Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the fourth quarter 2009 PPG Industries earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Vince Morales, Vice President Investor Relations.

Hello. This is Vince Morales, Vice President of Investor Relations for PPG Industries. Welcome to PPG's fourth quarter 2009 financial teleconference. Joining me on the call today from PPG is Charles Bunch, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Robert Dellinger, Senior Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and David Navikas, Vice President and Controller. Our comments relate to the financial information released on Thursday, January 21, 2010. Visuals supporting this briefing may be accessed through the Investor Center of the PPG Web site at www.ppg.com. As shown on slide number two, our prepared remarks and comments made in the subsequent question-and-answer sessions may contain forward-looking statements reflecting the company's current view about future events and their potential affect on PPG's operating and financial performance. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could affect the company's operations and financial results and, as discussed in PPG Industries’ filings with the SEC, may cause actual results to differ from such forward-looking statements. The company is under no obligation to provide subsequent updates on these forward-looking statements. This presentation also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Pursuant to the requirements of Regulation G, the company has provided in the Appendix of the presentation materials reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. The agenda for today's discussion is noted on slide number three. And now let me introduce PPG’s Chairman and CEO, Charles Bunch.

Thanks you Vince and welcome everyone. This afternoon I will provide a brief overview of our fourth quarter and full year performance. Robert Dellinger will review details of our financial results. I will make a few closing remarks and then we will take questions. The fourth quarter of 2009 capped what was a challenging year. The global recession was both steep and broad and adversely effected many of our end use markets. PPG reacted decisively as we implemented aggressive restructuring and cost reduction actions and further increased our focus on cash flows. The impact of these efforts is clearly evident in our fourth quarter and full year financial results. Led by our coatings and optical and specialty materials businesses we have continued to realize positive momentum in our financial performance. These segments performed well and delivered higher year over year earnings. Given challenging end use market conditions our performance glazings business unit and commodity chemical segment weakened in comparison with the prior year’s quarter and a seasonally stronger third quarter. Overall demand in the quarter was lower year over year with the exception of double-digit percentage growth in Asia and improvement in a few select global industrial end use markets such as auto production. However activity levels were stable or modestly improved versus the third quarter 2009 when taking into account seasonal trends. Our increased operating leverage again being driven by our restructuring initiatives was a major contributor to our improved financial performance. This was most evident in our industrial coatings segment where earnings grew by $129 million versus last year’s fourth quarter on only modest volume improvement. In fact, industrial coatings earnings were even higher than fourth quarter 2007, despite over 15% lower demand. And our focus on cash and working capital continued with nearly $600 million of cash…

Thanks Charles, summarizing the fourth quarter, sales were down $72 million or a modest 2% decline versus fourth quarter 2008 sales which were partially impacted by the onset of the industrial recession. Commodity chemicals experienced a sharp decline in sales due to lower pricing. This decline was partially offset by higher sales in our other businesses including higher volumes in automotive coatings, and favorable currency impacts. Overall we experienced fairly normal seasonal sales patterns with the exception of automotive production which remained consistent throughout the quarter as opposed to the traditional pattern of trailing off in December. Our gross margins expanded not only versus 2008 but also versus solid 2007 results reflecting the impact from our restructuring actions, additional cost management initiatives, and lower input costs. Our full year tax rate came in at 30% based on actual full year mix of earnings by geography. The lower rate added $0.12 to fourth quarter earnings per share due to the catch up from the lowering of the tax rate the prior three quarters. We also estimated our 2010 tax rate will remain at 30%. We delivered very strong cash performance in the quarter generating almost $600 million and that is after recognizing an additional $100 million we contributed to our pension plans in December. Also we reduced debt by an additional $175 million during the quarter and ended the year with over $1 billion of cash on hand. The year over year bridge of our fourth quarter sales along with some relevant trends is depicted on the next slide and a full year sales bridge is included in the appendix for your reference. Negative price of $166 million is entirely attributable to lower selling prices in commodity chemicals and lower year over year energy and fuel surcharges in glass. We realized…

Thanks Robert, I will conclude our prepared remarks by highlighting a few key items. Overall demand in the fourth quarter improved gradually versus the third quarter when adjusted for the seasonal nature of many of our businesses. We experienced strong earnings leverage on the modest volume gains. While earnings have not fully recovered I am pleased with the pace of our improvement given the continued challenges in the global economy. We have completed our restructuring actions ahead of schedule and these actions benefited our 2009 performance and will do so to a greater degree in 2010. Despite the challenging environment we once again delivered strong near record cash generation in 2009 and raised our annual dividend payout. Let me end by saying that due to the severity of the recession 2009 was an extremely challenging year. Like most companies, PPG was not immune to wide reaching economic effects but we reacted quickly and decisively. The rapid and full recovery of earnings in our coatings and optical and specialty materials segments along with our near record cash generation as a corporation provides measurable validation of the soundness and execution of our strategy to focus on these businesses and expand our geographic breadth. As we begin 2010 we are guardedly optimistic. While recovery in a global economy remains gradual PPG is well positioned in several ways. Our strong and growing presence in Asia will continue to yield benefits based on economic growth in that region. We will also realize an incremental $100 million of savings from our completed restructuring actions that should enable us to fully leverage anticipated higher full year global activity levels. And we have a strong cash position of just over $1 billion to support earnings growth opportunities. That concludes our prepared remarks. Now we would be happy to take your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank

Can you comment on what you’re seeing in industrial coating demand trends by region both for January and how it looks for longer term.

The industrial coatings segment for us, the trends are positive especially here in North America and in Asia. In North America we’re benefiting from the rebound in automotive builds and as you know 2009 and the end of 2008 were periods of real weakness. So in 2010 we’re looking for a rebound in North America on the automotive side and a lesser rebound but still a positive push here in North America on the industrial coating side. In Europe the story is slightly different, we think that OEM automotive production will be relatively flat, maybe slightly positive depending on how the year proceeds and industrial production will be up slightly, these are low single-digit numbers in Europe. The real positive story for us is going to continue to be Asia. As we mentioned in the report Asia now makes up about 20% of the sales of our industrial coating segment. We had record automotive builds in China in 2009. We ended the year with a lot of momentum. The beginning of 2010 appears to be strong so we’re looking again in China for another 10% or so increase in automotive production. Korea and India are also positive and building momentum. And on the industrial side we’re seeing some strength in the consumer electronics and in automotive parts so I would say we’re looking in the industrial coatings segment to continue growth in Asia, return to growth in North America and relatively flat in Europe and South America although its less important for us, looks positive as well.

Can you comment on raws, are you seeing price increases in either T02 or some propylene based raws, if not, when might you see those price increases.

We saw the beginnings of modest price increases in coatings raw materials I would say these are now single-digit numbers in the fourth quarter as we went through the quarter. We have discussions going on now in most of those commodities for coatings. Propylene as you know has been going up throughout 2009, that’s the basis for many coatings raw materials so now I would expect modest price increases as we move through the year. And I’m talking now low single-digit kind of increases overall for coatings.

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin McCarthy – Banc of America Merrill Lynch Kevin McCarthy – Banc of America Merrill Lynch : To follow-up on industrial coatings your margins in that segment were the best since the first half of 2007, even well before the downturn commenced, I was just wondering if you could comment on the outlook for margins there. It sounds like you have a constructive volume outlook in raw materials are under control, should we expect margins to move higher this year.

I think we can overall look for improvement in 2010 in our industrial segment for earnings margins. I think we are going to benefit here in North America in particular from a year over year increase in automotive OEM production and the real story for us has been the restructuring activities. We have really worked hard at reducing our structural costs in our industrial coatings segment, both here and in Europe. And as you know from Robert’s remarks earlier in the presentation we are still now achieving at the end of the fourth quarter some additional cost reductions in the industrial segment so I think the cost story for us is going to continue to be positive. We’re going to pick up volume especially here in North America and in Asia. I think raw materials although there is some inflation out there, I think it is manageable so we’re looking for some further improvement in the coatings margins for industrial in 2010. Kevin McCarthy – Banc of America Merrill Lynch : And as a follow-up I think you made a comment that you would intend to manage the cash balance down this year, it looks like your target for incremental debt reduction is lower at 150 to 250, perhaps you could comment on uses of free cash flow in that context and touch upon M&A and potential for repurchase this year.

I think if we continue to have $1 billion of cash on the balance sheet same as we did the end of last year, we’ll likely return to a more balanced approach towards using our cash. Debt repayment will still be there, if its neutral or accretive to earnings to the extent our debt is trading above market and difficult to repurchase, we probably won’t chase it. And we will continue to look at bolt on acquisitions and may selectively consider share repurchases. And so I think over time we’ll look to be a little more aggressive in our cash usage in a way that facilitates earnings growth.

Your next question comes from the line of Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets: Perhaps another use of cash could be getting a luxury box at the Super Bowl to see the Jets play this year.

We’ve enjoyed the success over the past few years from the Steelers but I wish you and the Jets all the best to you. I don’t have a dog in this fight now so if you want the Jets, we’ll root for the Jets. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets: Just following up on the last question, you said that you wanted to get the cash levels down to historic levels, are you taking about half a billion dollars, is that kind of the normal levels that you were thinking of.

Yes I think that’s where we’ve operated over an extended period of time. You have to recognize that we do need to reserve some cash for a likely or potential asbestos settlement here later in the year. So, in the neighborhood of $300 million after tax, obviously we continue to expect to generate cash during full year 2010 so you’re right we will have flexibility. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets: A lot of flexibility, that’s not an insignificant number plus the higher CapEx is more than offset by the lower pension side of things so we can look for something of a meaningful bolt on let’s say or a fairly meaningful share buyback and something along those lines, is that something that is a first quarter or second quarter event that you’re thinking right now.

We’re not prepared to share timing on those kind of things but as we said we are going to look to be balancing our usage of cash. Bolt ons are clearly part of that equation and we are out looking for those and we’ll continue to look for those and we’ll selectively consider share repurchases. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets: So obviously a very nice job in 2009 on building up that cash balance front, and then just to, there was a question earlier about raw materials inflating up modestly on the coatings side of things, how would you talk about your ability to generate price increases such that you’re offsetting some of those raw material costs.

We’re working on price increases in a number of our coatings businesses. We think we will be successful in passing along cost increases for our coatings businesses so at these levels of expected inflation which are modest we think that we will be able to successfully move pricing in those businesses that would be effected. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets: And on the income statement there was a note D, that talked about $40 million from improved equity affiliate results, higher royalty income, as well as impact of gains on non operating asset sales, should we think of those three items, the equity affiliate, the royalty income, and the non operating asset sales in that order in terms of size relative to the $40 million total.

Yes, and I’d point out that this number, other income has averaged about $40 million a quarter over the last eight quarters with two exceptions. First quarter 2009 and fourth quarter 2008 where obviously we were severely impacted by the recession so our normal run rate here has been about $40 million a quarter. It has obviously jumped up a little higher in fourth quarter 2009 and we did see a significant increase in equity earnings and royalty income associated with our glass and commodity chemicals business.

Your next question comes from the line of John Roberts – Buckingham Research John Roberts – Buckingham Research : I think you indicated the automotive OEM market was expected to be up about 10% this year, how much higher than 10% will the first half be and how much lower than 10% would the second half be because the comparisons are very uneven as we go through the year.

I think what we said there is that we’re going to expect to be up about 10% globally and I would say that the percentage will be higher we think in the first half, a percentage increase would be higher in the first half than the second half because we began to experience a recovery especially here in North America but also we were building momentum through the year in China and in Asia so I would expect that you would see higher percentage increases in the first quarter and in the second quarter then you’re going to see later in the year. John Roberts – Buckingham Research : Would it actually flat in the back half of the year or you think you’ll still be up because you’re comparing against a little bit of a stimulus recovery here in the second half of 2009.

I think its not going to be flat in the second half of the year, it may be flat in Europe, but we’re not expecting a big difference but I would say that in North America it should be up in the second half as well and as you look at the broadening of the growth in automotive builds in the rest of Asia, places like Korea, India, even Australia, that I think you’re going to have growth in the second half in Asia as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Don Carson – UBS Don Carson – UBS: Question on the chloralkali business you mention that gas costs will be up sequentially in Q1, I know there are some caustic price initiatives but they seem to be taking a little longer to get in place, and chlorine is coming down, so the question is when do you see the chloralkali business bottoming and a follow on to that would be, I know there’s been some talk of closing mercury cell plants and legislative pressures potentially is that something you’re looking at doing that would help firm up the industry.

I would comment on chloralkali in, let’s talk about it first in the fourth quarter, we did get chlorine price increases in the fourth quarter. Actually volumes were a little better than prior year and sequentially in the fourth quarter. Some of that was related to the healthy export business that we’re seeing from PVC back and also back in the chain and also I think at the end of December we saw a little more strength again because of some of the uncertainty surrounding price increases that had been announced for caustic. As we went into the first quarter here earlier in the month I think there was lighter activity in part because I think there had been a number of shipments made at the end of the month around the pricing. We had bad weather. But we’re seeing now we think a positive trend on volume for chloralkali. We also are increasingly confident about the success of the $75.00 caustic price increase so we feel that even though we’re not going to be able to achieve as much of an earnings lift in the first quarter because of some of the export or mix volume and some of the higher natural gas and ethylene costs but we think we’re at the bottom here in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter so we think we see some positive trends for our chloralkali business and the industry in general. Don Carson – UBS: And as a follow-up any plans for closing West Virginia given the pressures on mercury cell capacity and could that be what helps turn the industry around.

I don’t at this point, we’re not contemplating a near-term decision on any mercury cell capacity. We did convert at Lake Charles several years ago and that mercury cell production for us at Natrium continue to be a part of our production planning and there is increased regulatory changer in terms of water quality and the rest but we’re confident that we can meet in the coming years the higher standards that we’re being held to in terms of emissions. In the overall industry for chloralkali in terms of supply and demand in the near-term there have been some production disruptions among our competitors and we think that has served to tighten the supply demand in the industry and I feel that with the enhanced export volumes that you’re seeing and if we see a return of economic growth here in North America I think you’re going to see that supply demand will remain in balance and that there’s no immediate need to shutter additional capacity.

Your next question comes from the line of Sergey Vasnetsov - Barclays Capital

What do you see in the commercial construction markets.

The commercial construction market remains weak. In the fourth quarter the business units that we have especially here in North America that have exposure to the commercial construction market and this would include architectural coatings, performance glazings, also some of our general industrial coatings markets, there were some of our weakest. We did not see a rebound in the market in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter its still early days but I would say at this point we’re not looking in the first half for an improvement in commercial construction. Obviously in some of the markets outside of North America and in particular Asia and China commercial construction activity is quite good. The activity in Europe is what I would call flat to slightly negative. But the big concern I think because of some of the issues in the construction market and the financing markets for commercial construction is weakest right here in the US.

And what kind of trends do you see in some other long lead time cycles such as aerospace and marine.

Aerospace has been a little weaker here at the end of the fourth quarter. We saw weakness in business or general aviation. That was probably the weakest market and maybe to a lesser extent some of the military applications. Here in 2010 aerospace we think still is holding up. The backlogs continue to slide for the big commercial airliners. We’re looking at lower backlogs at Boeing and Airbus but they have kept production schedules at the OEM level in aerospace fairly steady and we think that as they move through all the qualification steps and start ramping up production for the Dreamliner, the 787 at Boeing, that presents us and a number of other suppliers with some upside. So I think that if we can move out of this economic crisis environment 2010 should still be a good year for our aerospace business and we hope that if the recovery continues the backlog can rebuild itself over the next 18 months to two years and they can maintain some of the production schedule that we have. So our outlook there we realize there’s some weakness but we think that it is manageable for us. Similar story on the marine business, the production schedules in Asia and in China and Korea in particular have been fairly steady over the last year and we’re only looking for a modest decline this year 2010 in the OEM builds. Now the backlogs there are coming down as well. So we could have an impact in 2011 in our protective and marine business as they adjust production schedules if the backlog doesn’t start to rebuild. The aftermarket business for marine we think is going to be pretty steady. Most of the indicators now in terms of marine activity not the new OEM builds but overall ship usage are going up so we think that’s going to be a positive and a potential offset in the aftermarket business and the protective side of our business unit that goes across a number of industrial and infrastructure assets that’s been very solid in Asia and we look for that to continue. And we think that the business if the stimulus dollars here or potentially in 2010 in Europe can get to those projects that that will start to give us a little bit of growth because the protective side of the business has not been very strong here in North America nor in Europe and we’re hoping that industrial activity and some of these infrastructure projects as the stimulus money gets through could give us a little better story in that protective market for 2010.

Your next question comes from the line of PJ Juvekar – Citi PJ Juvekar – Citi: In your architectural EMEA business are all the synergies from SigmaKalon merger factored into the results and what do we look forward to in that business in 2010. And what I mean by that is your margins have always been lower than the US architectural business in Europe so how high can those European margins go.

Well we think that we were still working on our synergies and restructuring activities in the architectural business in Europe as we moved through 2009. We took a what I would call a significant restructuring in the third quarter of 2008 and that got at the initial opportunities we saw from the merger of SigmaKalon and PPG. But as we continued through 2009 the restructuring announcement in the first quarter of 2009 and our work throughout the year we think we were able to take additional costs out of our architectural coatings EMEA supply chain and so we think there is additional upside. I think Robert commented on the EBITDA performance of the former SigmaKalon business or the architectural EMEA business which was very solid in this weaker construction environment. So we think we have good upside going forward first from additional restructuring and then when we do start to see growth returning to those markets in Europe we think we’ll have good operating leverage and we think also that the combination of the two companies in Europe has given us additional purchasing power and the ability to work a little harder on our input costs in coatings in Europe. PJ Juvekar – Citi: I was wondering if you could quantify those savings that you generated in 2009.

Maybe I can touch on those, our original synergy target was about $50 million in 2008. We beat that. In 2009 we’re looking for another $40 to $50 from synergies. We achieved that. We counted on a little extra maybe $20 to $30 million in 2010 and we saw most of that into 2009. So I would say we’re ahead on the synergy target. Charles talked about the additional restructuring actions. Those had some benefit this year we’ll have continued benefits into 2010. So I think we’re on and ahead of those commitments. To your other question, this business will be less volatile on the downside in a recessionary environment and it will go up at maybe a more modest rate in an upside environment. That is the nature of it and I think we’ve seen that in the difficult economic environment in 2009. It held up very, very well. PJ Juvekar – Citi: And I have follow-up question on chloralkali, one of the arguments put forward by PPG is that as coatings raw materials go up the same environment chloralkali makes more money so there is a natural hedge in the portfolio. And how strongly do you believe that that hedge will hold up in 2010.

I would say that if you looked at the period when we had the strongest raw material inflation and this would be during 2008 especially those first three quarters, you saw at that time the strongest performance for chloralkali. Now its typically been a lagging business unit in terms of its performance so it lags the recession. We’re feeling some of that now. We think as my comments on Don’s question is that we are near the bottom of the chloralkali cycle and we’re looking for improvement through the year in 2010 even if we’re still at a relatively low point. So I think you’re going to see a similar phenomenon out of the chloralkali business. As I’ve commented the increases that we’re seeing in raw materials are modest at this time and we’re always going to have somewhat of a lag on that with our chloralkali business but we also feel that we also have a lag in terms of when we get raw material increases either because of contracts or our ability to negotiate with our suppliers. So we think that we will still get the benefits of chloralkali in terms of that counter cyclical performance.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Koort - Goldman Sachs

On the commentary around your auto refinish, you mentioned that demand was weak there and the lack of a restocking cycle, did you not push through the typical end of year price hike to [inaudible] early year price hike to incentivize those dealers to restock.

We did have some pricing activity in refinish in the fourth quarter but we did not provide any additional incentives for our customers, our dealers and distributors to incentivize them to buy and I think this is in recognition of let’s say the more fragile nature of the recovery and the balance sheet or borrowing capabilities of everyone throughout the chain and I think what we’ve seen during this cycle as you’ve heard from our commentary about how we’ve watched cash and tried to deliver good cash performance, strength in the balance sheet, we’ve see that add any number of customers including the automotive refinish customers. So that they clearly have been watching their balance sheets more closely so rather than restock aggressively to take into consideration a buying window or some other incentive from the manufacturers we’ve seen what now is no longer a destocking because that was their initial reaction especially earlier in this year, they were destocking inventories that they had been holding but this year we’ve also been listening to them so they haven’t been asking us to hey give us some incentive so that we can restock. Let’s manage demand and let’s manage our inventories to the level of activity that we see out there. Now we also saw at the beginning of this month some more severe weather here in North America and in Europe so we’re hopeful that that will lead to increased demand as we get into the spring because of the number of accidents and the other things that happen with that bad weather. But it did make it a little tougher at the beginning of this year to look at economic activity in both the North American and European markets because the weather over the first two weeks, its moderating now, was much colder and we think that we’re not as able as a result of that here sitting in mid January to say that we’re going to see this sell through but we’re more confident that as the quarter goes on we get into spring, refinish will be a stronger market because we definitely experienced destocking during the course of 2009.

I can sadly say I helped your refinish business in the fourth quarter unfortunately.

We’re sorry to hear that, slightly happy.

On the architectural EMEA obviously you have pointed to a much more stable market there given the dynamics of the paint industry, I guess that removes some of the opportunity for a big reversion to the [mean] as things get better, can you sort of put in context where historically those margins have been. You’ve shown us now they’re sort of in the 11 to 12% range, where could they go if everything starts to hit on all cylinders in Europe.

I would say if you look historically at the EBITDA margins for the business in Europe and this goes back to periods before they were part of PPG, they have traditionally been in the range of let’s call it low to mid double-digit so on an EBITDA basis you’re probably looking at 10 to 13, 14% so there is I think some modest upside if we get some good growth and we continue to work hard on the cost synergies. But I would say some other margins that we’ve seen historically out of PPG business where you’re north of 15%, I don’t think we’re going to see that kind of growth especially for the next couple of years because I don’t think the European construction forecast is robust at this point. So I would say that I think we can see some further improvement but we’re going to need some additional growth both in the continent and also in that emerging Eastern European region for us to move it up significantly over a percentage point or two.

Your next question comes from the line of Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: Just a clarification, that gain on the sale of the non core assets how much was that and where did those earnings fall in the segment numbers and unrelated to that did you sell any platinum in the quarter that may have contributed some earnings.

To my knowledge we did not sell any platinum. The other income as I said is slightly higher than its historically been. We’ve normally run about $40 million a quarter, we’re up to $52. Principal driver was higher equity earnings from affiliates and royalty income streams which impact the glass and commodity chemical segments. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: But can you quantify the asset sale component.

The gap between our average and this high level. I would use the gap between where we’ve been averaging and this $52 million you mentioned. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: With regard to your stores, where did you start the year in terms of numbers of stores, where did you end and what are your plans for stores for this year.

We started I would say on average around 425, we’re now at 400 and we think this is the right number of stores for our footprint and so we’re not contemplating any significant move on store count. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: And with the increase in capital spending what would be an example of some of the new projects, are they cost reduction projects, are they capacity projects, what type of strategic thrust do the higher cap spending have.

Well the biggest single project that we have in 2010 is we have started, we announced this last year a new resin plant in China, Zhangjiagang, and so that is the biggest single capital project for PPG this year and that would be an example in Asia and in China in particular the capital spending increases are to meet demand. We do have, we are running pretty hard at our facilities in Asia, so I would say Asia, the capital is more tied to growth. In North America and in Europe its mostly cost reduction, productivity, maintenance of assets, they are not capacity driven projects in North America and Europe. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: Strategically when you think about your portfolio of businesses which has the glass and has the chemicals and has the silicas, what would you like to achieve. It takes two to tango obviously but what would you like to achieve during 2010 in terms of further repositioning the portfolio of businesses within PPG.

Well right now as Robert indicated in our comments about use of cash we would like to start making smaller bolt on acquisitions. We still think that there are things for us to do especially outside of North America in terms of improving our position in coatings. So that would be I think further, that would accelerate to a limited extent what is already a natural tendency of these regions to grow a little faster and our portfolio to grow a little faster. At this point we are obviously trying to work ourselves through some tougher times in our glass businesses and also in chloralkalai, these are more asset intensive higher asset industries and businesses. We’ve been pleased during this cycle with the contributions for chloralkali. We think that the fiberglass business is coming back. The performance glazings business however is being challenged by this weak commercial construction market in North America. So we’d like to see those businesses rebound to a position where they are contributing more to the portfolio but obviously our priority is to continue to grow our optical business and our coatings businesses especially in some of the higher growth developing regions and I think you’re going to see that our portfolio will continue to move toward those priority businesses over time regardless of whether we’re successful in making larger acquisitions.

Your final question comes from the line of Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research

A couple of questions I would like to follow-up on, you talked about the silicas business being up significantly in the optics and specialty business, and I think you also said that the optics business was up a little bit and yet your volumes are down in the quarter on a year over year basis so what was the offsetting business that did not do well.

We said the silicas business volumes were up. We said the optical business sales were up aided by currency. So currency was the delta there.

So actually the optical business then excluding currency was down enough to offset the improvement in the silicas.

Correct.

Then secondly on the natural gas you talked about only hedging 25% or so of your needs in 2010 at about $8.00 so is that going to trail off from 50 to 25 through the year or are you basically going to start the year at about 25% hedged.

It does ramp down and its I think maybe it goes from 30 to 20 over the course of the year. So we are burning off those hedges so that the amount of hedged natural gas at the end of the year will be lower than what it is right now.

And can you give us an idea of kind of what your outlook for natural gas is that you’ve decided to reduce your hedging.

Obviously hedges protect you on the upside, they don’t help you, they hurt you when you’re in a natural gas market like we’ve been in and we’ve been trying to understand what’s going on in natural gas. We don’t know if what we’ve seen during the course of 2009 was the result of the reduced, the recession and reduced industrial activity, was it the result of increased demand, especially with some of these shale gas finds. So we have a little less confidence I guess you would say in our ability to forecast or predict the market and so what we’re saying now is that we’re prepared especially until we better understand the supply side and what’s happening with shale that maybe the assumptions that we were under over the last few years, that natural gas was a diminishing commodity and we were going to face inflationary pressure for the foreseeable future. We don’t believe that now. And we’re trying to understand the market and we think we don’t need to have the positions out in the out years that we’ve had and we didn’t see even during 2009 the forward years, there wasn’t as much of a decrease from kind of a spot or monthly rate. So we seem to be paying or the hedgers that we’re paying a premium for that ability for the ability to kind of lock in those costs and maybe that’s appropriate for utilities that can pass some of those through to their regulatory agencies but it wasn’t as appropriate for us.

Turning our attention to the automotive OEM side of the business, you talked about not seeing any tail offs in production in December that you would typically expect towards the end of the year, is this just being delayed. Are you seeing production being curtailed in January or do you think the inventory has been depleted enough in the second half of 2009 that the producers are basically not taking the shutdowns they typically do.

Yes, automotive OEM in this country we saw a little more strength in December versus certainly last year or historically some of the shutdowns. I think they are still working to get through, to rebuild inventories in certain models here in North America so we think that the first quarter is going to be a solid quarter and then maybe the manufacturers will kind of take stock of where their inventories are, what they see the demand being and they could make adjustments down or up following this quarter but it looks like in North America things are fairly locked in. In Europe we think that it’s a little less clear but in Asia and especially China we see production moving through the end of the year with a lot of momentum. Chinese New Year is a little later this year. Its in the middle of February so our production levels here at the early part of the first quarter are still strong. We are hearing as we have all been hearing about some of the movement of the Chinese government in terms of financing or borrowing and lending in China. So I think it’s a little too early for us to say that this thing is going to continue at the 25% plus kind of numbers for all of 2010. We don’t forecast that for China. Our forecasts are more modest then that. But at this point we’re seeing very good production in Asia and in China.

Can you give us an idea of how big your Asian business is versus your US business in automotive OEM paint.

Our automotive OEM coatings business is about 20% of our total, we’re about a third in North America and the balance would be in Europe and in some of the outlying areas, South America and South Africa as an example.

So not much in Asia then.

No, we’re 20%. For us this is very, we think its, and none of that is in Japan. We have not been able to penetrate the Japanese market at all so that we think that 20% of our sales now in automotive OEM coming out of Asia with no content in Japan and this has all been delivered for the most part over the last five plus years, we’re quite pleased with our performance and how we’ve balanced geographically in that business unit.

And then on the autos, as part of your industrial coatings business how big is autos in 2009, or how big was it in 2009.

It was still, automotive OEM was still our biggest business unit within that industrial segment. You have to know that the industrial coatings or some call it the general industrial business unit which is the second largest business unit in that segment was also effected, not quite as much as automotive OEM but it was still down so in 2009 and 2010 the automotive OEM business will be the biggest one in that segment.

There are no additional questions at this time; I would like to turn it back over to management for any additional or closing comments.