Good morning ladies and gentleman. And welcome to Newell Rubbermaid's Second Quarter 2009 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the call over to Nancy O'Donnell, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thanks. Welcome to Newell Rubbermaid's Second Quarter call. We appreciate you, once again, taking the time to join us. The members of our management team with me today are Mark Ketchum, President and Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer Pat Robinson. I'll begin the call with our forward-looking statement reminder. Today's announcement includes certain forward-looking statements which are based on current factual information and certain assumptions which management believes to be reasonable. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those indicated by these statements due to various factors which are discussed in detail in Newell Rubbermaid's 2008 Annual Report on Form 10-K and other periodic filings with the SEC. We further caution you that the company does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements that we make today. In addition, we refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and the investor section of our website. So with that, I will now turn it over to Mark.

Thank you, Nancy. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'm pleased to report that Newell Rubbermaid delivered strong earnings and cash flow results this quarter. Normalized EPS of $0.47 was well ahead of our guidance range as a result of strong gross margin performance and rigorous expense management. Operating cash flow also increased noticeably to approximately $100 million during the quarter, as compared to only $2 million in last year's Q2. During the first six months of 2009, we generated operating cash flow of $88 million, an improvement of more than $200 million compared to the first half of 2008, when we used cash. This impressive performance for the quarter and year-to-date is the result of our operating units' continued discipline in reducing inventories and using working capital more efficiently. We're quite proud of the fact that even in a very difficult economic environment we've done what we said we would do. For the past six months, we told you that our plan was to manage the business, to protect earnings and maximize cash flow in spite of top line weakness and volatility, and we've delivered on that promise. As anticipated, our top line has been under pressure. Net sales declined almost 18% during the quarter. [Quarter] sales were down about 8%, in line with our guidance of a high single digit decline. Product line exits and foreign exchange accounted for the other 10 points of sales decline. Gross margin increased to 37.1% this quarter, a 300 basis point improvement over last year. This expansion reflects the positive impact of the planned exits from low margin and commoditized product categories. Gross margin also benefitted from the carryover effect of 2008 pricing initiatives and input cost moderation compared with the dramatic inflation we experienced in 2008. For…

I'll start with a review of our second quarter 2009 income statement on a normalized earnings basis. Net sales for the quarter were $1.5 billion, down 17.6% the last year and slightly favorable to our guidance of a sales decline of approximately 20%. Our core sales decline, which excludes currency and product line exits, was approximately 8% in the quarter in line with guidance. This reflects the weak consumer sales environment as well as some inventory destocking, primarily in the industrial and commercial channels. It's difficult to measure precisely, but we think about a third of the quarter sales decline was attributable to inventory adjustments with the remaining two-thirds reflecting lower consumer sell-through. Our planned product line exits reduced sales by six points and unfavorable foreign currency contributed to negative four points. Both of these metrics came in on the favorable side of our expectations. As of April 1st, we anniversaried the acquisitions of technical concepts in Aprica so sales from both of these businesses are now reflected in core sales. Gross margin continued to be a very positive story for us this quarter. We generated $558 million or 37.1% of net sales which was a 300 basis point improvement over the second quarter of 2008 and a 430 basis point improvement over the full year 2008 gross margin percentage. This improvement was largely driven by the favorable impact of our product line exits, more favorable input costs as we start the comp against the dramatic raw material inflation from a year ago and the read-through from our 2008 pricing actions. These positives more than offset an unfavorable customer and product mix as our plant utilization rates resulting from the sales decline and the significant take-down in inventory levels. We continued to aggressively manage down both our strategic and structural…

Thank you, Pat. 2009 has been without a doubt our most challenging year ever, but I'm upbeat. I'm encouraged by our first half results. Earlier this year, I asked everyone at Newell Rubbermaid to rise to the challenge and deliver a year they can be proud of despite the historic economic downturn. Since then the new Rubbermaid team has done an outstanding job reducing costs, conserving cash, gaining market share and operating more efficiently and effectively. I want to commend all of our employees for their hard work. By focusing on the things that are within our control we've proven our ability to weather this economic storm and position ourselves to emerge even stronger once it has passed. We are entering the second half of the year with some positive momentum. We'll continue to prioritize managing expenses and generating cash flow, but we now see our way to release selective investments and strategic SG&A to help build our brands and enhance our new product pipeline. While we continue to face an uncertain and volatile economic environment, I'm convinced we are doing the right things to both insure near term profitability and enable long-term prosperity. We're operating consistent with our strategies, investing in consumer-driven innovation and branding, optimizing our portfolio with higher growth and higher margin businesses, and achieving best cost in efficiency across the organization. As always we thank our shareholders for their continued support, and with that I will now ask the operator to open the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: I just wanted to ask first, I guess, about the gross margin which is much better than I think anyone expected even though everyone did see resin coming down and you talked about the divestiture impact. Maybe you can give a little more color around what the drivers were, more specifically, quantitatively around the resin versus the divestitures versus the productivity gains you guys have experienced.

We're not going to get into specifics on what each contributed but the big three contributors we already spoke about, the product line exits, the carryover pricing from 2008, which we've been able to keep in place pretty much across the board, with a few exceptions and then finally the year over year input costs improvement, particularly resin but in some other commodities also. Those are the three big contributors. The offsets to that are volume – the volume in our plants is way down to a year ago, and the mix, I'm sorry – the unfavorable mix. Consumers are still mixing down pretty much across the board, those two offsets. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: And Pat, should we then think about this new level, the 37% level as kind of your new normal to look forward and with the productivity already in place, the divestitures now kind of done and resins somewhat stable, we would be looking forward from 37% here?

Well, I think I would look at the first half. The first half was 36.2%. I think that would be more in line with a sustainable rate. In fact, we may see some pressure in the back half from pricing and also from the commodity comparisons to a year ago. Now for the front half and back half, we also think the commodities will be slightly higher in the back half than in the front. So I think the 36.2% would be more in line than the 37.1% and maybe even slightly below that, but that would be kind of our internal target.

Mike, I would add to that in saying I think we do have upward run rate going forward after this year. We'll get full year benefit of exiting these categories whereas this year we get partial year benefit. We continue to do restructuring, manufacturing restructuring projects under our project acceleration mantle that will benefit this year and next year. As volumes come back we'll get better factory capacity utilization which will absorb overhead costs in a more effective way, and so I think we have a number of upside vectors that will continue to drive that margin in future years. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: Again, and finally, on SG&A, that's always been kind of an offset for a gross margin improvement for you guys. Is there anything that's going to change over the last maybe ten years it just keeps creeping up as a percentage of sales and that's despite taking headcount down significantly and number of plants down significantly? What maybe would give us confidence that SG&A as a percentage of sales will really turn around after this year?

Well, first of all I'd price out the SG&A into two buckets, right, our strategic and our structural. We have been successful in reducing our structural SG&A over the last several years and that continues to be one of our focuses. We're doing that because we want to invest more in strategic. So I'll remind you in 2005 we were spending less than 4% of our sales on strategic SG&A on brand building SG&A. We had that up over 6% , we'll probably a little bit less than that this year, but on an ongoing basis I think that number ought to be especially as we continue to change the mix of our portfolio into businesses that respond innovation brand building, the number is probably closer to 8%. So I think the total may not change much but you'll continue to see a shift within that total bucket as we save in structural and reinvest in strategic. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: Thank you very much guys.

Our next question comes from John Faucher – JP Morgan. John Faucher – JP Morgan: Yes good morning, so if I take a look at your top line guidance in terms of getting to the down 15 it looks as though that implies that if you strip out the comps from last year so you do sort of a two year run rate the top line will actually decelerate into the back half of the year, sort of down 16% over the last two years, again adjusting for the comparisons. Can you talk a little bit about maybe what's getting worse to get us to that and also given the additional spending, do you think that can provide a little bit of a boost to the top line or is this spending that's mainly going to be more of a 2010 impact? Thanks.

First, I'm not sure I'm looking at the same numbers as you have. We're not showing things are getting worse, we're showing that the third quarter would be comparable to the first half in core sales decline, in other words down high single digits, and that's what we've seen so far. We do expect the fourth quarter to improve that rate, driven by two things. First, we believe the inventory destocking should be largely behind us even the commercial and industrial channels at that point. And secondly, the comps get much easier for us in the fourth quarter. So we saw our sales really drop off in the fourth quarter of '08 compared to the first three quarters. That was the big drop, so we think the fourth quarter this year will be a lower percentage decline and hopefully we'll start to see things start to get a little better in 2010. John Faucher – JP Morgan: Yes I think what I was referring to was if you would adjust to the comparisons because the top line gross in the back half of '08 decelerated into Q3 from Q2 and then obviously fell off a lot in Q4, so if you would adjust for those comps it looks like you're still expecting top line to be sort even fundamentally a little bit lower, but it doesn't sound like – did you understand what I am asking?

I do understand what you are asking, but again I don't know how this last year numbers. My recollection is that the third quarter wasn't that different from the first two last year, in other words they were all close to about breakeven, around 1% up or 1% down. It was the fourth quarter that we saw the dramatic decline. John Faucher – JP Morgan: Right.

And in fact John the fourth quarter the course sales were up about 8%. So in fact you could say the last three quarters we've have seen 8% to 10% course sales decline. That's in the same range that we're estimating for the third quarter for this year, so that will be four consecutive quarters with all high single digits course sales decline. So when we get to the fourth quarter we don't have that in there anymore, we don't have that kind of year-over-year course sales decline. The things that continue to put a drag on the top line are currency and [inaudible]. John Faucher – JP Morgan: Okay and going back to the spending piece, how long do you think it will take for this extra spending to come through and maybe give a further boost to the top line?

Look, I think some of it can and will and can have an effect in the second half of this year and some of it will affect and get us off to a better start in the second half. So let me just give you a few examples to kind of bring this area to life. I talked before about the Sharpie media campaign. We like what we are seeing and we are going to invest in it. One of things I didn't say in my script was that the media has a strong value reframing element to it. So the Sharpie campaign message talks about things like longer write life. Our Sharpies last about one-third longer than most comparable markers and highlighters. We're pointing that out. We offer a twin tip Sharpie. It's got a fine point on one end and a blunt point on the end, so it's getting two in one. You know we talk about the ways you can use Sharpie. You can use a Sharpie for instance – buy a less expensive plain notebook for back to school and decorate yourself instead of buying an expensive decorated covered notebook. And so there's a strong value element in that messaging that's very relevant to today. We think that people respond to that. We talked about the Calphalon Unison, which is very well. We're going to continue to spend in and expand our spending behind that, so we're kind of feeding something that's working. We're also feeding the Rubbermaid food storage campaign. We've had two strong years introducing Premier, then easy-to-find lids and Produce Saver and this year Lock-It and we're continuing to invest because again that's something that's worked. There's two areas in the economy that are not down and that's education and the health industry, and we're spending into that. We got a terrific product, our mimio whiteboard capture and projection product. That is a superior product for two reasons. One, it's rated much easier to use by teachers and second, its cost per classroom is about half of what the competitor is. So again that's right on target in this economy. It's something that's easier to use and a great value in an area where there is still spending and stimulus spending in fact. And in the health care area, we got a terrific line of Rubbermaid medical carts that are new to the market within the last couple years, but again health care is an area that hasn't cut back; spending continues to be available and we're expanding our sales coverage for that. So these are just a few examples of the kind of things we're spending our money on, that we're spending because we got a good indication that these things are working and/or the consumer is responsive and the market is responsive at this time. Does that help?

Our next question comes from Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: Just a quick question on working capital and inventory, since you did such a good job on inventory levels this quarter I was wondering if in the back half there will be less manufacturing curtailments, a little bit less negative operating leverage from trying to manage working capital?

If you look at our sales in the back half of – I'll talk about that first – it will be a little higher than the front half, so we'll get some help there. But the inventory change back half and front half should be almost the same. So I think the volumes will be slightly higher in the back half, so we get a little bit of help there. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: Okay, so it's primarily from volumes being higher rather than less manufacturing curtailment to control inventory that's sort of not – at least not yet a dynamic?

That's right, in other words on the front half – I've got to look up the number. I believe we have taken out about 75 million of inventory and I think you should look for us to take out a similar number in the back half, so that will help. It will be neutral. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: Okay. And then the second question was just with you know all of the chatter on changing shelf sets at retail, a lot of the dialogue has been around some of the more consumable categories, but I was wondering what you seen in your categories and in any kind of notable win or loses or changes that are going on?

I'd say Lauren that there's not a sea change effect there. I think we believe that the battles are intense as they always are for shelf space and we can provide a compelling product proposition. So we've had some wins. We've had some wins in our writing instruments categories. We have had some wins in our personal care area in Goody. And we do some trading back and forth, so sometimes gaining at one account and losing some on another account. So the only thing I can tell you is that it's not a – what the customers are doing and what we're doing is not a sea change effect either for them or for us in our categories. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: And the other thing with just on pricing, Pat, I think you mentioned there could be a little bit of pressure on pricing in the second half. Now was that more about kind of Q4 lapping increases you've taken or is it pricing adjustments that you may be making?

I think it's a little of both. We will lap the fourth quarter that we took last year, that's definite. And then, we are seeing some pressure on all of our business frankly get back some price. We're resisting that the best we can. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: And year-to-date – it's sort of – it's largely held?

Yes, it's largely held.

And Lauren, again, to put that in perspective most of our pricing, it's just gotten us caught up for what we're behind in 2008. And so I if look over now at 2008 and 2009, whereas in' 08 we were behind, we got kind of caught up and so now, that pricing now is getting right with the world.

Our next question comes from Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: Did you know what the capacity utilization was in the quarter? Do you have that number?

No, I will have to get back to you on that, Bill. Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay, definitely down, obviously. How about back-to-school again? I think I asked you a month and a half ago. I mean has anything changed with your thoughts in the back-to-school season? And then Pat, just another question along those lines, are you still reserved for Office Depot and Office Max and some of the issues over at those two retailers?

We're you know fully from an accounting standpoint there is no change in their financial situation. So I think we're adequately reserved and we realize that there could be some issues, probably not in the near future but down the road.

And to your other question, how is back to school looking? I think, again, we were satisfied with our sell-in and I think the other dynamic that I didn't discuss with you before, Bill, was the fact that retailers in general are taking less stock in their back-to-school season. So in the past the practice was load up the stores to the gills and then try and blow it through. Now they're being more cautious in terms of inventory they take in so they're managing their cash in the same way we're managing ours. And so the sell-in in that context, though, we think was pretty good and now we need to see it sell through and the new model would be we would get – if this works and sales year over year were similar in terms of their – what they're selling out the door at retail we would get more replenishment orders in the third quarter than we have in past years. That's the dynamic that has yet to play out and so we're all waiting and seeing. Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: And then just in terms of the product line exits, are you mostly done after the third quarter?

No, we'll still have planned exits through this year and even we'll have the carryover impact into next year because we didn't get out on day one this year. So the products that were exiting, for instance in two, three and four will impact Q1 and so forth. But it'll be a little less in Q4 than we'll see here in the third quarter. Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay, then lastly, I promise, the cash flow – are there any other calls on cash besides the dividend and the capital expenditures? I mean, is there any sort of one-off funding requirements or anything or will most of that be used to repay debt?

It will mostly be used to repay debt. I guess the one change year over year is we're likely to make a pension contribution here in the third quarter. Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay, how big is that?

I'm sorry? Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: How big is that going to be, do you know?

I can't give you an exact number but it'll probably be in the $50 million range. Bill Schmitz – Deutsche Bank Securities: Okay, great, thank you.

I don't know, something around that number.

Our next question comes from Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: Hi, could you talk a little bit more about the commercial business? Your order of magnitude – exactly how much was it down? And I know you said that that lagged the rest of the business in terms of the timing of the slow down. But I think historically that's actually been a very high margin business for you so I was kind of surprised to see the tools, hardware and commercial segment not get hit more on the operating margins and is that likely something to comment on in the third and the fourth quarter, I guess? Thanks.

You saw the tools and hardware segments down about 18% in total and the commercial industrial piece was higher than that. So in other words the tools that we sell through retail are sort of down I guess high single digits and it was north of 20% in the commercial and industrial channels. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: And that was mostly a volume drop off or have you had to get a lot more aggressive on price there?

It's a volume drop off. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: Okay.

And our Lenox business, our industrial band saws, and so on, that tracks very closely with industrial production so as industrial production in the auto industry or other industries that cut a lot of metal goes down, that's what drives that. And then in the – our Rubbermaid commercial business is affected by the rate of new properties that are opening up and obviously they've been – a lot of those properties have been slowed way down. And building maintenance service providers are also cutting back their normal replenishment of old items, that normally they'd have some schedule to replace their carts or whatever other equipment that they would typically source from us and they just slow down that replacement strip. Use their beat up carts for longer, so both those factors are what's affecting those channels.

As far as the operating margins, there are other margins, that segment's under the most pressure on the top line and they've been very aggressive about taking their SG&A down to match that sales decline. And so I don't expect the back half margins to be much different than the front in that segment. Wendy Nicholson – Citi: Okay, and then just a follow-up question on Bill's question on the product lines exits. I think when you initially identified the $500 million, my understanding was you might just discontinue those SKUs or you were looking to sell some of the businesses. But is it my sense now that you're just basically going to discontinue them all and that trying to actually get any value from them and selling any of those smaller brands or whatnot is kind of off the table?

No, it's not off the table. But obviously we haven't sold any so far and the environment hasn't been really good for doing that. So we continue to keep those options open and over the next six months or so we're going to – we'll have to do one or the other. But we've actually kind of held off on a couple of them because we still think there's an opportunity to sell them. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: But if I follow your math this year if you kind of picked the mid-point of a range it looks like you're going to have sort of $300 million of that $500 million gone from the portfolio?

We also had some in the fourth quarter of '08. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: Yes. So fair to say by the middle of 2010 and certainly by the end of 2010 this whole initiative's behind us and we won't hear about product line exits anymore? Is that fair?

That's fair.

Our next question comes from Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML. Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML: Hey guys. Pat, can you just talk about the tax rate a little bit? Is this new rate normalized and I guess what changed so quickly with international geographies that would have driven up as far as it came from the run rate we've been looking at?

Well, it's just the mix of where we're making our money. So we're making less in areas that either have our tax advantage or have tax loss carry forward right now, so that's driven the rate up. We said 30% going into the year. We're saying 30% to 31% now. So it isn't dramatically higher than our expectation going into the year. Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML: Okay, and then, I guess, can you talk a little bit about the impact of the loss-fixed cost leverage? Is there any way to, I guess, roughly quantify that because it kind of strikes me 37 gross margin – I don't think I've ever seen a 37 gross margin out of you guys despite –

Thank you for the compliment Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML: Despite all of the headwind. But how do I think about where – forget next quarter or the following quarter. How do I think about where that's going long term because it would occur to me that if you just do a basic break out of what we think fixed versus variable costs are it seems like if you get a little volume going through these plants – like low single, mid-single digits it's an easy step right to 40%. Is that way off?

Well, Chris, I wouldn't call it an easy step but as I did reference earlier it is one of the vectors that gives us confidence that there is upward momentum going forward over the next few years. So fill in the plants, continue to get the full year benefit of these product line exits, and the –

Full impact of project acceleration –

Yes, yes, yes, getting the full impact of project acceleration as well as the continued work we're doing on mix I think gives us a pathway to 40.

Yes. Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML : So is there anything in – is there anything – I get SG&A, I mean, look SG&A is somewhat flexible – you don't want to throw good money after bad. Things get better, you spend more. Is there any temporary aspect of all of the cost cuts you're running through COGS?

I would say no. Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML: Great. That's helpful. Thanks, guys.

Just one last comment on that, Chris, too. I think the other thing is you can't – there's not an easy formula to apply because recall that about half of our goods are sourced and about half are manufactured so we obviously have to leverage on those that we continue to manufacture. We kind of build into our pricing contracts with our suppliers something that would dampen the effect of volume on our source products.

Our facilities the overhead rates about – it varies by plant but it's in the 25% to 30% range. Chris Ferrara – BAS-ML: And there is some leverage to even this up in project manufacturing, right? And I presume you get better rate at a higher volume, right?

That's right, that's correct.

Exactly, yes, exactly.

Our next question comes from Budd Bugatch – Raymond James. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James: I'm having a little difficulty kind of walking through to the third quarter guidance range, if you could help us some. Assuming that the high teens reduction year-over-year of let's say 18% gets you for about a $1.44 billion for the third quarter which is $60 million below the second quarter, and if you do project a 30% contribution margin, that's $18 million of an operating profit or about $0.04. If you spend all of the extra strategic SG&A that's about $0.12 so that gets you to about $0.31 or the midpoint of your guidance range. If you just take half of it it's like $0.08 or the top end of the guidance range. What am I missing here? What piece are we missing? Is there just a buffer for being conservative? How should we think about that?

There's a buffer, I couldn't follow all those numbers. I have to jot them all down. But the biggest change is the SG&A span quarter-over-quarter. That is the biggest difference. So the margins should be relatively – well actually the gross margin will not – we don't believe it will hold at 37%. Quarter two is driven by some mix. We have favorable mix within our businesses. As I mentioned before, I use the first half gross margins, not the second quarter gross margins, okay. And then you can use the sales numbers that we guided and then the SG&A would be the difference between the two quarters, that and the margin gap between the first margin gap. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James: I'll go back over those with you offline but the second question I had and let's ball two questions up into one, you gave us a 200 basis point bogey for gross margin year-over-year as an improvement. You did 300 basis points this quarter. I wondered whether that still holds. And secondly, can you kind of quantify for us what the strategic SG&A in the second half will be on a percentage to sale. Is it going to be about 7%, is that – if 5% was the first quarter, first half is it 7% in the second half?

We have to do the math and get back to you.

I don't have that percentage in the second quarter. What was the first part again, Budd, I'm sorry. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James: The bogey for gross profit.

Yes, we will be north of 200. I think more in the 275 to 300 range it looks like now for the year.

Our next question comes from Connie Maneaty – BMO Capital Markets Connie Maneaty – BMO Capital Markets: Good morning. I hate to ask about product line exits but I will and it's a slightly different question. We're all hearing that consumer behavior is changing and maybe in a permanent way. And once you get through discontinuing all the low margin products, are you really left with the kind of portfolio that will grow in a slower growth environment, or do you think that there are more decisions to be made about the portfolio that remain?

Connie, I don't think it will be a portfolio question going forward. I think it will be a question of can we deliver innovation that really is important to consumers and consumers respond to. And then second to make sure we have in some categories, where it's necessary, to have a range of product price points to that we can appeal to different elements of the consumer population. So it's important to have strollers or car seats that hit three or four different price points and we need to make sure every one of them can deliver average margins for us. And so it's a challenge for us but it's not a portfolio question going forward. I think we'll have solved for the obvious portfolio issues. That said, we are always and constantly every year, we'll look at is there other trimming of the sales that we need to do, but I don't think it will be anything big.

And your next question comes from Mark Rupe – Longbow Research. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: Hey guys, congratulations on the quarter. Can you give us an update on some of the brands you're taking into some new geographic areas, how that's proceeding and then just if the economy's impacting that process at all?

Well yes, the economy does – it's impacting everywhere in the world, so first a broad answer to that question is that it impacts everywhere, and in fact has slowed down some of the investments we might have otherwise made. We're continuing to expand our fine writing instruments. We continue to expand our markers and highlighters. We continue to expand our Rubbermaid commercial and our industrial band saw products in new geographies. Those would be probably top of the list. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: How about some of the recent acquisitions?

Well the recent acquisitions as you're aware were ones that came with a strong international geographic profile and so yes, obviously the Rubbermaid commercial business includes the technical concept acquisition, which was – already had a large international footprint and we continue to as part of what I referenced when I said we were expanding Rubbermaid commercial. The Aprica is in Japan and then I referenced baby care so yes, those are both the examples that would support that. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: So I mean you're still thinking – the thought process is expanding like Africa into other geographic areas as well then?

Exactly, exactly, in the case of Africa into the U.S. and eventually Western Europe as an example, so it's kind of coming in the reverse.

Our next question comes from Joe Altobello – Oppenheimer & Company Joe Altobello – Oppenheimer & Company: Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just want to go back to the volume leverage question for a second. This is probably the second or third quarter that we've heard about inventory destocking from a number of companies, including you guys, and it sounds like you're joining the chorus this morning and saying that it's starting to wane a little bit. Some have even gone so far as to say that inventories at retail in North America are at relatively low levels and you could see a restock whether or not that could happen later this year or early next. And I imagine that's not baked into your guidance, but where do you guys stand in terms of right now inventory levels at retail, and is there a possibility we could see a restock let's say early 2010?

Yes, Joe, as I had said earlier, we do think that most of the destocking at retail is behind us and you're right, we haven't built in any upside from potential restocking but I think that's a possibility. But I'll wait to see it as opposed to predicting it because I think in some categories and some customers there was frankly room to take inventory in the same way that we've – the silver lining in the cloud was as we knew we had to go really attack inventory in order to generate cash. I think we've learned that we can operate at lower inventory levels and still do so with very good customer service, and I think they may find some of the same. So I'm not going to predict that one yet. But yes, but I will reaffirm what you started with, which is mostly the retail destocking I think is behind us. We are still seeing though some destocking in our industrial and commercial channels because, as I said, the economy affected them in terms of consumption at a later point and so that's why restocking is still going on in those commercial and industrial channels.

As well as internationally, we're still seeing some destocking outside the U.S. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: Okay and then secondly, you just hired a person to head a new spot, President of Asia-Pacific. This is a region that you've been relatively underdeveloped in and I guess this sort of follows on to the last question, but what's the opportunity there and how do you – what's sort of the timeframe when you guys feel like you can build up that business to be a real contributor to the bottom line?

Well first to clarify, I didn't hire a new person, Magnus Nicolin was already the President of our EMEA. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: Sorry, right.

And so I just added the APAC responsibilities. Look, even though Asia-Pacific is also undergoing a lot of economic challenge probably with the exception of China, in the long run it's clearly a high growth opportunity. And in the short run even China would be a growth opportunity so the appointment of Magnus I think is a signal that we're devoting a high level strategic resource to put better definition around how to best exploit this opportunity. It's a relatively small percentage of our business today, 5% or 6%, but obviously has the potential to be a lot larger. And so we're going to take advantage of this current opportunity, meaning the – especially in China where the economy is not as impaired and really try and better define the opportunity and figure out how we can exploit it. It should be a bigger piece to our business, that's all there is to it but I don't have any numbers and I don't want to throw made up numbers at you today.

Our next question comes from Bill Chappelle – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey. William Chappelle – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey: Good morning. I just, digging a little further into the strategic spend for the second half, is that equal weighted across all three divisions or is it focused more on kind of the home products. I mean, how should we look at that?

It's not equal weighted. It's focused more on home and family and office products. So while there will be some within the tools, hardware and commercial products specific to a couple of new innovations we're launching in the Rubbermaid commercial business, the majority of that is home and family and office products. There's also some corporate investments we're going to make, so corporate investments in delayed training, investments in our IT infrastructure and things like that. William Chappelle – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey: And just trying to understand how much of this is of catch up to get you back to a normalized level of spend and how much of it is really focusing on growth with, I guess, a hope of a rebound next year?

We said about half of it was delayed from the front half, okay. And the other half frankly was budgeted or planned in the back half but was available to cut if we didn't have stronger first half as we had. So I think the spend rate in the back half will be comparable certainly to what we did in '07 when we were spending a little over 6%. I think we'll be back to those type of rates in the back half. William Chappelle – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey: One last, I understand home and family is holding up relatively well. As you look at office products, which you're spending back into, do we see the light at the end of the tunnel there? I mean, by the time we get to the fourth quarter or first quarter next year of it bottoming out or maybe starting to rebound?

Yes, well again if you look at its core reductions, its core reductions are very consistent with the total company, the 7% to 10% range. And so it's kind of looking what I'd call average, and the answer is we do think that that's one of the segments that'll come back faster than some of the others.

Our last question comes from Linda Bolton Weiser with Caris & Company. Linda Bolton Weiser – Caris & Company: Hi. Maybe you were talking about this already but can we think about possible acquisitions again in 2010 or is that more a possibility for 2011?

It's probably 2011 or beyond there.

Our first goal is to get our credit metrics back in line with the solid, sort of BBB rating, so that's our focus right now with cash.

And that does conclude our question-and-answer session. We'll now turn the conference over to our hosts for any closing or additional remarks.

I don't think I have any concluding remarks other than to once again thank you for your interest and your support. And talk to you again next quarter.

Thank you very much. If we were unable to get to your question during this call, please call Newell Rubbermaid Investor Relations at area code 770-418-7662. Today's call will be available on the Web at www.newellrubbermaid.com and on digital replay at 888-203-1112 or area code 719-457-0820 for international callers with a conference code of 6144181, starting two hours following the conclusion of today's call and ending August 14 at 1 pm Eastern Time. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.