Associated Banc-Corp (ASB) 2009 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Associated Banc-Corp third quarter 2009 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

During the course of the discussion today, Associated's management may make statements that constitute projections, expectations, beliefs, or similar forward-looking statements. Associated's actual results could differ materially from the results anticipated or projected in any such forward-looking statements. Additional detailed information concerning the important factors that could cause Associated's actual results to differ materially from the information discussed today is readily available on the SEC website in the Risk Factors section of Associated's most recent Form 10-K and any subsequent Form 10-Q.

Following today's presentation, instructions will be given for the question-and-answer session. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS.) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, October 22, 2009.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Beideman, Chairman and CEO of Associated Banc-Corp. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Damien, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in our third quarter conference call. Earlier today we announced earnings of $0.07 per share, and that compares to a loss of $0.19 per share in the second quarter. As is usual, I'll make a few comments on several important components of our earnings and open things up for questions. And I have here with me Joe Selner and Scott Hickey for that purpose.

First of all, on the margin. As you can see, the margin improved by 10 basis points in the quarter to 3.50%, and this improvement really is primarily the result of aggressively managing the cost of funds. We were able to reduce the cost of our interest-bearing deposits in the quarter by 24 basis points, with the loan yield dropping significantly less. And as a result, net interest income was basically flat quarter over quarter, even though the asset levels of the Company declined. Even with this aggressive pricing management on the deposit side, we did experience growth in both interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing deposits in the quarter.

In terms of fees, we've experienced some recovery in our core fees, core banking fees. And as a result, they were up slightly in the quarter. Wealth management fees, service charges, retail commissions all increased slightly, and that's a trend that we haven't seen, really, in the last couple of quarters.

The big swing in fees certainly was in the mortgage banking business. And it was off significantly in the quarter as compared to the second quarter, and the total contribution was down nearly $29 million. This is the result of an MSR swing in valuation between the two quarters of about $14 million, but also a decrease in originations from really what was record levels that we were seeing in the second quarter by almost 50% as that business began to wane.

Expenses in the quarter, I think, are really a good story. And on a quarter-to-quarter basis, expenses improved significantly, really more than offsetting the decline in the mortgage business. And we've seen expense reductions in virtually every category that we track in the quarter.

There were some one-time reductions from the FDIC, one-time charges in the second quarter and from that large OREO expense that we experienced in the second quarter that changed the run rates by about $15 million. But the rest is the result, really, of, I believe, some focused efforts on the part of our management team and our colleagues to be as efficient as possible in this challenging environment.

Staff expense reduction is the result of certainly being more productive, as we've been working very hard to manage the core salary expenses and headcount. But it's also the result of managing the variable aspects of our compensation, which allows us to reduce overall staff expenses in these very challenging times, but also creates the potential in the future to restore variable dollars of expense as appropriate when performance levels in the Company improve.

So when you put all that together, pre-tax, pre-provision earnings, in spite of a $30 million reduction in the mortgage business, increased slightly quarter over quarter, and we feel pretty good about that.

Focusing on credit. As we discussed in our call at the end of the second quarter and in meetings we've had since then with investors and analysts, we expected to see that the pace of deterioration in metrics affecting credit quality would moderate, and we did indeed see some moderating trends here in the third quarter. The total provision was $95 million compared to $155 million in the second quarter. Charge-offs were up significantly, to $90 million, and that's clearly higher than the level we saw in the second quarter. But that can be attributed virtually entirely to one financial institution's credit of $25 million, which we have discussed previously.

Exclusive of that charge-off, charge-offs were essentially flat to the level that we saw in the second quarter. And having dealt now with that financial institution's credit, we feel that we've gotten some uncertainty dealt with here and have gotten it behind us, which we feel good about.

Regarding the key credit metrics overall that affect provision, I think we saw some true moderation there. The potential problem loans in aggregate increased $150 million, which is down significantly from the increase in the second quarter of in excess of $400 million.

Loans past due 30 to 89 days also declined over 16% in the quarter, to the lowest levels that we have seen since the fourth quarter of 2007. And as those trends begin to moderate, then we believe that over time here that it will take some pressure off those provision expenses.

Total criticized assets again increased by about $186 million, but again, that's measurably lower than the numbers that we've seen in the second quarter.

NPAs grew $150 million in the quarter, down from $278 million in the second quarter, so again, some level of moderation. And I'd like to make a point about the nonperformers. We're seeing a trend developing and evolving here where we are seeing more and more--I'll call it "performing nonperforming loans"--47% of the loans that went into nonperforming here in the quarter are current, and we think that that's a factor that's going to gain in importance to us as the industry continues to go through this challenging cycle. But 47% of the total nonperformers that went into the nonperforming bucket in this quarter are current.

And that results quite often from the credit is performing, but the collateral valuation, or the loan to value based on recent appraisals is below the value, and as a result, creates the potential for an event that could cause a charge-off in the future. But the loan itself today is performing.

So while we believe that, given the level of non-performers that we have, and we're far from out of the woods in this whole cycle, that we'll continue to experience charge-offs that are at an elevated level. We're hopeful that the pressure on overall provision will continue to be much more moderate than the levels that we saw in the second quarter. So the aggressiveness with which we try to deal with the deteriorating credit we saw in the second quarter and showing by this quarter, and hopefully what can be then a trend as we go through future quarters here, isn't a new run rate, and that that moderation that we've talked about, through some of these important variables that affect the future need for provisioning and the future level of non-performing loans, are indeed moderating.

Just a last couple of comments. In terms of capital, tangible common increased pretty measurably, from 6.09% in the second quarter to 6.64% in the third. That comes from making money, but also the shrinking of the balance sheet. And so we've seen some positive momentum there.

And, if I could, one last comment regarding the search process that we're going through now for the CEO position. We're really making quite good progress there, I believe, and we are beginning to work down to a list of a select few. And I would suggest, from my perspective, I'm confident that we'll be able to meet the timeframes that we have articulated to have that position filled between now and the end of the year and have a good, smooth transition period.

So with that, I'll be happy to open the lines up for any questions that you folks may have, and we'll endeavor to answer them as best we can.

Thank you, sir. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS.) Our first question comes from the line of John Arfstrom with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys.

Hi, John.

A quick question on the provision. How much of the provision expense would you say is related to the $25 million charge-off that you talked about?

I would suggest--well, how about we answer it this way? If you pull out that credit from consideration, the coverage for provisions to charge-offs was about 130%.

Okay. Very good.

Which is, back to, again, sort of a more normal kind of loan.

Yes, okay, good. That makes sense. And then charge-offs beyond that $25 million, you said there was really nothing material or worth discussing beneath that. Can you just maybe expand on that a little bit?

Well, the C&I component of the charge-offs, really, were sort of elevated this quarter, and you can see that, I think, in the tables. And the difference in the charge-offs this quarter within the C&I book versus what we've seen in prior quarters is that there aren't really one or two really big credits that caused this, but the largest charge-off exits, this financial institution's credit was about $4.5 million. So it's across a series of smaller credits.

And I think what we're going to continue to see in this C&I bucket is that there will be volatility in that number quarter to quarter. I believe two quarters ago, the charge-off number for C&I was around $30 million as well, but then it fell back down to $15 million, and before that, it was in single digits. So there's going to be more volatility in that C&I book, but I think we're moving away from the issue around larger credits that we've had, really, in the last few quarters, if that gives you any color.

That helps, and then just one more somewhat related. Can you just maybe compare how you feel about your consumer exposure versus commercial? We've seen some moderation in consumer losses with other companies, but it seems like commercial is really the story. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how you feel about it?

Yes. We're continuing to see, I'll call it measured deterioration in our home equity book, as the weakness in the economy continues to affect customers. But to a large extent, it's never really been as serious a problem for us, maybe on a relative basis, as for others. We've actually seen the mortgage charge-offs, the mortgage business, begin to actually subside. In this quarter, it was nine basis points. And it's never been at a very high level, but it moved up a couple of quarters before, and then it's come back down to this less than 10 basis points level.

So as long as the economy stays weak, we think our consumers are going to feel some pressure. But we believe that we've underwritten that stuff with pretty good discipline and that it's not going to really aggressively move to elevated status. Our issues over the last year to year and a half have been clearly in the construction portfolio. And we think that's how they're going to move towards the C&I area as time goes on here, because the economies are weaker. But again, then there will be volatility quarter to quarter in some of those numbers.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Terry McEvoy with Oppenheimer and Company. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys.

Yes, hi.

We saw a slowing in the growth in the C&I nonperforming loans on this commercial real estate and continued growth rate still on the high side. Could you talk about what types of credit are driving that increase, either geographically, concentration of borrowers, et cetera?

How about if I let Scott talk about that?

Okay, great.

Yes, Terry. If you look at our construction book and the challenges for this quarter, the non-accruals, it was really fairly well diversified from product type--a couple of office properties, a condo, a couple of land deals, all of them where the majority of the driver, all of those are in footprint-type deals. So we didn't see a real concentration in any one product type, and that was all within footprint.

And then, moving over to capital, it's nice to see the TC ratio up above 6.6%. As you run your internal stress tests and look at potential capital needs going forward, (a) do you think you'll need some capital in the future, and then I believe you have some subdebt in trust preferred. Would that be one option, possibly converting that to common equity, that you would potentially look at?

We are looking at, we are constantly investigating issues around capital and looking at the subdebt and evaluating where we think we are in regards to tangible common. There's several variables that will affect it. We're very happy that the ratio has moved and continued to strengthen, and that certainly takes some pressure off in terms of tangible common.

But we've got to think about, over time, what the regulatory environment's going to be like and any information that comes out from them about bank capital levels in general, we need to respond to that. We need to think about what our plans are going to be over time in regards to exiting of the TARP program and the like. So these are things that we evaluate with our Board constantly.

That subject comes due in 2011, and we need to think about how to position that, but at this point we don't really have a gun to our head, and as our ratios stay strong, I'll continue to say what I've said in the past. I don't know that raising capital for us is an absolute requirement, but it's something that we just keep thinking about on an ongoing basis with our Board and investigate.

So I'm not going to sit here and say we're not going to do it, but I'm not going to sit here and say, "Gee, we've got to go do it in the next month," either. It's something we're thinking about all the time.

And that's not a good answer, but it's an honest one. It's something that we're just, we continue to investigate and analyze. And we're waiting, I guess, to some extent, to see what, how the regulatory environment in general evolves and how, what the view of regulators are at a macro level around the industry regarding capital and what appropriate levels are, and I think over time there's going to be more clarification around those issues as well.

Okay, great. Thanks, Paul.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dennis Klaeser with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Dennis.

Hey, I just, you were talking about performing nonperforming assets, and 47% of the new NPAs were actually performing. When you look, think of the entire pool of NPAs, do you know what portion fits into that category?

It's in excess of 25%.

And for those credits--.

And if I could, understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying "less than 90 days past due." I'm saying "current."

Current. All right. And when those loans go into the NPA status, what's your provisioning methodology? Are you charging those loans down or--?

This is Scott, Dennis. When they go into non-performing, they go out of our FAS 5 formulaic approach and into FAS 114. So each and every loan gets an individual review based upon the characteristics of that loan, and we will set a reserve based upon that specific loan characteristics rather than a formulaic in FAS 5.

Got you. So it's not charged down, but there's a specific provision against it.

It could be. We could have a zero reserve against it, we could have a reserve against it. It all depends on the individual circumstance.

Okay. And moving on to loan growth. You had a very significant drop in the real estate construction in the quarter. Is that being driven by pay-downs, or what's driving that?

We've been predicting that for some time. And we said that later this year and into next, we're really going to start to see that. It's being driven by pay-downs, it's being driven by the fact that there's virtually no volume being done in that business category. So where you used to have a constant ingoing and outgoing stream of these things, there's just nothing coming in as well. So as projects reach maturity and come online, they're coming out in a variety of ways, some moving into the permanent. And you can see, there's still a net reduction in our real estate books. And that's going to continue, we think. But we're just doing virtually--I mean, we're doing some very limited business with Cadillac customers with Cadillac terms--but it's just no, there's no business being done to speak of.

Sure, okay. And then the straight commercial lending declined by about 7.5%. I presume that's just utilization rates amongst your commercial borrowers coming down?

Again, it's a combination of things. It's this steady stream of pay-downs that occur, just through normal amortization of the loans, and there is, at this point in time, our line utilization rates are down significantly from where they were a year ago and at very low levels. And again, in this environment, that shouldn't be very surprising, as our customers preserve capital as well, and demand for new business is lower.

So when you put all those--and, frankly, we have consciously exited some credits here, both on the real estate side and on the commercial side. So you put all those things together, and you see the net decline. And we're not going to push for business in this environment just to try and generate asset levels. We want to grow, we are in business and we're going to stay in business, and we're going to do the best we can for our good customers and for the markets, but we're going to do it on good terms, too, so that we're getting paid properly for the risk. And it's a balancing act in this environment, certainly. But the demand is quite weak.

Okay. So, but putting all that together, it does seem that the trend would likely continue into the next quarter or so, where loan balances would overall come down?

Yes, I would suggest that we'll continue to see declines in loan balances, maybe the next couple of quarters. It's hard to see out what next summer's going to bring from a supply-and-demand point of view.

Right.

The consumer side of the business is also an interesting--not dilemma, but an opportunity and an interesting dynamic in this whole environment. If mortgage rates stay below 5%, you'll see pressure on home equity balances and first mortgage balances on the portfolio, because you're being systemically refi'd out. When those rates start to move a little bit, and we've seen it even as they have slightly in past times here, you can start to begin to start to build those balances again on balance sheet, and the mortgage volume will begin to wane. So you see those kinds of things.

Some of the artificiality that exists in the marketplace around mortgages is exacerbating that to some extent. The intervention programs that are keeping mortgage rates extremely low, and basically the jumbo business at this point for balance sheets just doesn't exist. And so those opportunities in today's environment are quite limited. And again, you don't want to stretch for low-yielding assets on your balance sheet.

So all those dynamics are going to affect growth on the consumer side as well until those market conditions, some of the--I'll call them artificial, but the intervention and very tight issues, and then interest rates start to change it.

Okay. And Paul, sorry to go back to this, but you mentioned in your prepared remarks the mortgage banking line item coming down to the negative $900,000 from the $28 million in the quarter before. If I understood you correctly, you said there was a $14 million negative mark on the MSR?

Yes. Last quarter, it was about $9.6 million or $9.7 million that was a positive, and this quarter it was a $4.7 million negative. So you put those two things together, that's a pretty big swing quarter to quarter. And the rest of it is the fact that the volume was off 50% of closed loans.

So taking out the MSR swings, is there a core run rate there of a couple million dollars, or is it less than that?

It's, yes, that's about right.

It's three-ish million, (inaudible)?

In the single digits, yes.

But it is probably hard to, but if interest rates go down, it could really start to kick back in again. And if they go up, then that core rate sort of settles in.

Sure, okay. Okay, good. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Konrad with KBW. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hi, David.

Hi. Just a follow-up on the reserves and maybe a little bit of an outlook of where you think the over-provision may be going forward. It was helpful, with the discussion about maybe exiting bank holding company credit. You had about a 30% build relative to that charge-off. But that said, I think the reserve coverage to NPLs actually went down in the quarter, maybe it's around 0.5. So I'd like to know how you feel about that. I mean, maybe the level of current performing NPLs helps that ratio a little bit, but what's your outlook there?

You know, it's a process that you go through where you evaluate in FAS 114, each and every loan, and then the metrics around how the other numbers move in the more formulaic buckets, and then you get your answer.

But I guess what I would say that the moderation that we saw here in the second quarter leads us to that type of a coverage ratio that we believe is appropriate. And it's going to take a couple of quarters to put trends together, and there's always great uncertainty in all of this, but we'd like to think that the moderating trends that we saw here in this quarter are going to be more symbolic of what we see going forward than what we saw, certainly, in the second quarter. Scott, do you want to add anything to that?

Yes, I think on an adjusted basis, when you adjust out for that $25 million piece, I think exactly right, what Paul was saying, after that adjustment.

And our loss content, again, pulled this big thing out of there, because it's quite unique in our portfolios. Our total financial institutions book of business is less than $50 million. So it's certainly an outlier. But in any event, it's--having the level of nonperformers that we have, which we're not happy with, leads to the conclusion that charge-offs should stay at elevated levels, and there's going to be pressure around charge-offs, we think, given that level of nonperformers.

Having said that, the loss content in this environment through these last few quarters has been, I'll use the term "stable." And I think that that's appropriate.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Houston with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Two quick questions. First of all, can you just give us some color around, obviously, the loan book's shrinking. But now that capital is starting to rebuild, can you give us a little more philosophy around reinvestment in the securities portfolio and also just your outlook for the net interest margin after the nice build that you had this quarter?

Good question. I probably should have talked about that in the remarks. Last quarter, I said we thought the margin was going to be in and around the mid, low-mid to 3.45. I continue to believe that that's about where it's going to be in this low interest rate environment and the sustained pressure that that low interest rate environment puts on the margin.

We were able this quarter, literally to offset--completely offset--the effect of lower asset levels with pricing discipline on the deposit side of the equation, and we felt very, very good about that. And I think we still have the ability to do that, but you can't do it forever.

To your question of assets, other alternative asset sources, we believe that everything in balance, but we need to maintain, and fight to maintain, pre-tax, pre-provision earnings. That's the weapon against provision and credit in this environment. And we would be willing to consider adding the same types of high-quality assets that we have been putting on our books over time here to continue to generate those earning assets while loan volume is down. And if loan volume begins to kick in and become more healthy as demand would change, then we would balance that as well. So that's an option, certainly, that we would consider.

So, so--I'm sorry, go ahead.

I was just going to say that the value of the investments that we've had on our portfolio trade well above market because of the quality of those investments, and we think that in this environment, that's a--in balance, again--that that's a prudent answer. It's not creating leverage; it's creating an asset replacement strategy, to some extent, in a weak environment.

Right, right. So, then, would you, I know you always focus on margin percentage, but would you then try to just maintain at least the levels of net interest income that you've been generating? Because you know, it has dipped for the last couple of quarters. So how do you just think about your trying to sustain your pre-tax, pre-provision earnings given some of those carry-offs you just mentioned?

It's hard to be specific there, but as we think about planning for 2010 and the like, we're going to be quite aggressive as to how we attack all the lever points around pre-tax, pre-provision. Net interest income is going to feel pressure. Let's say we can keep the margin itself in this 3.40% to 3.45% range, and I'm glad to see that it was 3.50% this quarter. And if I'm being not optimistic enough about it, then okay. But I just, I worry about how the interest rate dynamics just systemically affect it.

We want to fight hard to maintain pre-tax, pre-provision earnings, and even try and grow them slightly, if we can. The mortgage business next year probably is going to be weaker than the mortgage business was this year. We try very hard not to feel around on expense management and to be as efficient as we can be, and we're going to keep trying to do that. Fees, deposit fees are going to be under economic pressure, but they're going to be under regulatory pressure. So we're thinking very hard about how to build alternatives to manage our business successfully in what is certainly going to be an environment that's going to put pressure on those earnings dynamics.

So we're thinking about all that stuff with the intent of maximizing pre-tax, pre-provision earnings.

Great. And then a last quick one--.

And as yet, we don't want to see our margin go down if we can at all prevent that from happening.

Sure, sure. Go ahead, I'm sorry.

No, that's all right. I was just going to, I said "margin." I mean "net interest income." The margin can go up and net interest income can go down. We don't want to see that happen, either.

Right. And one quick thing. The return to profitability is nice, and it's hard to, when you have low levels of income, the tax rate's all kind of funky, so can you give us just some thought of how to think about the tax rate as we move forward into next year?

I'll ask Joe to jump in here.

Sure. I can talk about it, Ken. The tax rate gets kind of funky when you don't have a lot of income because you have a relatively large permanent item, i.e., we have a fairly large municipal book, and those earnings are not taxed. And so, as the income goes down, obviously, that number's staying pretty static, and the rates are reflected by that.

But at the margin, we basically are paying 34% to 35% marginal income tax rates. That's the logic. But again, it really is all the, as the income goes up, as income goes up, that's what is coming, that's what they, new income's coming on at that rate. So again, that's why we were in the 30s when we were making more money, because the permanent items was less as a relative portion, as they are today when we're making the lower amount. So at this point we still think the rates are going to be longer term in the 20s. But again, we've got to earn a little more money than we are today.

Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Thank you. (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS.) Our next question comes from the line of Scott Siefers with Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead.

Afternoon, guys.

Hi, Scott.

Let's see, I think, Paul, last quarter when you were talking about the expense base, I think you were looking at about a $140 million quarterly run rate. So you can say we got there this quarter. I was a little surprised by how quickly the cost base came down. I guess, one, do you feel like there's any additional leverage to bring down the cost base? And then, two, just in light of maybe some of the, a little bit of the revenue weakness, just given that it's a more variable cost system, does that allow for some additional flexibility on the cost side from here as well?

Okay. Thanks. That's a good question. Again, in my mind, I was going to comment on this, but I didn't. I was even a little surprised, pleasantly, by how fast we got down into the low 140s. I think there's probably, in the very short run, some pressure that could push it back a little bit into the mid-140s, let's say. But then there's room for us to keep working at it to try and bring it down. So maybe some of the OREO charges and some of the other things that can come, too, on a run rate basis can creep back in a little bit. And so I don't know that we're going to sit here at 140 for the next quarter or two. It might be a little higher than that. But we're going to keep working on opportunities across all the expense categories to bring them, to keep being as efficient as we can be to pull down on those numbers.

In this quarter, everything--forget staff--but everything else sort of fell into place, and you can see us down across every category. I don't know that every quarter that's going to be the way it is. So it might be a little higher than this on a sustained basis in the short run, but we're going to keep working, then, to try and pull it back down.

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Steven with Steven Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, Paul. Most of my questions have been answered, but let me go back to the margin for a second. If you (inaudible) your margin improvement, taking sight of the margin improvement, talk about the macro environment for loan pricing that you're seeing in your markets. And then let's talk about how much more room do you have, do you think, on the deposit side? So thanks, guys.

Sure. Our people, I think, in this environment, are doing a very good job of continuing to get paid much more effectively for the risks that we're taking, and that the spread to occur, if you will, the spread to our performance management curves within the system, continue to improve and improve and improve.

In the--and Joe, please correct me if I don't get each one of these numbers exactly right--but when you look at the loan portfolio in its aggregate, I think the spread came down, but the yield came down about five basis points, and that's the effect of interest rates being so low over a long term on that portfolio. As low as we price, there's going to be systemic pressure there.

On the deposit side, we brought it down 24 basis points from, I'm going to say the numbers were around 130, low 130s to around 112 or 113 in terms of deposit spread. And I think there's still more room there. We grew, set broker deposits completely aside, our core interest-bearing deposits grew almost $250 million, and the demand deposits grew $60 million or $70 million.

So in this environment, that's the way it's going to be, again, with these low, with low interest rates until that starts to change, and then it's going to really start to move in other directions. But that tells me there's room. That tells me that on the, within the retail business, especially, there's opportunity to continue to push down on deposit rates and still be competitive and still keep customers satisfied in an environment where the Fed funds rate is 25 basis points and Treasury rates, you've got to go a long way out to get to one.

Right.

So I think there's a little more room there. There's a floor, certainly. But I think there's a little bit more room. I can't say it's going to be 95 basis points or 1% or whatever it is, but I think there's some more room to move those numbers.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Beideman, I show there are no further questions at this time.

So all right, well, thank you all.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Associated Banc-Corp third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. If you'd like to listen to a replay of today's conference, please dial 1-800-406-7325, and for international participants, 1-303-590-3030, and entering the access code 4170464 followed by the pound sign. The replay will be available until November 22, 2009. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.