Frank C. Sullivan
Analyst · JPMorgan
Thank you, Derek. Good morning, and welcome to the RPM International Inc. conference call for our 2012 fiscal year third quarter for the period ended February 29, 2012. On the call with me today are Bob Matejka, RPM's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Barry Slifstein, RPM's Vice President and Controller; and Rusty Gordon, RPM's Vice President of Planning and Analysis and our soon-to-be next Chief Financial Officer, pending Bob Matejka's retirement. We are pleased with our performance across almost all RPM operations during the third quarter. Our Industrial segment businesses continue to show broad strength across numerous product lines, including corrosion control coatings and fireproofing products, various industrial and commercial flooring product lines, specialty waterproofing bridge deck coatings and expansion joints. In fact, our strength is coming from nearly all geographies. While in Europe, we are seeing some weakness in Spain and Italy, where we have a number of good companies with a strong presence. In general, our Industrial segment results across the European geography continue to show positive sales and earnings momentum. Our developing country results are also showing very strong year-over-year gains, though on a relatively small sales base. Even in our more cyclical construction products, sealants and waterproofing areas, we are starting to see some stronger year-over-year sales and earnings growth in relationship to relatively weak comparisons a year ago and growing demand in the repair and maintenance areas, as well as the impact of continuing industrial spending and some uptick in commercial activity. Our Consumer segment had an extraordinarily strong year-over-year turnaround, though I would attribute some of this to weather-related issues. While we generally don't like hearing weather-related cause and effect from operations in relationship to their performance, and I suspect our investors are the same way. Clearly, last year's third quarter in relationship to our Consumer segment was relatively poor due to weak consumer takeaway in retail and near-historic winter weather in terms of both cold, snow and longevity. In contrast, this third quarter, the seasonal low period for RPM's businesses has had a remarkably warm winter and a lack of snow throughout most of North America, and more importantly a significant uptick in consumer DIY small project paint and patch and repair spending. It is hard to tell how much of this is in relationship to an improvement in consumer spending and attitudes in these areas or the year-over-year weather comparisons, but we feel it is little bit of both. In any event, we are happy to show an extraordinarily strong quarter with unit volume growth across our consumer lines, up by 15%. I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Matejka, RPM's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, to provide you more details on our third quarter results. Bob?