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Newell Brands Inc. (NWL)

Q1 2010 Earnings Call· Fri, Apr 30, 2010

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Newell Rubbermaid first quarter 2010 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After a brief discussion by management, we will open up the call for questions. Just a reminder, today’s conference will be recorded. Today’s call is being webcast live at www.NewellRubbermaid.com on the investor relations home page under events and presentations. A slide presentation is also available for download. A digital replay will be available two hours following the call at 888-203-1112 or 719-457-0820 for international callers. Please provide the conference code 2949893 to access the replay. I will now turn the call over to Nancy O’Donnell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Nancy O’Donnell: Thank you for joining us to discuss Newell Rubbermaid’s 2010 first quarter results. With me today are Mr. Mark Ketchum, President and Chief Executive of the company and Juan Figuereo, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that during today’s call we will make reference to financial measures that are not GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial results are included in today’s press release and are available on the investor’s section of the Newell Rubbermaid website. I also want to remind you that our discussion today including the Q&A session will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from expected results because of various risks and uncertainties, some of which are outside our control. These risks and uncertainties are described in our quarterly release and in our annual 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. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Mark.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I am very pleased to share Newell Rubbermaid’s strong first quarter results with you. For the first time since the economic turmoil of 2008 began, the company once again delivered the growth trifecta, simultaneous sales growth, gross margin expansion and EPS growth. I must say, it feels good to be heading in that positive direction once again and I’m very excited about the prospects of our business going forward. First quarter net sales growth came in at 8.5% and gross margin improved 100 basis points to 36.1%. Our operating margin improved to 11.2% of net sales. The combination of top line growth and higher gross margins helped drive normalized EPS of $0.25, a 25% increase over last year’s first quarter. Our company grew core sales over 7% in the first quarter after excluding the impact of foreign currency and the overhang affect of last year’s product line exits. Tools, hardware and commercial products in the office product segments led the way with double digit sales growth. These are strong results. Although a portion of this sales increase represents pull forward of Q2 sales as some customers bought extra stock in advance of the April launch of our SAP conversion in our Rubbermaid commercial and Rubbermaid consumer businesses. We estimate between two and three percentage points of our total sales growth was due to SAP pre-buy. Some of you have probably already noted that the sales trends in our operating segments this quarter were the inverse of last year’s declines with our tools, hardware and commercial products leading the pack followed by office products and then home and family. We believe there are two broad factors at play here, geographic trends that are specific to a few business units and customer dynamics. Some of our markets outside of North America have…

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

I’ll start with a review of the income statement on a normalized earnings basis. Net sales for the quarter were $1.3 billion up 8.5% compared to last year. Core sales, which excludes the impact of foreign currency and product line exits increased 7.2%. Favorable foreign currency contributed a positive 2.5% and the impact of the 2009 product line exits reduced sales by approximately 1.2%. Our sales growth was particularly strong outside of North America where we grew 15.2% or 8.9% excluding currency impact. As Mark previously mentioned, our first quarter results include an estimated $30 to $35 million in sales related to pre-buying by certain customers in anticipation of the early April SAP go live at our Rubbermaid commercial products and Rubbermaid consumer business unit. Gross margin we generated $472 million or 36.1% of sales, an increase of 100 basis points compared to the first quarter of 2009. The biggest contributors to this significant improvement were productivity gains resulting from a number of initiatives including project acceleration and favorable product mix across all three operating segments. These positive factors were more than enough to offset the impact of input cost inflation experienced during the quarter. SG&A expenses were $326 million or 24.9% of net sales compared with $312 million or 25.9% of net sales last year. Currency accounted for $8 million of the year-over-year increase while SAP and other capability build investments accounted for the rest of the increase. Due to the facing of certain planned spanned shifting in to next quarter, our G&A spend was lower than anticipated this quarter. Operating income excluding charges was $146 million or 11.2% of sales, a 200 basis point improvement versus last year. Interest expense during the quarter was $32 million a $1.4 million increase compared to the previous year reflecting higher interest…

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Before I close I want to remind you that you’ll hear more about our growth prospects, have an opportunity to meet our management team and explore first hand many of our new products at our upcoming analyst day which will be held May 26th at our global headquarters here in Atlanta. We’re working hard to put together a very productive day for you and we encourage your participation. I’m quite sure you’ll enjoy it. I also want to thank my new Rubbermaid colleagues for all their hard work supporting the company’s strong first quarter results. It’s great to see the energy and enthusiasm that all of our employees are bring to the task of returning to growth. I am proud to lead this organization and I greatly appreciate your efforts. The year 2010 is off to a strong start with the return to top line growth, continued strong gross margin improvement and solid EPS results. We’re encouraged by the start and we have increased confidence about our growth prospects for 2010 and beyond. I look forward to giving you more detail on our progress at analyst day. I’ll ask the operator at this point to open up the line for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Chris Ferrara – Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Chris Ferrara – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Can you talk about gross margin leverage? I get that productivity and price mix really helped gross margin but with that massive top line this quarter can you try and put some numbers around how big fixed cost leverage is especially on a year-over-year change basis?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

The productivity that we refer to includes the top line growth leverage and there was significant productivity but there was also significant inflation and input costs in the quarter. The good news is that the combination of the productivity and the improved product mix completely offset the inflation but the inflation was significant. Chris Ferrara – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: I guess going forward do you expect inflation to continue and you might be able to price on that but do you not expect the same level of productivity? I guess the same level of productivity wouldn’t be inherent in what your sales forecast is going forward is that right?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

We’re actually very bullish on productivity. I think we have a good track record of delivering productivity. As we look at the short term we’re actually looking at inflation even higher than this quarter in the very near term.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Chris, I guess the other perspective I’d just remind you of is about half of our products are sourced and those sources are also prone to some inflation specifically, in the far east. The other half is the half that we have the leverage on to drive the productivity so we can leverage with higher volumes about half of what we sell. Chris Ferrara – Bank of America Merrill Lynch: Just finally, Mark can you just give your thoughts on strategic SG&A in light of the fact that you are more optimistic, sales came in much better than expected this quarter. Has it changed your plans on how you’re going to spend strategically this year?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

No, I don’t think it has. What I would give you is the following, number one, we would expect to maintain our total SG&A spend at or below 25% of sales for the year. We expect to spend incrementally. It would probably amount to $50 to $75 million of incremental SG&A spend to match both that 25% threshold as well as the increase in sales for a year and that $50 to $75 million of that increased SG&A, the vast majority of that would be on brand building and other strategic investments. Lastly, I’d tell you that it’s not different than what we would have told you at the beginning of the year. We continue to see good opportunities for investment and I cited a number of the examples in my remarks of how those investments are paying off, the effectiveness of our Papermate advertising, the effectiveness of our investment of better fixturing on our fine writing business, the investment in driving trial in our hand saw blades in Asia and so on.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from John Faucher – JP Morgan. John Faucher – JP Morgan: Two questions, the first would be sort of I understand the need to take pricing in terms of looking at the raw material inflation and we’re hearing a bunch of companies sort of talk about the potential for pricing so what gives you the confidence that it will go through and that retailers and consumers will both accept the pricing? Then also, if we excluded the SAP piece, did you see any sort of sequential improvement as you went through the quarter that shows that consumers are in fact coming back and you can feel a little bit better about the consumer because they strengthened during the quarter?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Let me start with the second, what we saw in the quarter again stripping out the SAP affect and the fact that some of our customers restocked their depleted inventories, we said what we saw that was attributable to increased consumer demand was about 2% to 3% lift. That’s something that we didn’t see a material change throughout the quarter, that was something that was fairly constant throughout the quarter. The other thing that I’d tell you John is that is fairly consistent with what we had anticipated in the second half of the year so really the way I think you ought to think about it is we just saw it happen earlier in the year than we had previously anticipated. We thought we’d be kind of flattish in the first year in terms of consumer demand and maybe rising to those 2% to 3% core levels in the second half, we just saw it happen earlier and that’s a good sign. That’s what was behind us taking our sales outlook up a little bit is the fact that we’re getting a little bit of that consumer off take a little sooner. On the pricing question, frankly on the Rubbermaid consumer business, our competitors have either followed or in some cases even led that pricing so that’s why we’re confident that is going to stick and believe that the investments that we’ve made in both exiting commoditized categories and in innovating and differentiating our products in the categories we remain in, give us confidence that those are price increases that can and will stick.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: I wanted to ask you about the earnings guidance because it was the higher sales expectations and with pretty good margin guidance I’m having trouble footing to only a $0.03 increase in the guidance range. Is there some other cost that we should be aware of or is that really just conservatism?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

One first let me say that the guidance recognizes better than expected performance in Q1. We were already expecting modest sales growth and that came in slightly ahead of what we were expecting. It’s still early in the year and we are still cautious about the economy and finally, as we pointed out before Mark and the management team may choose to invest more behind some of our strategic initiatives. So, we are optimistic and we think that was about the right amount of change in the guidance given where we are and all those other factors. Michael Kelter – Goldman Sachs: Then on gross margin and commodities, you said that you saw a lot of the headwinds already. Can you maybe detail which particular commodities are most difficult right now for you guys and which one maybe will be more of an impact later in the year?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Well the single one that I think is most obvious is resin. Here’s the way I would look at first quarter, we didn’t have any positive impact from pricing because all of our pricing takes effect in second quarter that’s going to cover for some of the increases in the resin. Yet, we were able to deliver 100 basis point improvement in gross margin. Why we’re able to do that and it’s a combination of we had a strong mix affect and that’s indicative of the effectiveness of our innovation so as we introduce new products or replace existing products we’re able to do that at a better margin structure. Also, every result is indicative of the strong productivity plans that we have. The way I think about covering for material cost input inflation is that if it’s what I call fairly modest or routine because we’re always seeing over a long period of time you see inflationary pressures that drive those costs up but I think we can cover that with productivity and mix. However, when those increases become more extraordinary as they do from time-to-time, rapid run ups than we will take pricing and the fact that we’ve invested in differentiated products improves our ability to do so.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: I wasn’t clear on exactly how much the price increase was and I know you said the two businesses but sort of can you tell us what the actual percentage increase of the pricing was and on what percentage of your portfolio?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Again, the price increases that have been announced have been in our Rubbermaid consumer business and our Rubbermaid commercial business. It varies on different items, I’m not going to give you a total number but it varies on items anywhere from 3% to 9%. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: I guess my second question, I know you don’t like to comment on specific quarters but between the pull forward of the sales from second in to first and then with the pricing having just gone through is it fair to say that we could be looking at definitely down earnings it sounds like in the second quarter but negative sales but also negative sales growth and potentially down margins just in the second quarter alone?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Let me see how we answer this one without talking about the quarter. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: I just think it would be helpful so people kind of know what to expect. Obviously a big negative surprise would not be a good thing.

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Look at our guidance for the full year and we are saying, we’re estimating $30 to $35 million is about the pull forward. We expect then core sales improvement, we anticipate before the year is going to come in more in the back half but after the over delivery in the first quarter, a little better than we anticipated in the first half. So we wouldn’t be expecting any quarter really to be negative this year. Wendy Nicholson – Citi Investment Research: Then my last question is just in terms of kind of your appetite for acquisitions? I know Mark you had said last year that while the macro was still so tough that was kind of off the plate but where are you now with your sort of higher confidence and your cash flow and all that? Is it time to open the doors and look at new things or where do you stand?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I think it’s still a little premature to do that. We still want to continue to pay down our debt and reestablishing our solid BBB credit rating and we have to do a little debt pay down in order to do that. So, I think what I said before stands.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Connie Maneaty – BMO Capital. Connie Maneaty – BMO Capital: Just a couple of questions on some of the items that you talked about, the pre-buying of $30 to $35 million, in which particular segments did that occur because I forget? Is it limited to the second quarter or might there be a little spill over in to the third? Secondly, of the $40 to $50 incremental spending planned for the first half I think you said you spent a little less than expected in the first quarter so what did you spend in incremental spending in Q1 and how much goes in to Q2?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

First on the pre-buy this was Rubbermaid consumer products and Rubbermaid commercial products as Mark indicated earlier. It was in anticipation of the SAP go live that was early in April so you would expect that to impact only Q2. Generally people will not buy pre-buy behind a quarter. The third part of the question was just the overall investment is there’s some investment that just shifts, some customer programs and stuff like that just shifts between quarters. We anticipate that the level of investment is not really going to change on the first half. It’s still the same just a shift between quarters.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

So specifically that first quarter was up $14 million year-over-year so the balance of that $40 to $50 would be in the second quarter. Connie Maneaty – BMO Capital: If I could ask a follow up to Wendy’s question. The question is on the M&A environment in general, I think you had a few assets that you were considering divesting. Are you seeing any more activity for those products? Is there more interest now than there was say a year ago?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

There is more interest and yet I wouldn’t tell you that it’s a prime opportunity so I think the prices are still depressed and so holding those businesses may be better than trying to divest them at this point in time.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: I have a handful of questions so cut me off when you get bored. The first one is was there any impact from Venezuela in the quarter?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

The answer is yes, Venezuela reduced revenue by about $12 million and operating profit by $4 million. There’s an impact of about $0.01 per share. We had told you before that we thought Venezuela was going to hit us about $0.04 to $0.05 and that’s still unchanged, $0.04 to $0.05 and we took a $0.01 hit this quarter. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: So only $0.04 to $0.05 for the full year?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Yes. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: Just in terms of SG&A, is that 25% ratio going to be fairly constant throughout the year? I know you said there’s going to be a big step up in spending the second quarter but isn’t the volume higher too because of the sort of pre-sell on the back-to-school stuff?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Yes, you’ll see some variability on that. Our third and fourth quarters are typically our heaviest investments in strategic SG&A, third quarter behind the exploitation of our back-to-school and fourth quarter because some of our products are seasonal and holiday gift giving kind of related. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: Then in terms of the inventory restocking, do you think that was a one quarter event? Are your retail partners pretty good with their inventory levels now or do you think there’ll be some more restocking going on?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

We don’t anticipate any additional significant restocking. As you know, this isn’t an exact science but some of our customers had stated that they’re not going to restock inventories that they think they’re about right. We obviously can compare what they have in inventory and what their POS looks like and based on that our estimation is that this was a onetime event. It was a good thing because it says that they’re more confident that their consumption is coming back but probably not a lot more benefit from restocking going forward. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: Then in the SG&A guidance, you come in way ahead of plan so how about in terms of instead of compensation accruals, are you going to kind of revisit that as the year goes on or do you think you’re pretty well accrued right now?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

We accrue on the basis of results versus plans so whatever the results reflect you can assume that there will be the proportionate amount of incentive accrual related to that. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: Then the last one I promise, the product line exits are done now?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Yes. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: So it’s going to be clean from now on so the organic and the core should be the same number effectively right?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Well, no. When you say they’re done they’re done meaning that we’re out of the categories we want. There’s still a hangover effect Bill in the second quarter of last year and in the third quarter of last year we were still selling some of the product lines that we are now no longer selling so there still is a hangover effect for a couple of more quarters. William Schmitz – Deutsche Bank: So I’m in correct. The organic number ex currency will be different than the core sales number?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

That’s correct. When I said they’re done we’re out of the things that we’re going to get out of. We don’t have any more new things to get out of but the year-over-year metrics will still show some effect.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: I just wanted to follow up on the tools, hardware commercial business because it sounds like you’ve got growth on the strength of international so could you just remind me what is the split of that business US versus international? Then secondly, I’m assuming and I think I hear you commented it was mostly US where there was restocking? That was all really customer demand driven, is that correct?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Let me try and take them sequentially. On the first question, your first question was what portion of the tools, hardware and commercial business is international? Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: That’s right.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

It’s a little less than half but it’s still one of our larger businesses. It’s one of the largest businesses in terms of this percentage, it’s above the company’s average. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: Then in that business that was all customer demand driven or was there restocking?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

It’s one of the businesses so the two businesses that we referenced that we said we saw customers restocking in was tools, hardware commercial and office products. We also I think told you if not I’ll tell you now that directionally that restocking was in our commercial and industrial channels so that had more of an impact on those businesses. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: That restocking was in the international portion of the business?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Well again, most of the restocking was in developed markets so that would be western Europe and North America. What was saw was kind of a combination of two things diving that business. We saw some strong organic growth, a faster rebound, we saw that I referenced the China Lenox business that we saw really strong results on. I think I referenced in my remarks the Latin America tools, hardware and commercial products business that was up substantially. So those weren’t related to restocking but we did get restocking help in North America and Europe in that business. So you have two drivers, in developing markets it’s a faster return of consumption and in developed markets it’s some of that but a bigger affect, a bigger positive affect from restocking. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: I’m thinking through go a couple of quarters down the road when you start to see some resumed demand in developed markets what that would look like and just to confirm that there was no restocking internationally.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

There is some restocking internationally but that would be in Western Europe. Lauren Lieberman – Barclays Capital: The final thing was just the $30 to $35 million pre-buy is there any chance you could split out for us how the sell betweens were in the commercial versus consumer?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

We could but we won’t.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co. Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co.: The first question I guess I just want to go back to the restock and I certainly don’t want to get too far in the weeds here but I interpret that as your sell in in the first quarter exceeded sell in by about two to three points, right?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Yes. Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co.: So if we go back last year there was a destock going on so even though it is restock impact is a one quarter phenomena you guys will still benefit in the next call it two quarters or so because you’re lapping periods where there was a destock going on?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

The way that would work Joe is we would have to be making a call on the economy. To the extent that retailers feel comfortable now where they are in terms of their stock levels they would only increase them if there is an increase in their outlook for demand in the balance of the year. Our assumption now is still what it was in terms of the economy kind of a slow recovery. Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co.: But the growth numbers you’re going to report in the next two quarters or so are still going to benefit from a lower base period because of that destock?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Yes, absolutely.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

But I don’t think trying to over analyze the destocking and restocking affects – why I say that Joe is because the destocking that went on last year at unfortunately every one of our channels and customers was in response to a couple of things. One is obviously in response to lower consumer demand. But, it was also in response to capital conservation on their part just like we were doing as well. I think what many of them learned is that they can operate effectively, they’ve put in systems and just put horsepower behind being able to operate with lower inventories. So I think you’re going to see some of that inventory never come back in to the system so trying to calculate the inventory take outs last year and put a relationship to that inventory rebuild this year, I don’t think you can do. Now, what we saw in the first quarter is it is certainly a net positive for our business, it’s a onetime help and that’s good. As I told you, I also think it’s a good indicator of the increased confidence that some of our customers have that they’re going to see a return to consumption. In that regard, that maybe that is a positive indicator. So when you talk about benefitting going forward, the benefit if any, is if those customers who are restocking are right, they’re betting on a higher rate of consumption and obviously that would be beneficial to us. Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co.: Then in terms of the pickup in underlying consumer demand, it sounded like Mark you had said earlier that that was pretty consistent throughout the quarter. You did not see that accelerate in to March and April?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

No, not really. Again, our systems are doing that. In virtually none of our categories do we have measured markets that we can get from Nielsen or IRI or those kinds of services. Our sophistication of being able to understand that wouldn’t be that good on a month to month basis anyway. Joseph Altobello – Oppenheimer & Co.: Just one last one, any impact from the healthcare bill on retiree health benefits? Any charges in the quarter?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

There was a small impact, it was immaterial Joe.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: As you look at the flow through of operating income, we don’t know the project acceleration parsing by segment but it looks like office products had about a 48% incremental margin and tools and hardware had just under a 20% incremental margin. Can you help us think how we should look at that going forward?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Are you asking us to project what we think in terms of margins by segment? Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: I’m trying to get you to help us figure out what’s happening incremental margin wise, the fixed cost, the variable costs equation so that as you look at it segment-by-segment?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Well, we haven’t given guidance segment-by-segment but what I would suggest is that you look at the overall guidance that we gave and we did say SG&A 25% or less and we did say we expect gross margins 75 to 100 basis points. That should give you kind of a broad indication overall of what the P&L should look like for the year. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: Let me try and get at it this way Juan, office products looks like it had a much higher flow through to the op line than did tools and hardware. Would that be a wrong way to read that? What we don’t know is how you parsed the restructuring or the project acceleration charges segment by segment.

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Well, there’s annualization impact but I would tell you that when you look at kind of relative operating margin in relative terms that tools, hardware group was actually stronger because they tend to have much lower margins in the first quarter. At project acceleration there’s the annualization of that will impact the margins quarter-by-quarter in each segment and frankly, I don’t think we’re prepared to talk to that level of detail. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: Looking at the business geographically, I think last year or in the first quarter Europe lost $7 million after translation. How are you looking at it geographically or do we need to wait for the Q to see that?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

The press release includes the geographic information. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: At the operating line?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

No, we have sales. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: Right, I understand the sales, I’m looking at the operating income line.

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Europe was up significantly in operating income margin year-over-year. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: Well, last year was a loss from the information in the Q so this year was profitable?

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

It was. While we address other questions I’ll look it up. Budd Bugatch – Raymond James & Associates: My last question is Mark you talked about the technical side of office products doing very well, the Dymo, Endicia and Mimio, can we get a feel for now what percentage of office products those technical products are today?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

No. Again, that’s not detail that we’re going to be giving out.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Mark Rupe – Longbow Research Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: On the tools, hardware and commercial segment, just following up on Budd’s question that you had cited that it’s seasonally weaker in the fourth quarter. Can you just remind us of that? Because, it looks like given the sales level in prior quarters I would have thought that that margin would have been a little higher in this quarter?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I’m not sure I follow your question. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: Juan had mentioned that in the first quarter that the tools, hardware and commercial segment margin tends to be a little bit weaker than the other quarters. Number one, I was just curious to see why and historically it has always been kind of a weaker sales mix seasonally for that segment but in this particular quarter it seems like the sales level was at levels that would have suggested a higher contribution margin.

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Again remember, the sales levels were impacted in that segment by both the combination of the SAP pre-buy and the customer restocking. So they had a larger than – we’ve talked about 2% to 3% for the company for both of those factors but obviously for that segment it would have been significantly more than that. Mark Rupe – Longbow Research: On the Rubbermaid commercial pull forward, was that strictly North America or was that globally?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

No, that would have been just North America.

Juan R. Figuereo

Management

Let me go back to Budd’s question. Budd I looked it up, Europe and this was on a normalized basis, keep that in mind, that may be different from what you see in the Q later but on a normalized basis, Europe’s operating margin was 3.7% which is a big improvement from negative in the prior year.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets. Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: I just have two questions, one I guess can we just talk about the home and family trends that we saw in the first quarter? You went over earlier just parceling out the offsets, I think it was like baby was weak in Japan, but can you just kind of go through was there any type of a slowdown there on any types of the customer spending where if you think about 2009 this was one of the areas that you didn’t see as much of an impact as some of your more discretionary areas?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I think that’s a good starting point Jason. We didn’t see as much of a negative impact and therefore we’re comping against relatively more stable numbers from a year ago. That said, we had two drags on the quarter. The one was in baby and parenting which is primarily because of the Japanese business, the Aprica business which is a business that really operates in the luxury segment of the market has been very hard hit and has not yet come back in Japan. The other piece was beauty and style where the timing of a major customer reset is affecting. It’s going to move business out of the first quarter and in to the second and third quarters. So sequentially I think what you ought to expect is that those business are going to get much healthier going forward especially in the second half of the year. Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: Then just on that, just with the Graco line which is I guess the line that I can afford, is there anything to look in to on the R&D side? I know there’s been a lot of recalls on strollers, car seats, now I think on the cribs, just anything to read in to that? It’s just something I’ve been seeing a lot of over the last couple of months?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Honestly, I think the only thing that you can read in to that is that there is a kind of shift in the focus of the CPSC and so I think you’re going to continue to see a higher level of recall kind of activity. That’s a shift in their governance. The fact that we are the number one brand in North America means that we’ll be involved in many of those. Let me just use the most recent, on the drop side cribs, this is an example where all drop side cribs are affected because the legislation and the regulations is going to phase out drop side cribs entirely. There aren’t any new ones being manufactured. But, it’s not surprising I think you would conclude, us being number one in share in North America that if there’s any recalls on things like that we’re going to be a part of it. I guess the last thing that I would tell you is that we treat this very seriously so while I also said that there is a kind of a shift in the regulatory environment to driving more recalls, we’re fully supportive of having very safe products in our consumers hands and making sure that they have an expectation and confidence in that safety. So when we do a recall we handle it very aggressively, willingly, willingly aggressively I guess you’d say and we get good marks from our consumers, good feedback from them saying, “We’re happy with the way you’re handling this recall.” Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: On that I have got to assume that the cost is immaterial but there’s probably a little bit more support spending to your moms out there just in terms of kind of making sure that they’re at ease with the products?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Correct and we’ve got either the proper reserves or the proper assumptions in our forecasts. What we’re seeing is not from a cost impact standpoint it’s not extraordinary meaning it’s not materially different than most years for us. Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: Then just the last question, you’re talking about some of the marketing spending and I guess with last year not spending as much because there wasn’t really much of an audience, how do you think about the spending this year doing things a little bit differently, a little bit more efficiently, coming out of the recession the discretionary nature of a lot of your products and getting customers to come back to buying where they haven’t shopped in maybe some time. Did you change that mindset a little bit or is this kind of sticking to what worked a few years ago and kind of going along those lines?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I think our mix is constantly shifting and you wouldn’t have seen Papermate TV advertising a couple of years ago but it was partly because we didn’t have a lot to advertise in terms of new products. We have new products now, we advertise those. I referenced what we did, the advertising that we did behind the Olympics and we also used that as an opportunity to do a control test where we have regions with the marketing and regions without that marketing and as I said the regions where we did the advertising was up 10%. We’re doing things that we haven’t done before and the other thing is that we’re doing a lot better job both measuring and testing the upside. So I think going forward I’m very confident that we’ll be spending on the things that work, spending on the things that resonate with consumers. Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: The last question, you were talking about some of the distribution gains that are out there, can you put a percentage around it, like what percentage incremental shelf space may be that you got or new points of distribution? Is there any type of context that you can put in so that we can frame it?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

I think I’d be hard to put in a broad term that you’d be able to relate back to an entire category but they are significant. They might be 10% and 20% distribution gains within any given customer so they’re big distribution gains but I don’t want to come back and give you an average and it would be inappropriate to talk about the customer specifics until they’ve actually shown up in the market place. Jason Gere – RBC Capital Markets: And that’s net against I’m sure there might be one or two losses out there to right?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

We get a lot more wins than losses.

Operator

Operator

Your last question comes from William Chappell – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. William Chappell – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: Just a little more color on the SAP implementation. I guess I’ve heard in the past customer buying in front of a price increase but I don’t think I’ve heard it as extensive in front of an SAP implementation and this is certainly not your first one. Was there a forewarning to clients that things might be off kilter?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Not at all. I guess I would say a couple of things, number one, this is the fourth big cut over that we’ve done in SAP in our businesses and all of them have been extremely successful with no customer blips. However, that’s not the case with other vendors, other manufacturers who have implemented SAP. There have been even recently other companies that do these cut overs and they don’t all go well and they can’t ship for a few days or the orders aren’t correct and things like that. So some customers just continue to worry even though we’ve had a successful track record of doing this three times prior to the Rubbermaid conversions that we just went through. But, nothing to worry they want very smoothly so in hindsight those customers can now look and say, “I guess we didn’t need to do that.” But they do it regardless because they’ve had a bad experiences with others. William Chappell – SunTrust Robinson Humphrey: It sounds like it was just a handful of customers not widespread?

Mark D. Ketchum

Management

Correct.