Greetings and welcome to the Lincoln Electric Fourth Quarter and Full-year 2014 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only-mode. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Vincent Petrella, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Thank you, Syed and good morning to everyone. Welcome to the Lincoln Electric 2014 fourth quarter conference call. We released our financial results for the quarter and the full-year this morning prior to the markets open and our release is available on the Lincoln Electric website at lincolnelectric.com. Joining me on the call today is Chris Mapes, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Chris will start the discussion this morning with an overview of our full-year 2014 results; I will then cover the fourth quarter numbers in more detail as well as our uses of cash. We will then take questions following our prepared remarks. As part of our webcast today, we are using a slide presentation, which can be accessed on our website under the company and Investor Relations tabs. Before we start our discussion, please be reminded that certain statements made during this call and in our discussions may be forward-looking and actual results may differ from our expectations. Actual results may differ materially from such statements due to a variety of factors that could adversely affect the company's operating results. Risks and uncertainties that may affect our results are provided in our press release and in our SEC filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. Additionally, we also discuss financial measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP and you may find important information on our use of these measures and their…

Thank you. Our first question comes from Schon Williams from BB&T Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead. C. Schon Williams - BB&T Capital Markets: Hi, good morning. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Good morning Schon. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning Schon. C. Schon Williams - BB&T Capital Markets: I wonder if we could maybe start with Asia-Pacific. That's been a region that's been targeted for restructuring, and obviously you made some significant progress in the margin profile this quarter. Can you just talk about what's still left to be done in Asia-Pacific, if anything, and then what can be expectations as we move into 2015? Could we start to see more kind of mid single-digit margins more consistently out of this segment? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Schon, this is Chris. Look, I think that we were happy with the initial results from some of the activities from the strategies we're trying to drive in that particular segment, I'm certainly looking for expansion of equipment sales and some automation work in that region, but I still view that 2015 will be a pretty transitional year for us in China as we execute on those strategies. So, again very happy that we're seeing some of the impact, although that impact is off a small base, really hoping that in 2015 we can continue down that path in execution on those strategies continue to show the improvements we're looking forward in that business, but I still expect that 2015 will have some choppiness to it and really probably just want to continue to see the execution of the strategies, the improvements, but I don't think we're going to have a…

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Douglass from Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Mark. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Good morning.

Can you discuss the underlying trends in North America, both equipment and consumables, and what were the exports? What was the export number in the quarter? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Yeah. So, exports were down on a year-over-year basis by about 13%. For the full-year, we were down about 19% and exports year-over-year out of the U.S. From a product category standpoint, we've seen a bit more strength on the equipment side of our business than on the consumables side. But our domestic business was up mid single-digits in the fourth quarter, compared to the prior-year. So, we're seeing some greater strength domestically than we're seeing in the export markets and it's largely been a little bit better on the equipment side than consumables. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, Mark, as you would expect, we continue to see real strength in the heavy fabrication side, especially on the rail portion of heavy fab. Transportation and automotive has stayed strong. And as much as we're concerned about the potential impacts of the recent shift in oil pricing in the marketplace, especially here in North America, we haven't seen a lot of that within the business certainly in the fourth quarter. So I think again, it just shows the continued improvements in the general North American economies and certainly Lincoln participating significantly in that space.

But, I think, if I look at the slides, general fab was mediocre, kind of low growth in North America. Given the relatively strong PMI, can you square that circle? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: My only comment, Mark, would be, look out for us in that particular data point, we didn't see general fab having much strength for us within our portfolio. But again, seeing the strengths in the other area wouldn't necessarily identify that as a long-term trend, but within our business portfolio, the way we looked at it within the quarter we saw general fab as smallish.

Okay. And then just lastly, you mentioned oil and – let me just clarify. Oil and gas is 15% of total sales, or was that just upstream and midstream, or is that all of the above? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: That's correct. That's what we would define as upstream, midstream that's going to be more largely exposed to the oil price declines.

Is that mostly in North America for you? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: No, that's global. But, North America has – certainly its share of oil exposure in line with its relative size for the total corporation. So, the bulk of our oil and gas – or oil exposure would be North America simply because of its size relative to the consolidated group.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rob Wertheimer from Vertical Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Morning.

Let's see. I think I heard the headwind to revenue earnings from FX. I'm not sure I heard a growth range for 2015. I think you gave one last year. I don't know if you have an outlook you're willing to share on revenue growth in total? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We wouldn't provide that kind of an outlook at this point in time. We would say that the year 2015 has started out relatively flattish with the prior-year, so that's maybe the best that we can give you at this point in time.

That's perfect. Thank you. And then, just in general, the comment on midstream, is that customer feedback you're hearing that it might be weaker, or industry projections, or what's the source of thinking that the weakness in upstream, which is pretty obvious, I suppose, will fully come into midstream? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: We've simply looked at the customers in those categories and looked at what they are saying about their CapEx and spending trends for 2015 and consider upstream and midstream to be the areas that are going to be most affected by the price of oil in 2015.

Okay. Thanks. I'll get back in line.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Barger from KeyBanc Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Morning.

Vince, you called out that mid single-digit headwind for revenue for 2015 from FX. You also talked about contraction in energy. Can you point to any positive revenue offsets, or are you thinking mid single-digit revenue decline is kind of best case for 2015, given what you see right now? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: From a positive standpoint, we think, our North American business domestically will continue to do well, we think certain product segments that Chris outlined a little earlier in his comments, including automotive should remain strong for the bulk of the year. We see good momentum in non-res construction, or what we might refer to as structural. We see some pockets of strength from a geographical standpoint, but we do know that the foreign currency translations based on where current exchange rates are will have that negative impact on the business as well as the often discussed oil price impact on CapEx expenditures. So, there certainly are bright spots during the course of 2015, but we also see a mixed type of environment from an outlook perspective this year. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Steve, I would also add that we expect to see continued improvement in our Harris business in 2015. And one of the values of our investments and execution in the automation portfolio is that, we believe strongly that business has the ability to grow at a much faster base than the global core welding market. And that business with its current concentration in the North American market does not have a heavy concentration of oil and gas exposure. So, I'm also expecting continued improvement in our automation businesses as we move through 2015.

To that point, you guys have done a great job of reducing inventory as a percentage of revenue. If revenue is flat to slightly down next year, can you get inventory below the current $330 million? And is that decline that we've seen really a function of the revenue mix towards more services? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Well, the answer to your first question is, yes, we expect to continue to improve our working capital metrics, over the long term, part of that lower $330 million inventory number is caused by foreign currency translations as well as the lower requirements in the automation business. But, we have as part of our performance metrics, working capital measure and we're very focused on freeing up cash out of our working capital for investing in the business or returning that cash to shareholders. So, we expect continuous improvement and we will set targets that require that continuous improvements into the future.

So, your 2015 operating cash flow target is presumably better than the $402 million you ended up this year with or 2014 with? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: We expect continuous improvement in our business.

Got it. And one more and I'll get back in line. You talked about the CapEx reinvestment in North American business. What are the priority projects there, and what do you expect to gain from them? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, first I'd say two things, Steve, one is, we've invested an enormous amount of capital over the last two years or three years as we've been executing on the strategy, examples like the new print circuit board manufacturing facility that we have here in our Cleveland operations. So, we've deployed a lot of capital over the last couple of years that we're executing on today and certainly should see the benefits from that. I would say our focus on capital as we're moving into the year is we have some areas of our business that we need to expand some capacity to meet some of the needs, the demands globally. We're also looking at a couple of new product development initiatives that may require some capital we're increasing, although not capital, the expense in our R&D area to continue to try to drive more solutions to the marketplace. So as we look into 2015, I think the first is continuing to execute on the capital we have deployed and then capital that we will be deploying in automation and some new product initiatives that we have moving into 2015.

Very good. I'll get back in line. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Tom Hayes from Northcoast Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, gentlemen. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Morning, Tom.

Hey, I was just wondering if maybe we could talk a little bit about South America now that we've kind of washed Venezuela through. I was just wondering what are your thoughts on the outlook and the opportunity in South America going through 2015? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, this is Chris. I think 2015 is going to be a pretty challenged window for our South American businesses. So, those businesses from an overall revenue percentage are smallest of the total corporation, but Brazil is a very significant and strategic market for us. We like some of the strategic initiatives. We're building into that marketplace and some of the capabilities not only with our core products and technologies, but also with the greenfield automation facility that we placed down into Brazil. But the Brazilian economy has its challenges right now as well as some challenges associated with oil and gas in that marketplace with some governmental issues that are going on with the state-owned enterprise. So, we're just expecting as we look at that marketplace in 2015 that, that will be one of the challenges that we have in the portfolio. We like our strategy. We like our management team. We are certainly committed to the Brazilian business over the longer-term, but don't have great expectations for there being any significant changes as it relates to financial performance in 2015.

Okay. Great. And then, maybe as a follow-up please, what are your thoughts on the ability to achieve pricing gains in 2015, maybe specifically in kind of the North American market? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Tom, as we've talked about in the past, pricing has a number of dynamics that affect the ability to move prices and those dynamics include the strength of the underlying demand in the portfolio. The input costs that are either rising or falling in the current environment as well as your portfolio positioning in any particular geography that you're doing business in. The way that I see our environment now is going to be relatively stable with maybe the potential for slight pricing, but nothing significant either way.

Good. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Joe Mondillo from Sidoti & Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Joe L. Mondillo - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi guys, good morning. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Morning. Joe L. Mondillo - Sidoti & Co. LLC: I just wanted to talk about the European segment just for a bit. I know 2014 was a pretty good year certainly on the margin side of things. And I think you guys called out that there was potentially sort of a mix issue regarding stronger equipment sales, I think in 2014, if you can verify that. But just looking at the margin improvement that you saw over 2014, I'm just wondering how you're looking at 2015. Do you think that's sort of sustainable in what you saw in 2014 regarding the margin there? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We do believe the margin is sustainable in our European business as we move into 2015. So, we launched an upgraded equipment profile and some new technologies in the equipment space in Europe at the Global Essen Show in late 2013 started to execute on bringing those products to market throughout 2014 and still have some opportunities to expand portions of that product portfolio in the marketplace. We also believe our European business should be able to continue to show the type of market share gains it's been showing in the European market, it's performed very well over the last 12 months and 18 months and we're expecting continued performance from our European business. So, I think, we're doing a very nice job, executing on our strategies. It's really beyond equipment, we've also got some new alloys that we're moving into the marketplace in Europe and really believe that, that business has made nice step change and looking for continued improvement with that business certainly though one of the challenges that we have in Europe are the geopolitical issues centered around Greece and Russia. And just my expectations is, as we think about 2015 are really without any significant changes to those particular issues in that economy. Joe L. Mondillo - Sidoti & Co. LLC: So, to sustain those margins that you saw in 2014, are you modeling in or do you need to see volume growth to sustain those, or can you manage some sort of a volume headwind if the markets turn badly? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: We believe that we can maintain those margins without any volume leverage in the current business model. Joe L. Mondillo - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay. Great. All right. Thanks a lot. That's all for me.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Rodgers from Great Lakes Review. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I wonder if you could talk about the hardfacing thermal spray market and M&A opportunities you might be seeing there? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we certainly have expanded into the hardfacing technologies. Lincoln has been in hardfacing technology for decades, but you saw us make a moment last year with some licensing technology from NanoSteel, which expanded the portfolio of high-end technologies on the hardfacing space. So, certainly one way to apply hardfacing is through a thermal spray application. So, that's a viable alternative from a process perspective into that space. Our commitment is that, we see hardfacing as a very intriguing market, a market we participate in, that we like to expand our capabilities. And with that, we look at the various options both from a process as well as a product technology as we continue to execute on our 2020 vision strategy longer-term.

And then you'd mentioned so far in 2015 kind of flattish performance. Would that be including foreign exchange impacts? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Yes. That would.

Okay. And then finally, are you seeing any benefits or do you expect to see benefits from lower steel pricing? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Well, it's too early to really talk about, what the impact of some lower steel prices might be at this point in time. But, certainly, we're seeing some moderation and pricing in that environment. And I wouldn't want to make any predictions at this point, on what steel prices do on average during the course of 2015.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Stanley Elliott from Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Stanley S. Elliott - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. A quick question on Europe, and I apologize if you already said this, but the volumes being down 2%, was that more reflective of what's happening in Russia where you could say that some of the new product platforms you have in Germany and elsewhere were actually obviously better than that? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, a portion of those volume contractions that we saw were related to our ability to move products into the Russian marketplace from our European businesses. Stanley S. Elliott - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And turning to the balance sheet and I guess the pension outlook, what are your thoughts on kind of debt levels, where you'd like to be by the end of the year? Any new thoughts by the board on what to do with the overfunded pension plan? Thank you. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Well, as far as the pension plan is concerned, we did finish the year slightly underfunded in our pension plan, Stanley. As interest rates moved down relatively significantly during the course of 2014; as the use of a new mortality table that was required by the American Association of Actuaries drove up our obligation, we did fall to a slightly underfunded position. As far as our debt is concerned, we will continue to follow our previously announced capital allocation strategy which means, we will spend $400 million on share buybacks this year. We will pay a dividend that is 26% higher rate than the prior-year. We will also invest $65 million to $75 million in CapEx and we take whatever opportunities we believe are appropriately priced and fit our strategy in the M&A side. At the end of the day, our cash flows will be ample, but we would expect that our investment plans will likely require some additional debt raising over and above how we ended the year with $71 million of debt. Whatever we do in 2015, however, will be I believe relatively modest when we look at the capital structure in the balance sheet of Lincoln Electric with over $500 million of EBITDA and significant equity in the business. So, it'll be a modest change in respect of the total capital structure of a Lincoln Electric. Stanley S. Elliott - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thank you.

Next question comes from Justin Bergner from Gabelli & Company. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Morning.

My first question relates to FX. I believe you mentioned that there would be a mid single-digit headwind to revenue and earnings related to FX translation. Is there an additional impact on the transactional side, given sort of the cost and revenue geographic split in your business? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: There isn't an impact that I would be able to estimate for you at this time, Justin. I will tell you that Lincoln Electric very actively and in a sophisticated way hedges all transaction risks to the corporation. So, we attempt to mitigate any moves in foreign exchange rates with an active hedging program. So, I wouldn't predict at this point in time that we'd have any higher or lower for that matter foreign exchange losses borne by the business.

Okay. Thank you. Another question I had relates to your acquisition revenue contribution in North America. Was there a margin headwind in the fourth quarter associated with the revenue growth from acquisitions? And if so, could you quantify that? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: No, there wasn't. The acquisitions in the fourth quarter contributed margins in line with our consolidated group total. So, there was no disadvantage from the acquisitions in the fourth quarter.

Okay. Thank you. And then lastly, with respect to revenue growth that you're seeing in your markets year-to-date, would you be willing to sort of add some color on how North America is tracking year-to-date? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: I would tell you that North America is similar what we said as far as the group is concerned; it's relatively flattish type of environment in January, so far.

Thank you for taking all my questions this morning. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: You're welcome, Justin.

Thank you. We've a follow-up question from Schon Williams from BB&T Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead. C. Schon Williams - BB&T Capital Markets: Hi, guys. I wonder if you could just comment. Are you seeing any impact from the slowdown on the ports on the West Coast? Is that impacting either components coming into North America or product going outside of North America? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: It's not impacting us relatively to there being any detrimental impact to the performance of the company; although, we have been having to make some adjustments to our supply chain models to look at potential reroutes or other transportation vehicles to be able to continue to be able to receive the components and raw materials that we're looking for as well as our exporting strategy. So, we see the challenges associated with port issues on the West Coast. Today, we're managing those issues and do not expect there to be any detrimental financial or operational impact from that. C. Schon Williams - BB&T Capital Markets: Okay. And then just a little housekeeping, I think the last call you mentioned you're expecting some potential refund from the Canadian government on a tax issue. Can you just give us an update on where that stands? Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Yes. We received over $50 million of that refund, during the course of the fourth quarter. And we've received notice that the remaining C$30 million will be received in the first quarter of this year. So, 100% of refund we expect to be received by the end of the first quarter 2015. C. Schon Williams - BB&T Capital Markets: Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. And we have a follow-up question from Steve Barger from KeyBanc Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Just one quick follow-up. Can you talk about how much energy contributed to volume growth in 2014, or maybe what you expect for the rate of contraction in 2015? Christopher L. Mapes - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Steve, this is Chris. I would not say that energy was a huge contributor to the volume relative to 2014, and as it relates to the expectation of the contraction, we're certainly aware that it's going to be a headwind for us and we're certainly talking to our customers and channel partners. The other side of that contraction is that, those consumer dollars that might be saved at the pump are going to migrate their way somewhere within the economy and whether those will move into automotive or appliance or some other spaces that might provide us an additional lift within those segments. So, at this point in time in the cycle, it's just difficult for us to place an estimate on the level of headwind that we may see from that space in 2015. Hopefully, we'll see a little more clarity of that as move through the year.

Understood. Thank you.

I'm showing no further questions at this time, gentlemen. Vincent K. Petrella - Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer: Thank you, Syed, and thank everyone for joining the call today and for your continued interest in Lincoln Electric. Again, our fourth quarter and full-year record results demonstrate the company's ability to execute on improving its operations for more profitable growth even in a challenging market condition. We believe that we continue to be well-positioned in 2015 to take advantage of the opportunities that are available in the marketplace. And we expect our competitive advantages to drive a continuing earnings and cash flow growth through the cycle. Thank you again for joining us today. And we look forward to providing you with a progress update at the end of April on our first quarter 2015 results.