Good day, and welcome everyone to the UGI and AmeriGas Partners Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2008 Earnings Results Conference Call and Webcast. This call is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks and introductions I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Bob Krick. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Justin. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. As we begin, let me remind you that our comments will contain certain forward-looking statements which the management of UGI and AmeriGas believe to be reasonable as of today's date only. Actual results may differ significantly, because of risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond management's control. You should read the annual reports on Form 10-K for a fuller list of factors that could affect results. But among them are adverse weather conditions, price volatility, and availability of all energy products, including natural gas, propane, and fuel oil, increased customer conservation measures, political, economic, legislative, and regulatory changes in the U.S. and abroad, currency exchange rates and competition from the same, and alternative energy sources. UGI and AmeriGas undertake no obligation to release revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after today. In addition our remarks today will reference certain non-GAAP financial for fiscal 2007 that management believe provide usual information to investors to more effectively evaluate the year-over-year results of the operations of the company in fiscal 2008. These non-GAAP financial measures, net income, net income per diluted share, net income per diluted Partnership unit and EBITDA, all excluding the sale of a storage terminal by AmeriGas in 2007 are not comparable to measures used by other companies, and should be considered in conjunction with reported net income, net income per diluted share, net income per diluted Partnership unit, EBITDA and other performance measures, such as cash flows from operating activity. With me today are John Walsh, President and COO of UGI; Eugene Bissell, President and CEO of AmeriGas; and Peter Kelly, CFO of UGI; and of course your host, Chairman and CEO of UGI, Lon Greenberg. Lon?

Thanks, Bob. Hello everyone and welcome to our year-end call. I trust you've all had the opportunity to review our press releases reporting our 2008 fiscal year results. UGI reported earnings per share of a $1.99 compared to $1.89 last year. Included in last year's earnings was a $0.12 gains on the sale of our terminal by AmeriGas. After eliminating that $0.12 gain the comparison would be $1.99 compared to $1.77 or about a 12% gain in earnings per share. Similarly AmeriGas reported a good year as well. AmeriGas reported net income per unit of $2.70 compared to $3.15 last year. Like with the case of the UGI, last year's results for AmeriGas included the gain from the sale of a terminal, and eliminating that gain results and net income per unit in 2007 of $2.51. So the applicable comparison would be $2.70 to $2.51. EBITDA rose to $313 million from approximately $293 million last year after eliminating the asset sale gain. Looking at our earnings performance for the year what I would point out to you is that we achieved our earnings growth and paid the dividend and distribution growth that we told you we would, despite encountering a very challenging environment. During fiscal year 2008, and I don't have remind you that we have experienced a rapid escalation in commodity prices to record levels. We experience warmer than normal weather and of course weakening world wide economies. It's obvious that none of these circumstances is a good thing for our business. Yet through adherence to long standing carefully thought out strategic plans and our unrelenting focus on execution, we were able to deliver on our commitments. As all of you know we have a diverse group of energy marketing and distribution businesses, and we adhere to rigorous fundamentally sound financial policies. We are not a significant producer of energy commodities and thus do not have the opportunity to benefit from the rising tide of significant increases in commodity costs. Rather we have to earn our money everyday as we have millions of relatively small transactions on a regular basis with our customers. We have said for many years we are a sound growth and income vehicle for investors and we believe our performance last year once again demonstrates that fact. Before I make any further comments I'm going to turn the call over to Peter Kelly to review our financial performance in more detail. Peter will then turn the call over to John Walsh who would give you some flavor for the progress we made operationally last year. Eugene Bissell will further amplify that on with regard to AmeriGas. And then it will circle back to me for some concluding remarks. And so, Peter why don't you fill up?

Thanks, Lon. As Lon covered in his remarks, 2008 was an extremely challenging year. Record commodity prices throughout conservation [ph], the weather didn't cooperate and a head of weaker economy. Despite this we once again delivered on our commitment... delivered on our commitment to deliver both growth and earnings and to increase our dividend. We continue to generate cash and at the end of the year, closed on a significant acquisition giving us additional natural gas, some propane assets that will be accretive in 2009. So, against that backdrop, I'd like to cover four items; first, our consolidated result for 2008. Second, some color on each of our major businesses. Third, our balance sheet and finally our liquidity. Our EPS was $1.99 up 5% from the $1.89 reported in 2007. Now I'm sure you'll all remember our 2007 numbers, included the $0.12 gain on the sale of our Bumstead storage facility. Excluding the Bumstead gain from 2007 the $1.99 reported for 2008, compares to $1.77 in 2007, an improvement over the 12% year-on-year. In addition for the 21st year in a row, we increased our dividend and now have the enviable record of delivering a dividend 124 years in a row. The $0.22 improvements over the 2007, adjusted number was largely a result of improved performance in Energy Services operations, which benefited from greater income from peaking supply and storage management services, as well as higher electric generation margins. In our international operations, the weather, a little warmer than normal, was colder than the record setting room temperatures of 2007. Turning now to our business segment results; AmeriGas' net income contributions for 2008, 2007 were $43.9 million and $53.2 million. As previously mentioned, the 2007 results included a gain of $12.5 million from the sale of the Bumstead storage facility.…

Thanks, Peter. Peter has taken you through the financial highlights of the fiscal year. I would like to focus on our operational performance with specific emphasis on progress on three long-terms strategic objectives; growing our core business, continuously improving operations and reinvesting cash in high quality projects. First, growing our core business. Our teams were tested this year with the combination of a decelerating economy, a sluggish housing market and high commodity prices. When faced with these conditions, it's critical that we focus on identifying and developing customers segments with growth potential. We maintained our focus on growth in FY '08 and delivered solid results. I'd like to highlight a few specific achievements. Our gas utility team did an outstanding job of moving quickly to take advantage of a significant opportunity to convert fuel oil and electric customers to natural gas. Conversions for the full year were up almost 90%. This strong performance more than offset the continued slowing in our new home segment, where customer additions fell by 20%. We added over 12,000 new residential and commercial accounts in FY08 with total customer additions exceeding prior year by approximately 8%. Antragaz is programmed for development of the cylinder segment through a combination of innovative product offerings, and a strong operations network continues to deliver excellent results. The Calypso branded composite cylinder is the market leading product. We added over 225,000 new Calypso customers in the last fiscal year. In our last call, I referenced Antragaz's agreements with Carrefour a leading French retailer to introduce a new private branded cylinder. This product was launched in June and the results for the first few months have been outstanding. We've added well over 100,000 new customers for the private label product and we are still in the process of rolling out the…

Thanks, John. It is a pleasure to talk about AmeriGas' strong 2008 results and to comment on the progress we've made on our core strategies. As Peter mentioned, AmeriGas achieved EBITDA of $330 million in 2008, compared $338.7 million in 2007. The 2007 results however included a $46 million gain on the sale of our Bumstead terminal. Excluding this gain, we increased EBITDA by $20.4 million or 7% compared to 2007. On the same basis, net income per unit also increased by 7%. Over the last five years, we've achieved a 14% compound annual growth rate and net income per unit. As a result of its earnings track record and our confidence in the future, we announced a 5% increase in our distribution in April, and raised our target for annual distribution increases from 3% to 5%. These results were achieved despite a nearly 50% increase in the wholesale cost of propane. The drill [ph] of selling prices to customers resulting in reduced customer demand as well as the impact of a weakening economy on commercial customer volumes. The dramatic increase in energy prices also raised our cost of diesel fuel for our trucks by over 40%, and raised our bad debt, travel and utility expenses. In total, higher energy costs accounted for over 40% of our expense increase year-over-year. Most of the increase in EBITDA last year was a result of effective execution of our strategies. Our objective is to increase earnings by 4% and distributions by 5% annually by growing our market share, leveraging our scale, driving productivity and achieving world class safety performance. We have a track record of growing our share through a combination of acquisitions, growth in our cylinder exchange business and strategic accounts and through growth in our traditional base of residential and commercial…

Thank you, Gene. Let me quickly sum up with the following thoughts. As you know we reiterated guidance of $2.10 to $2.20 a share for UTI's earnings in fiscal year '09 and $315 million to $325 million of EBITDA for AmeriGas. In the challenging environment that exists today, we see some positive factors that support our guidance. Among them are the drop in energy commodity costs that occurred over the last month or two is not only good for us but is good for our customers and is good for our industry. We have nearly a $100 million of cash on our balance sheet. We have a very strong balance sheet and importantly sufficient liquidity to support our businesses. We have good internal growth opportunities that John and Peter talked about which were available to us for the next few years. And in addition, given our overall strength, if other opportunities arise during this difficult time in the economy, we expect to examine those opportunities and pursue those which create long term value for our shareholders. I don't want our optimism to leave you with the impression that we are either unaware of or immune from the consequences of the difficult external environment that exists today because we most assuredly are not. However we have a long tradition of capitalizing on opportunities that arise in difficult times. In addition our keen focused on execution has served us well for many years and we will be focused once again on meeting our commitments. We will also continue to pursue our long term strategies as we focus on that execution. We remain committed to meeting our long standing financial goals of growing UGI's earnings per share 6% to 10% a year and increasing UGI's dividend 4% and at the same time increasing the distribution to AmeriGas's unit holders by 5%. We do have a very long standing tradition of meeting those goals. That should instill confidence in all of you that our projection for next year, which once again meets these goals, is obtainable. Finally, I'm comfortable that we are examining the right issues, putting in place the correct strategies and executing against clear objectives and goals as we move forward. Thank you very much for your attention and Justin, we'll be happy to take questions. Question And Answer

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. And the first question comes from Faisel Khan with Citi.

This is actually Barry Kline [ph]. How is it going guys?

How are you?

Good. I had a couple of quick questions here. What exchange rate are you guys assuming in your guidance?

142 and 142.

142, 142.

Because, don't forget, we've already got that hedged effectively because of the way we hedge our propane purchases.

Okay. And then over what period, did you hedge it.

That's... we got all the 2009 covered, most of 2010 I believe.

Yes, we got three years, don't we?

Yes, some of these are rolling ... We don't have much in...

That is okay. What type of demand ... what type of propane demand growth do you expect in both, the U.S and international and what have you seen so far with the decline in commodity prices versus your expectations with regard to the demand.

Yes, let me take a shot at that Barry. We ... the industry in the U.S probably are not going to experience any growth. And for us to tell you that we could grow our business, 5, 6, 7% you ought to be checking our sanity, I think that is something that's achievable for us in that environment. We do have a goal of some growth and the reason we are able to execute and create that growth is, we really approach it through three prongs and domestically, one prong is our cylinder exchange business, our cylinder exchange program really. And the other is our strategic accounts program and the third is our base business. And so, we certainly are going to grow next year is our belief but it's going to be very modest growth in the U.S. And so it's not an area where we have high expectations for growth but I will tell you growing modestly in the environment that we face with virtually no housing, new housing market, very difficult economic circumstances in the U.S. and particular in the Midwest and upper Midwest would be a very nice achievement in the current environment. Internationally we also expect modest growth, very modest growth and I'll take France, they too are facing similar issues that we face here. Little bit better growth probably in Eastern Europe, those economies are still growing, although we expect those economies to slow through the ripple effects, as we go forward. So, on balance I guess the answer is I could have short cut all that by saying very, very modest both internationally and in the U.S.

And I stepped off the phone for a minute before, I apologies if you already answered this but, which regards your revolver, what is the total revolver, when does it mature, and how much of this is currently available?

I could take it only because I know the answer, Peter can correct me if I overstate it, just for simplicity. Revolvers don't expire until 2011. We extended those out as we extended out virtually a very significant part of all of our long term debt. And if you think about our debts generally no revolvers are coming due until no earlier than 11 and small maturity in AmeriGas and 2009 small maturity in 2010 and then a big maturity for Antragaz in 2011. But that's it, in a net shell the maturity schedule.

And how much is in the revolver and how much is available?

There is three... in terms of the total revolvers,

$350 million for utilities, $200 million for AmeriGas, $50 million euros for Antragaz and we have a receivables line in Energy Services of $200 million. At the end of September AmeriGas reduced $43 million, utilities reduced $57 million and Antragaz had pulled down the whole 50 million euros and Energy Services had an outstanding balance of $71 million.

Okay.

Okay, and let me just Barry just add to Peters comment on our Antragaz, they pulled down the whole amount, but they are sitting with 69 million euros in cash and so effectively they haven't borrowed on their revolver and they can't pay it back because when you borrow under your revolver you got 30 day windows and when that window comes our expectation is that that would be paid given the amount of cash that they have at the end of September.

Got you. Okay, thanks a lot guys.

Sure.

The next question comes from Schneuger Shawnee with UBS.

Good afternoon, guys.

How are you?

Good. I just wanted to... I guess follow up a bit Barry's question, just to understand the guidance for AmeriGas. So as you said Lon, just a little bit of modest growth in terms of volumes, is there an implied assumption there of any acquisition volumes or that it would just be incremental to kind of how you're thinking.

Yes, generally speaking, when I talked about growth, I did not include acquisitions, but when AmeriGas budgeted since it is a strategic imperative for AmeriGas to grow by acquisition, we budget 10 million gallons of acquisition a year. But one of the things that's built into our year-over-year numbers is the PPL propane transaction, which was 20 million gallons that what is there last year, there will be there this year.

Yes, the total acquisition remained last year plus Penn Fuel would be 20 million gallon that we'll get the benefit this year....

Yes.

In addition to anything that you already acquired that's not part of the budget? Or, that is, sorry, and this part budget you expect to do another 10 million gallons.

Yes, we always budget 10, and if you look at our history over time, I think Gene said something that was ... at our analyst call that was probably averaging 20 million a year for the last five years or something like that, I can't remember how long it was?

I think that the deals that you do mid year are not going to contribute a lot in that year, they contribute more in the following year, so

Yes, generally what we'll do is, we'll budget a half year convention on that stuff. So, it doesn't have a big effect in this year's number what really drives this year's numbers from an acquisition standpoint, that this year being '09 is what we did last year that was not a part of '08, and not really as close to 20 million gallons.

So, I should assume that there was some sort of an investment CapEx above your maintenance CapEx when thinking about cash flows for next year?

Yes, there is, yes, we always have a fairly substantial growth CapEx number for AmeriGas. We are a little different than the other folks, it's the way our capital spending is up. We, as you heard, Gene pointed out, we have grown this must every year for a lot of years except for this year. And that growth requires cylinders for ACE, it requires cylinders and tanks for the strategic accounts, and it requires tanks, generally underground tanks for any kind of residential, commercial business you get.

In 2008, we spent $63 million on capital, 29 million was maintenance and 34 million was growth.

I mean basically the resurgence [ph] on your total CapEx basically between maintenance and growth should be somewhere between 30 or 50 numbers. How should we be thinking about this unless--

Yes I think maintenance is generally going to be in the somewhere slightly in the excess to 30 and growth is nominally somewhere 35 to 40 somewhere better.

Okay. Perfect.

Just one of the point on growth and Lon, referenced kind of residential, the challenges in the residential segment. There's still some as Gene mentioned there's some good growth opportunities and some specifics in the account wins but also in strategic accounts. So, we're planning on and planning for growth in both those targeted segments.

We have some nice backlog of some of storages in both businesses is right now.

Okay, and I was worried the first switching off AmeriGas. I was worried if you can talk about margins, kind of what you forecast, you guys expect margin did you accept a traction it all? where do you expect it to remain at current level given the prices falling at this point, I'm sort of kind of how you're thought was at the margins?

Let me qualitatively and then Gene jump in, qualitatively we do not see in marketplace any rush by the industry to reduce prices, remember this industry carries over inventory that's purchased during the summer, purchased during the spring and stored. And that has to oil work its way through the system, and of course it will as prices stay where they are, that will work its way down. And if you look at industry, statistics published by EIA, you could prices coming down. But we don't see a real, at this point in time, we don't see a degradation of margin. Our general philosophy is that there ought to be margin and a static environment, there ought to be margined increases sufficient to allow you to recover your cost, inflationary cost. And that's how we think about budgeting generally speaking. But of course that's subject to market dynamics out there. We are not the highest priced in the market place by far nor we the lowest priced. We try to deliver value to our customers in a variety of way. And we intend to compete in the marketplace effectively. And so, we have to watch it but I can tell you at this point in time we don't see as I should before any industry rush to reduce margins. There are price reduction is going but they're commensurate with a balanced approach on passing on inventory cost that people bought during the summer and passing on to the customers the benefit of the lower prices now.

Okay, I was wondering if we could sort of turn to Energy Services at UGI and I must have applaud you guys on the amount of disclosure that you put out there in. I guess it's unfortunate, I need to ask more questions. Lon, I was wondering if you first if you could start with the seasonality of the business. Clearly the fourth quarter in `08 is down significantly relative to the third quarter of `08. I just wanted to understand if there is a seasonality aspect to it, is this related to commodity, just sort of the difference between the third quarter or is it really just more a seasonality issue and you should be more looking towards the previous year?

Yes, seasonality is clearly there with two elements. If you would check that business from three parts, one is a gas commodity marketing business which is clearly seasonal. It's got a lot of winter peaking to it. And so you will always see some seasonality in that business because the customers by and large use it not only for process which would be more year around but the use it for heating as well. So, one third of the business, if we think of the business in thirds, one third of it is clearly seasonal. You've got electric generation business which is typically a little counter seasonal, but what you've saw on electric prices, as electric prices drop throughout the summer compared to where they were in the spring and so, we didn't get the normal seasonal kick, that you would get from electric prices. So, that piece, the counter seasonal piece was missing this year. The last piece of the business is what we call our, kind of mid stream peaking business that too is seasonal. They recognized the demand charges they get for providing their services over the winter months, which are when they need to provide those services. So, that third of the business is seasonal as, virtually seasonal, in fact perfectly seasonal but it's largely seasonal. So, nominally two thirds of the business is seasonal to the winter, a third of it is counter seasonal to the summer, but the counter seasonal part this year wasn't as good as it was as in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter because of the electric generation prices.

There is also, in Energy Services, there is a mark-to-market impact, but a gain of, at an operating income level of, $2 million in the quarter ending June, and they had a cost in the quarter, I mean September of $3 million. So, there is quite a big swing is just not a mark-to-market adjustment.

Okay. Is this a similar issue to what we had in the previous quarter where you...

Yes, it's similar to what we had. The impact at UGI level is about $400,000, so basically nothing for the year.

But, if ... but in the fourth quarter there was a $3 million negative charge relative to the $2 million positive gain?

Yes, an operating income level, it's basically hit us about $0.02 in the fourth quarter.

Hit you for $0.02 in the fourth quarter.

Yes, we ... these changes for... these are transportation, we buy, that we bundle to sell to customer for electricity and the accounting rules, which we studiously adhere to, But don't always understand, that's a proper way to say it. Require us that not withstanding with the effect that we presale this stuff to a lot of customers who will pay us for it. But we are obliged inter period to mark those to market, and the electricity price volatility that occurred in the third quarter and fourth quarter has tracked down transportation prices with that's of third quarter. So transportation become more valuable because electricity prices were based on gas at 12 bucks, gas tanked down to six bucks, electric prices fell commensurately and of course transportation fell commensurately. But, we were indifferent to it because we already sold the transportation at they sum but nonetheless because we do follow the accounting rules, we had some mark to markets in there. They're small relative to our business and so that's why we don't break them out with me after $0.02 this long winded explanation, we don't want to confuse people on it. It's not a big deal but you've identified the quarter's swing that's always been the biggest as Peter responded appropriately to it.

The reason I am here on this right now because we actually excluded it in the third quarter. So we wanted to make sure that we may the right adjustment.

Yes, for that intellectual ISP applaud you. And in order to do the same we got to exclude three million pre tax, is it Peter.

Yes, 2.7 for Energy Services and 3.3 for UGI as a whole pre tax for Q4.

Yes, our 3.3 pre tax for Q4 going and negative. So you can add that back if you like but again fundamentally, as we try... we understand you need to do your modeling and stuff. The end of the day over a full year there won't be any swing because we pre sell this stock.

Right, yes, exactly. So when that [indiscernible].

Yes, you're exactly right, you're exactly right.

Okay one last question here just with the natural gas project you kind of what is the effect of EBITDA impact for 2009 and what's kind of the what would be 12 months run rate, once that's running.

Sorry, of which project?

[indiscernible]

Well, I don't thing we've publicly disclose this, it's small

But if you look at their expected ROE on that project, it's sort of high teens for our $36 million investment.

Okay, thanks. And then, I was just wondering one last question. What is the AmeriGas value hike, I was wondering if you could give us wholesale volume for AmeriGas for the quarter? And what is the corporate CapEx guidance for 2009, gallons of sales?

Let see anybody have a copy of the addressed annual report to give him CapEx going on, 20 million gallons of sales for the quarter.

And the total CapEx is $325 million, 175 of that is growth and 160 maintenance.

Perfect. Thank you very much guys. Thank you for the attention.

Sure, thank you no problem.

And next question comes from Carl Kirst with BMO Capital.

Hi, good afternoon everyone. Most of my questions have been hit, really just a couple maybe to clean up and I apologize if this was mentioned in the opening remarks because I was writing furiously here. The LNG peaker did you guys discuss an update to the status of that?

No, that is something that's still in the investigatory planning phases and so has I think we said as our offside to that's kind of a 2011ish event. Money will be spend, 10 or 11 and we don't expect to see earnings rather until probably albeit late '011, 12 time.

Yes, certainly at an earlier stage of development then Hunlock which is why we focused on Hunlock today, we continue to progress and do the appropriate filings to defer but it's still sort of mid cycle in terms of development.

Okay, no fair enough. I just wanted to make sure I had it... which should be on the front burner and which should be on the backburner and understanding going back to utility and Pennsylvania here, we sort of lost the ground swell for decoupling and conservation trackers earlier on in the year. Does the environment that we are in, is there any anticipation that that might bring that back to the forefront or--?

I think Carl it's an intriguing question, I have a hard enough time predicting what I'm going to eat for dinner, let alone, let the legislators or the governor got to do and a very difficult thing. It's clear to us that the governor and legislature are concerned about energy prices, are concerned about the environment, want to put together some kind of program to handle the rate caps coming off and it will be electric business because of the great shock that will be experienced by customers beginning in 2010. In Pennsylvania, not ours because we are out of the rate caps but generally speaking the preponderance of the population of Pennsylvania. Since the variety of energy bills that were considered and the decoupling is not a principle driver in those bills, it's kind of an add-on, and it has some support we understand, but I can't predict for you, whether that will happen this year or not.

Okay, but it would be ... your comments are helpful, we're certainly not seeing a ground swell towards it, right now?

Yes, that's correct.

And I think that really is it a, just as a general. I know one we're really talking about 3% over the normal, 4% over normal statistically gets kind of difficult to spike the numbers here. But on sort of a fiscal year 2008, is there is any sense of sort of on a corporate 30,000 foot stand point. Had we have had normal weather are we're kind of looking it sort of a $0.02, $0.03 impact overall or something that was more of $0.05 plus?

I'd probably be in between, I'm sorry as you're talking, I was kind of, you think back to where our expectations were and everything else, I would say approximately a nickel, give or take a little.

Okay, I just want to make sure I was in the right range. I appreciate the comments, guys. Thank you

Yes, thank you.

And next question comes from Peter Iso with Schneider Capital Management [ph].

Hi, good afternoon.

How are you, Peter?

Pretty good. Lon, could you provide just some clarity or detail perhaps on the $175 million in growth CapEx that you've identified?

Yes, let me turn that to Peter, his got the details with him on that.

Yes, it's pretty tough year-on-year about probably $60 million, $35 million of that is in our Energy Services group, which took the projects that John was talking about. On the balances is in our international operation then in AmeriGas. This maybe around cylinder exchange type programs.

But perhaps that has increased about the absolute amounts by segment. You have something like that?

Well I have the... for two... to hand I have the 2008 number for AmeriGas which was $29 million of maintenance and $34 million of growth. I don't have to hand the individual numbers in terms of maintenance and growth. But I do have the absolute number if you like that.

Yes, I was specifically looking at on the growth CapEx by segment, so 175 broken down?

Yes, I don't have that to hand Peter.

What we can do Peter is maybe we can put that in... try to break that out in the annual report in some fashion so that at least it will get out there. This just broadly speaking, Peter is correct that Energy Services will eat a nice piece of the 175 with their growth program for the Hunlock conversion of the electric plant, let's call it all-in for Energy Services not nearly 40. And these are very broad numbers, normally 40ish for them and we heard what is safe for AmeriGas, Peter 40 for them.

About 40 from AmeriGas, that is 80, so it is normally half of it and Antragaz, part of it is dollar conversion numbers but I am going to say Antragaz could be 25 to 30 of their total capital budget and that area is growth related to their cylinder exchange business, their pipe business and other things they have going on. That leaves our utility business and remember we have the new business we've bought from PP&L. There is additional growth capital there. And probably the remainder is you see the utility business is where as John pointed out, we had despite the housing slowdown, we had nice growth in the utility businesses through convergence and otherwise. That's broadly speaking where the money has gone.

Okay, that's great. And, the other question I have that, did you mentioned, I may have missed it, but on the bad debt or accounts 30 days overdue anything, any information there in terms of trends.

I think, we felt, Jerry, maybe you can speak. Jerry can speak definitively about AmeriGas, and then we'll jump in on the others if we can.

I mean, I guess we're happy so far with the variations of transit. We tend to look at accounts there over 60 days, and we lost about 1% of brand that will be September to September and the same barrels per days is outstanding most of the day. So, clearly there is impact both on, the commercial and residential with slightly slower pay, but nothing like what we expect.

Only 1%, you will be going from 18% to 19%?

Yes Very marginal, shared margin outstanding.

We are and seeing, let me qualitatively answer it using Jerry's data, and knowing, I know where we are in the utilities and the other Energy Services. We get reports on that stuff. So, generally speaking we are not seeing a significant issue at bad debt at this point in time. I will credit all of our operating groups for doing an outstanding job of working with customers to avoid issues. We have lot of help [ph] programs in our utilities that help the customers that are low income and we work with them. I know AmeriGas lends a helping hand to customers where we can, and they are deserving, and we stay on top of it where we expect people to pay their bills and we act accordingly and we have groups who try to collect those. All that said, we don't see a qualitative problem at this time but it is something that we are watching carefully because the economy continues to deteriorate and utility bills, energy bills for customers are a necessity. And so, we just have to be mindful of keeping an eye on it and we have reported to do that.

Okay, great, thank you.

Sure.

And next question comes from Justine Mallet with Lord Adam [ph].

Good afternoon guys, how are you. Just real quick on the hedge you talked about the hedge on the propane buy. I assume that's transactional not translation, is that fair? And on the [indiscernible] on the international currency you're talking about.

Yes, what we do is we hedge I mean if it gets complicated but effectively we hedge propane purchases by Antragas, because Antragas has the currency on the Euro and they buy propane in dollars. And so, we try to hedge that cost of buying for them that locks in the exchange rate. And of course that creates gains or losses on the actual exchange rate. And when we go through all the calculations implicit in that technique, it has a direct correlation to hedging a good portion of our net income I guess.

And my follow-up is if you hedging your cost going in it generates a certain profit there and is that subject to any exposure on FX as you translate back to dollars or no you are saying that's effectively hedged?

Well, yes I need that there is to I think it effectively hedged on income. We also hedge dividends that they give us. So that if we expect a return of capital from Antragaz of 30 million euros or something, we will hedge that return of capital out as well. So we get a return of that capital at a level that we understand that will be open. So, there's a cash hedge effectively and net investment hedge and we have a propane product hedge as well.

Okay and just relative to Slag [ph] and the stories we've been hearing for the last month about Eastern European currency implosions and what not, do you guys get concerned at all from a demand perspective that, you know people who apparently are taken on debt, consumers taken on debt in euros and therefore when their currencies are going upside down, there have been a hard time meeting obligations and having to cut corners and that type of thing, is that a consideration at all?

Yes, again, the nature of our business is, we have large, we don't have concentrated customers, and we have a large number of transactions with customers in a row relatively small. What we saw last year was quite interesting, we saw a number of the Eastern European currencies appreciate vis-à-vis the euro, which was appreciating mightily against the dollar. So, we almost had a double effect if you will there. Recently, some of those currencies have come back in versus the euro, but then they expanded a little more. So, on balance, the other Eastern European country currencies are weaker to the euro than they were last year. But, they are still in a positive way. And we don't see much exposure to those currencies overall... give you a sense of scale, the entire Eastern European business is kind of 35 million gallons to 40 million gallons and it's broken up into thousands and thousands and thousands of transactions and so. We don't consider those currency fluctuations a big risk for us.

Okay. So that the debt, you guys stripped down the debt and are in heaven sitting in cash, is that... was there any particular reason for that?

No. It is AmeriGas, We pulled the revolver

No, no Antragaz,

Antragaz, we pulled the revolver and it was essentially because they allowed to reduce the interest rate on our long term debt.

Okay got it.

And so when you pull it down, you need to pull it down before year end and then you need to repay it that s why we have 69 million euros in cash.

Yes, okay. Thanks a lot.

At this time there are no further questions.

Okay good well. I appreciate all of you on the call today paying attention to us and asking such good questions. To make the happy exchange with all of you and share your thoughts, to summarize we are feeling good about next year of course we are, wary of the economic turmoil that's out there. But I think you pay us to manage that turmoil and we have got the liquidity, we got the assets, the balance sheet and the execution skills to work our way through that. So we look forward to talking to you in January next time where we report our First quarter earnings, and hopefully we will have some good information for you at that time, So talk to you all then thank you all very much.

And that does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. .