbers there's about 840 million people in the world that go to sleep undernourished every night. And we think that's important that we reduce that and it has been reduced over the last 20 or 30 years as a percent of total world population. But there will be continuing work by the UN and others to do that, and we hope our products can help that level of farmer too over a period of time. Thanks for your question; I think it's very important.

Carl J. Lukach

Analyst

Thanks for the question, Hassan. I think that we run over and we'll end the call on that note. I know you all have other calls today too to go to. We thank you for your interest in our company. As always, the Investor Relations team is available to take any follow-up questions that you have. Thank you all very much and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. This does concludes today DuPont first quarter 2008 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.