藝達思 (IEX) 2008 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the IDEX fourth quarter 2008 earnings results conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Heath Mitts, Vice President of Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our discussion of the IDEX fourth quarter 2008 financial results. Yesterday, we issued a press release outlining our Company's financial and operating performance for the three and 12 month period ending December 31, 2008. The press release along with the presentation slides to be used during today's web cast can be accessed on our Company website at www.IDEXCORP.com. Joining me today from IDEX management are Larry Kingsley, Chairman and CEO and Dom Romeo, Vice President and CFO.

The format for our call today is as follows. We will begin with an update on our overall performance for the quarter and full year and then provide detail on our four business segments. We will then wrap up with the outlook for 2009 and update on our balance sheet and summarize our priorities. Following our prepared remarks, we will then open the call for your questions. If you should need to exit the call for any reason, you may access a complete replay beginning approximately two hours after the call concludes by dialing the toll free number 888-203-1112 and entering the conference I.D. 1364347 or simply log on to our Company home page for the web cast replay. As we begin, a brief reminder. This call may contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor language in today's press release and in IDEX's filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Larry Kingsley. Larry?

Thanks, Heath. Good morning, everyone. As you know, we were early in our assessment of the weakening economy. We took action through the second half of '08 to reduce our cost structure. They'll realize $25 million of annual savings with $20 million of '09 savings, so stated with these actions alone. In addition, we continue to drive material cost production and productivity within our Company wide operational excellence strategy. We anticipate more than $10 million of '09 savings from specific supply chain initiatives and $5 million of labor productivity. Again, both of these are in addition to the restructuring associated savings. None of the actions taken will impair our ability to grow or achieve the strategic initiatives that build longer term shareholder value. As I'll highlight later in this call, we anticipate a soft first quarter as we realize the ramp-up of cost savings on top of a slow Q4 and early Q1 order rate. As 2009 progresses, we'll reassess our view of the economic environment, our markets and the best course for further cost actions to ensure a solid bottom line performance for the year.

Thus far, our team has quickly identified required actions and very cleanly executed as necessary, to adjust to the decline in order rates. We have a very good understanding of our cost structure and we have the ability to manage through this volatile environment.

And now on the slide that's titled Q4 and Full Year Financial Performance. For the quarter, orders were down 3% and sales were up 3%. The result in this slide are adjusted for the restructuring charges and the goodwill impairment charge in dispensing. Fourth quarter adjusted operating margin of 15.1% was down 270 basis points from Q4 of '07, primarily due to the impact of '08 acquisitions. Excluding the impact of the acquisitions, adjusted operating margin was 16.3%. Overall, given the top line pressure, I was pleased with the majority of our businesses operating margin performance. Fluid & Metering, Health & Science and Fire & Safety all held up quite well. Obviously we're disappointed with the margin performance of Dispensing, and albeit only 7% of the Company, the negative margin rate was certainly dilutive to the total Company performance.

Q4 adjusted EPS at $0.41 was down 13%. For the year, orders were up 9%. Sales were up 10%. Full year adjusted operating margin at 17.5% was down 130 basis points from the prior year. Again, primarily due to the impact of the acquisitions. Excluding the impact of the acquisitions, adjusted operating margin was 18.2%. Full year adjusted EPS was up 4% to $1.98. For 2008, free cash flow of just under $200 million, a record for the Company was over 125% of adjusted income.

So, now, let's walk through the components by segment and I'm turning to slide six. For Fluid & Metering, orders were up 11% in the quarter. Organic orders were down 8%. Reflecting a significant slowdown in November and December. Sales increased 21%, including 25% from recent acquisitions and a decline of 1% on an organic basis. Excluding acquisition, adjusted operating margin of 21.3% was up 110 basis points from the Q4 '07 number. We expect selective Fluid & Metering end markets to remain slow throughout the first half of '09. Given the strength and diversity of our market content though, and the stability of our customer base, we believe that we're well equipped to operate effectively in a challenging environment.

Our long-term outlook remains very positive. We continue to diversify our business. Nearly half of Fluid & Metering is now outside the U.S. The three recent acquisitions added product capabilities and will enable increased market share. Integration process is going as planned for the three acquisitions and they will be accretive to our top and bottom line this year. And we're seeing nice traction with our internal sales growth investments that we've made over the past two years. Particularly in Asia and the Middle East, we've made appropriate investments and otherwise to drive global expansion. In this turbulent environment, our team is focused on what they can control. New product launches are on track and we've not had to reduce our investment nor will we accordingly.

In our Health & Science segment, total orders were down 1% for the quarter. Down 4% organically. Sales were down 4% total. 7% organically. The core HST business was effectively flat year over year. The impact to organic growth in the quarter from the runoff of two OEM contracts, which we've talked about before, represented nearly 300 basis points of organic growth. Q4 is the last quarter where we have the organic comp associated with those two commercial OEM contracts. Operating margin of 20.1% was up 130 basis points compared to the prior year.

Our core market focus, the fluidic devices used in analytical instrumentation and clinical diagnostic applications, continue to provide powerful platforms for growth and we continue to anticipate growth driven by end-market demand for new generations of equipment and increased IDEX content in these newer generations of equipment. We secured new global customer business in the quarter which will bode well for the midterm.

Our Integrated Systems Group continues to grow and is now providing full systems to customer specifications. The markets for life science equipment appear to be more favorable than industrial Cap Ex in the short term. However, our OEM customers have indicated that they expect total instrument demand to decline moderately through 2009. With more significant slowdown expected during the early part of the year. And we anticipate our share gain in the segment will partially offset their unit volume forecast.

In Dispensing on slide 8, total orders in the quarter were down 43%, organically down 37%. Sales decreased 39% and organically were down 33%. Margin was down significantly compared to the prior year primarily due to the lower volume and that's in both North America and in Europe. Recently, there has been some specific project activity within the North American retail channel, which we believe will provide a nice lift to the current market trend. However, we still expect softness from broader economic conditions and lower capital spending in the segment, which will continue to impact demand for capital equipment within retail.

To mitigate the impact of these challenges, we've taken appropriate cost actions to size the Dispensing business and we're well positioned to address market conditions and ensure long-term improved profitability and strong cash generation. We expect that the North American and European markets will remain soft through the 2009 year.

Moving now to Fire & Safety on slide nine. For the quarter, total orders were down 10%, down 4% organically. That's primarily due to our band clamping order rate late in the quarter. Sales were down 3%, organically sales were up 3%. Operating margin at 23.9% was up 210 base points compared to the prior year. We continue to be the leading provider of superior technology providing our customers with robust and easy to operate equipment. That will continue to drive share gain in this environment. Global product demand continues to be strong at the project level, we expect this trend to remain positive through the entire year and that will drive growth in this environment as well. We're monitoring the domestic municipal market closely and expect flat to modest growth to continue through the first half of '09. The Band Clamping business, which is about a third of the segment, has slowed with a decline in manufacturing and spend and energy projects. We don't anticipate a return of strong growth in this portion of the segment for '09. In total, within Fire & Safety, we will continue to perform relatively well with flat to low single digit growth rates generating very sound margins.

So, moving on to this year, based on our current knowledge, our '09 outlook is for $1.50 to $1.80 of diluted earnings per share and this range is based on the assumption of organic growth being down 6% to 10%. FX, at the current rates, will have a 3% adverse impact of sales. The incremental impact of acquisitions will add 5% to 7% to the top line and $0.05 to $0.08 to EPS. And that's inclusive of intangible amortization expenses. And finally, restructuring will add $0.16 to EPS in '09.

Given the weak orders at the end of last year, we're anticipating Q1 EPS to be in the range of $0.32 to $0.38, based on the organic revenue for the quarter. And that's down in excess of 10% year on year. The effective tax rate assumption is 34%. Cap Ex is projected to be $25 million or so in '09. And we expect another very strong year of free cash generation.

Before I wrap up, I want to provide a brief update on our balance sheet. Our debt ratios and debt structure are in great shape with no financing requirements until December of 2011. In addition, we've taken advantage of the interest rate markets to lock in some very low rates and our debt for the next three years. We had a very strong year of free cash flow in '08. In Q4, we were able to repurchase 2.3 million shares of our stock. We will continue to be opportunistic with our share repurchase program. And, as to augment our primary cash deployment strategy. Our primary focus will continue to be to deploy cash in a disciplined manner on acquisitions in attractive markets. And, we will continue to evaluate proprietary bolt on acquisitions in '09 with the intention of securing good strategic additions to the Company.

So in summary, while the economic outlook is uncertain and clearly we anticipate a much more difficult organic growth environment, the combination of the cost actions already completed and the contribution from the new acquisitions last year, have set us up for solid performance in the short term without jeopardizing our long-term strategic execution. Internally, we're focused on what we can control. We continue to execute on our new product development and we're satisfied with our geographic build-out and we're focused on making sure that we execute our operational excellence initiatives to achieve both the material and labor productivity savings plan. So, certainly, we've taken a sober look at the general outlook and I'm confident that we will, with those assumptions in mind, deliver solid performance in the face of challenging market dynamics. So, with that, we'll open it up to your questions.

Thank you very much. (Operator Instructions). Our first question today will come from Jim Lucas with Janney Montgomery Scott.

Guys, this is Ryan McLean on behalf of Jim. I just wanted to go through the Fluid & Metering segment real quick. Larry, you mentioned that there were selective end market difficulties. I was wondering if you could -- if you could go into a little bit more detail as to what it is you're seeing down there.

Sure, Ryan. I guess I'll take the question in two parts. One, what we've seen from Q4 through the early part of Q1. And then one, and secondarily, what we see through the body of the year. For what we've seen over the last several weeks, there has been a relatively dramatic slowdown in the Water and in the Chemical segment. We see positive signs of projects now freeing up in the Water segment. We do anticipate that we'll see some nice improvement through the course of this year and that's somewhat irrespective of what comes out of current Federal funding mechanisms. On the Chemical side, which is -- if you add it up, in the neighborhood of about 10% of total Company sales, we expect that to be relatively low in the new project side through the entire year.

We'll still see some nice MRO spending. And then beyond that, within Fluid & Metering, I think it will track plus or minus around the GDP numbers. So, two big issues from last several week's perspective are kind of bottleneck and project funding associated with Water and certainly with Chemical. Expect Water to improve. We don't expect Chemical to improve all that much. At least as far as we can see forward right now. Everything else is kind of plus or minus what we expect.

And I guess, on the Petroleum side, is that much change there?

Again, we've talked a lot about the fact that where we are in Petroleum or Energy in general is not upstream. So, we don't cycle up or down as heavily with exploration activity as others do. We're downstream and we're more on the logistics of getting energy to market. So, we think that, no. Cap Ex may be certainly softer than it's been the last couple of years but it is not a fall off the cliff situation at all.

Okay, and then just switching a little bit to the $25 million of Cap Ex that you spoke about, I was just wondering if you could kind of detail or go into a little bit about, out of that $25 million, what kind of growth projects you're still focusing on.

Sure. The bulk of that $25 million will go toward Tooling, still. And, we will talk a little bit later in the year about a planned facility expansion in a region that we think represents a great growth opportunity. I think it is a little premature to go there now, but on a percentage of that total Cap Ex, over half of that is still focused toward product and manufacturing that serves growth.

Thank you very much.

You bet.

Our next question will come from Michael Schneider with Robert W. Baird

Good morning, guys.

Hi, Mike.

Wondering maybe just some specificity on your Water comments because I guess I've not heard of Water projects being freed up since the first of the year. Is it something unique to yourselves or maybe you could just give us some examples of things that have actually been kicked off again?

Well, I'm not going to go into specific municipal projects for all of the obvious reasons, Mike, but what we've heard just in the last couple weeks is that there's funding in place for a number of state-based municipal base programs that we would participate in with our new acquired businesses, that are ADS and in Europe over with IDTG. But, also on some of the plant-based work for fresh water spend, we're seeing certainly more positive signs than we would have spoken to at the very beginning of the year. So, I'm not going to -- at this point, every week is a little bit of a different story and we're all living the volatility, but certainly things are trending positively right now with respect to some of the project activity in the U.S. and abroad.

So, these are projects that you would have expected to see revenue in Q4 and launches in Q4 that did not launch and now appear to be restarted here in January already?

Mike, in Water some of it is backlog that we had, that we would have seen flow through to the revenue line through the course of Q4 and in this quarter, that is still there, it is not canceled. It is just pushing. Others are projects that we know are approved within their respective authorities that are going to be funded and we expect that they will at some point, either later this quarter or through the course of this spring.

Ok. And then in terms of this volatility, because you do sell such a substantial amount through the distribution channel both here and globally, can you describe, I guess, the status of what you saw as Q4 unfolded in your distribution channels and then what specifically has happened week by week now throughout January?

First of all, I would say to you that the issue of word downstream inventory is, today, and what's bottlenecked flow through either the distribution channel or the OEM base or in some cases, even a dealer network, is somewhat specific to each of the segments, not just the IDEX segments, but the end markets. What we've seen is where OEMs do take some stock, instrumentation, builders, for example, they're obviously closely managing inventory and they turn down that dial quite a bit through the course of the fourth quarter. In the case of the Fluid & Metering segment, the sum of distribution has obviously gotten a bit more concerned with monitoring their relative inventory levels and distributions, 40%, or 45% of sales, for Fluid & Metering which, again is half of our Company. And then selectively, otherwise, around the Company, where we've seen, I would say some portion of the slowing associated with what's downstream in inventory, whether it is actually in distribution or somewhere in the food chain.

What have you seen thus far in January from those same channels?

What I say to you right now is I think it is too early to call in terms of how much sequential improvement we'll see through the course of the quarter in '09. I think that we're going to still see pressure through much of the first quarter, but then as that does purge through the first quarter, we should see some lift as we head in without frankly, a lot of consumer demand or macroeconomic help.

Ok. And I guess on pricing, what have you -- what do you think you issued on January 1? What's baked into the guidance in terms of net price for the year and I think the obvious question is in this environment, why do you expect to hold any price at all?

The short answer to your question, Mike, is that the assumption that's built into what you have in the way of guidance is flat pricing. And then to the longer portion of how we would answer the question, some of the pricing lift is as a function of pricing actions taken through the course of '08. Which you get the full year impact on '09 and also a portion of that lift comes from the fact that, as you know, we're a highly customized product. So, we tend to price things out on a per project, per customer basis. So, there still is a price component that's positive as a function of doing so. The offset to that will certainly be relatively strong competition in some standard product areas and I'm sure all of us will see that through the course of the year. I think a flat price assumption is conservative to realistic in terms of how we baked it into our overall profit thinking.

Ok. Thank you.

You bet.

Next, we hear from Wendy Caplan with Wachovia.

Good morning.

Hi, Wendy.

Hi. Questions on your operating margin implications or assumptions for '09. You enjoyed wonderful incremental margin during volume up time. Revenue up times. What -- what should we expect -- what are you expecting in terms of decrimental margin during top line down times.

Well, Wendy, let me start and then we can jump into as much detail as you want to. Dom can piggyback what I have to say, but if you look at the way that we've guided on a down 6% organic assumption, translating to the $1.80 of EPS, that you could make the argument for, that's slightly conservative, and that we could do better than that given the component that I spoke to with restructuring already in place and with certainly a typical lift of what we'll see in the way of incremental savings from material cost and labor productivity. But, then that net calc on the upper end of the range translates to -- what's that decrimental percentage, Dom? About 23%, 24%, 25%. And then on the bottom end of the range, you could -- I would say make an argument that it is pretty conservative and that we shouldn't have any trouble at all protecting the bottom end of that range. That, frankly, we feel very comfortable.

And, Wendy, maybe the other way to think through this, if you get into it by segment as Larry mentioned, I think the relative profitability in the quarter of FMT, HST and FSD was very good. Once you impact the amortization of intangibles. So, obviously the dispensing cost recovery actions that we put in place are key to that. And I think if you were to add it all up at the $1.80 of EPS perspective, we're not going to give you the operating margin details at this point, but our margin rate relative to the last low is 300, 400 basis points higher than the historic lows. So, I think the relative profitability of the Company is still very strong. So, you almost have to get into it by segment to look at the pluses and minuses, but when you look at that, you find it is a very strong performance. Not only for the quarter, but as we look at the upper end of our guidance for next year.

Thank you. And in Fluid & Metering, you mentioned Water projects specifically, but on the Chemical side, or in other process end markets, are you seeing cancellations or delays of projects?

I wouldn't call them cancellation of projects. Delays of projects, yes. And Chemical and I would say not cancellations, nor significant delays right now and downstream Energy nor in Food or Pharma. But still, the project component of the total sales expectation is anticipated to be lower. Capacity is certainly quite a bit down and Chemical in particular. And I think that we'll see a stronger portion of our sales content BMRO through the course of '09.

Ok. And on Dispensing, obviously a small piece of the business, but distressing, given the loss suffered in the quarter. Are there -- is this the time that we're kind of looking at this business and making a strategic assessment? Or do we have confidence that the losses will lessen or go away in the near term?

Again, short answer's yes but it is yes universally. We're always strategically looking at all the businesses. If you think about its contribution to the Company at 7% of revenue, not a huge impact. At the same time, this business will be profitable in '09. It will generate great cash and so is it going to be the growth engine for IDEX short term? Absolutely not. There aren't any planned acquisitions. Obviously around the segment. At the same time, the team has done a super job getting costs out and going after new business and we expect that will translate into some sequentially improved numbers relatively short term.

Ok. Thanks, Larry. One more question. Are there any opportunities from any of the Fed stimulus programs that we should keep our eye on that might benefit IDEX that you know of today?

That's a great question, Wendy. What I can tell you is that we have combed through our known backlog with ADS and the stuff that we see in Water in general to see the, kind of delineate the stuff that's so-called shovel ready and that gets funding more quickly. And we feel pretty good frankly, about that work translating into incremental revenue. It is very difficult right now to lay that into some kind of a schedule where we, as management, could track it or we could articulate to you that you had to assume a lift of X% accordingly. I think the administration has to figure out how they're going to dole this out and everybody is in line to get their piece and from that, we think that we'll see some nice -- because we do have some shovel ready stuff, some nice impact, but I think it is a don't count your chickens too early kind of thing.

Okay, thanks, Larry.

Next is Scott Graham with Ladenburg.

Good morning.

Hi, Scott.

How are you doing, Larry, Dom, Heath, how are you guys?

Good, Scott. Good to hear from you.

I hear you guys on the line here and I know that we pretty quickly moved Larry and Dom toward doing a restructuring in taking out costs. I guess my question is several-fold from that. Number one is with sales now -- I think looking weaker than what perhaps we were all thinking, maybe even three months ago, is there an opportunity now to expand the scope of the restructuring and is that under consideration?

I would tell you that we, one, we executed the plan according to what we thought made sense given the top line environment at the end of last year and as I said in the prepared comments, very pleased with the team's ability to get it done. And frankly, to deliver right to the number. So, it is hats off to our operating team for just a super job. When we look at the environment now, we certainly still have levers that we can go pull and we're looking at what makes sense. Obviously we're not going to impair our ability to grow. So, we want to do things that make sense structurally for the Company. And yes, sure, we can do things that are -- if necessary, that will help us improve our cost position further. And I'm very confident, frankly, that the team is going to be able to pull it off as nicely as they did through the course of the late Q3 and all of Q4.

The second question off of that same one is, Larry, you talked about $10 million of supply chain, $5 million of labor. Incremental to the restructuring. Where does that overlap, if anywhere, with your typical $20 million of productivity and is that $20 million of productivity still on the table for 2010 -- 2009, even if it's inclusive of those numbers?

Essentially, Scott, it is $15 million, the $5 million and the $10 million as a substitute for the plus or minus $20 million. The reason for that is that getting labor productivity when your top line is soft is a more difficult task and all good operators certainly know that. And secondly, that you do capture some of that labor productivity, pieces of it in the restructuring. So, you can't unfortunately have your cake and eat it, too. And that's where we are at this point. We believe that $5 million for labor productivity is very achievable. And then on the $10 million associated with supply chain initiatives, I think that's also very achievable.

That includes some time for current material costs to work its way through our inventory and we're going to see, I think, a pretty nice recapture with where commodities are headed through the course of '09. So, we're not assuming the same direct translation on material costs down that you're seeing on some of the metals prices, for example or on energy costs and how we get to $10 million. And in the back half of the year, we could see, again, a little bit of improvement if things do remain where they are.

So, the supply chain, are you saying, Larry, that that includes raw materials deflation or are we talking about two different buckets here where -- there will be a natural raw materials deflation that you benefit from and then supply chain is something you're doing structurally?

The two really are separate from the way we do our accounting. The supply chain initiatives are incremental savings that we get out of global resourcing varieties of products by way of using our organization principally out of China and India, but also with what we're resourcing to places within North America and Europe. And the initiatives at this point that are integrated within our plan stack up to that $10 million number. Same kind of accounting that we've talked about historically with respect to how we think about it. And then the only point is that yes, somewhere between what happens with material cost and total, there could be a little bit of a margin opportunity through the course of particularly the back half of the year.

That's helpful. Thanks. Now, two final questions for you. We have seen in FMT, declines in that operating margin attributable to acquisitions now, obviously for some time. It started in the first part of -- actually in the fourth quarter of 2007 and has continued on really through today. And I guess my question is, Larry, is this a situation where we maybe need to go back to these acquisitions and revisit them from an integration standpoint because the margin hits you're taking on these things are pretty significant?

No, not at all, Scott. Actually, if you look at the comments that I made here with respect to the fourth quarter, that was with the assumptions of just the '08 acquisitions that weren't in the prior period -- the prior year comparison. If you look at X acquisitions, we're at 21.3% for the segment which is up 110 basis points. So, that's not taking away from your question. That's the real IDEX year-over-year operating performance. And then there's two pieces that bridge between the 17.5% and the 21.3%. The performance of the acquisitions made in '08 so let me get back to that, to your point. And then the impact of amortization.

On the piece that's the performance, most all of that was in the fourth quarter, a bit of a one off associated with some higher costs than anticipated in a project with ADS, within Water. And so that won't, in any way repeat. That was a pretty large project. And the breakdown on which piece of that is amortization associated, roughly is -- Dom?

About half the margin.

About half of it --

For the quarter.

For the quarter. And as you know, as we roll forward, we certainly don't go back and excuse acquisition impact beyond those typical initial quarters where they do have a year-over-year impact. We get to, on an integrated basis, FMT like margins, basically within the plans that we set forth for the ones that we're acquiring.

Fair enough. All right. Last question is this. The first quarter organic sales assumption is minus 10%. Full year is minus 6% to 10%. Which if I have my math right, that assumes that we're expecting things to be a little bit better in the second half than in the first half. Is that, Larry, based on some of the comments you've made about some of the visibility you have with OEM projects and assignments and wins? Or is that -- more of an easy comparison thing or is it both? Just maybe, color that for us, if you would.

The short answer, Scott is that most all of that is on things that we know we have some pretty decent visibility into that are going to sequentially pick up. So, if you go back to my earlier comments, some of that we think is inventory as it works its way through the system. Some of that is known projects that we're seeing activity on now. That we think we'll be in a position to talk about fairly shortly. And some of it is just the overall segment level expectations for what they're going to see based on known demand, combination of new project in MRO spending.

Very good. Well, thanks a lot for that detail. I appreciate it.

You bet, Scott. Take care.

Ned Borland with Next Generation Equity Research has a question.

Good morning, guys. Just looking at HST, you said that you had some new business wins. I'm assuming that, it sounds like it will be kind of flattish from an organic standpoint early on, but if you could just walk through how you expect some of that new business to ramp.

Yes. We're not going to quantify expectations now for what we see for the segment for the year beyond what we've already talked about. I will say the following that the bigger instrumentation OEMs have put forth forecast which talk about unit volume being down 6%, 7% or so. We have bottom built some assumptions in terms of content in the systems so, for the mix of customers and the mix of platforms that we have within the customers that allows us to think we offset some of that unit volume decline that the market is forecasting.

On top of that, we did close, some nice new business in the fourth quarter. Internationally. That will have an incremental little bump to it for us. And we don't have the comps associated with the large commercial OEMs that we did through the course of '08 which was, all of that was 400 plus, 450 basis points of headwind growth.

Okay. And then on the restructuring savings expected, I mean taking out the savings expected from Milan, can you give us sort of a breakdown of what the percentage is per the nondispensing segments and where you see the savings?

No. I don't think we're going to go there. We -- through the course of the fourth quarter, did integrate another facility in Fluid & Metering. So, the next largest consumption of the restructuring cost and also the larger benefit will be Fluid & Metering, but then it is pretty well spread across actions taken through the Company.

Okay. Fair enough. Thanks.

You bet, now.

Walt Liptak with Barrington Research has our next question.

Good morning everyone. Question on acquisitions and for Dom, what was the fourth quarter cash outflow for acquisitions and the 2008 total?

Fourth quarter cash flow for acquisitions was about $181 million.

Okay.

I think. That's a little beyond our cash flow statement.

Then for '08?

And then what was your other question?

For the full year?

Full year. Sorry? Closer to $400 million if you look at the full year. It gets a bit on the cash flow statement, as you know, we funded ADS right at the end of last year but the total proceeds for acquisitions of the year were about $400 million.

Okay, and you mention in your commentary, Larry, that acquisitions obviously were still a part of the IDEX strategy. What should we expect in terms of 2009 and I guess looking at the different factors, pricing and I guess everyone's EBITDA is suspect at this point. How should we think about your activity for this year?

Yes, I'm sure. Well, first, the list of acquisitions is still long. There is a number that we like quite a bit from a strategic fit for the Company. That we would want to make, at the right price at any point in time. And we look at those first and foremost. If those acquisitions don't have a good visibility to their next 18 to 24 months, then we're going to discount what we think the business is worth. And obviously several of the conversations we're having are of that order right now.

Certainly, what we're going to benefit from is -- and we're seeing I think this play out through probably the middle part of this year is folks getting a bit more realistic with respect to the price of their business and it will represent frankly a great opportunity for us to move into some businesses at pretty attractive prices that will see some fantastic returns on. So, in terms of quantifying impact of acquisitions, incrementally, you know to the '09 numbers, we don't do that. We don't typically forecast that. So, I won't. But, I think you ought to expect M&A activity that's fairly similar to what we've averaged over the last few years. It will be bolt on kinds of acquisitions that we can make sense of, more likely than it will be large, new, repositioning strategies, that frankly, those I don't think make a lot of sense unless you have a completely good grip on what's going on in this business.

Right, okay. And in your Fire & Safety Diversified segment, the organic revenue held up pretty well and even orders are holding up okay. You mentioned that you're watching municipal markets. I presume it is North American Fire & Rescue. We've heard about tightness and municipal budgets. What are you seeing I guess in some of your municipal products?

Well, first, remember our business is a global business. And the growth continues to get driven out of emerging country markets and we saw nice funding continue and still continues to those Federal programs where they're buying rescue tools and decontamination tents and all of the guts that go on board of various different firefighting apparatus. So, that global picture right now is actually pretty good. In the U.S., it is kind of counterintuitive to some degree, that it is not bad either. And backlogs are actually reasonable within the apparatus builders. We see pretty positive performance out of the midsize truck builders right now. And you know, there's frankly, still a fair amount of the municipal spend in the U.S. being dedicated to Fire & Safety all up. Dom?

Right now, the OEMs are holding and actually held in pretty well throughout the month of December and the order rate as Larry mentions, fairly solid. I think the other thing to mention is this is the enterprise where the last couple of years we've done the most with cost, to get cost out of the equation and obviously you see that in the margin rates. So, we're fairly well-positioned on the cost side as well.

Okay, got it. Thanks very much.

Sure.

Charlie Brady with BMO Capital Markets is next.

Good morning. On the FX impact, the exchange rate that you're using, is that as of the end of the quarter, 12/31, or is it a more recent exchange rate?

As Larry mentioned, that assumes the rates in effect. In regard to the 2009 guidance, that negative 3% assumes rates stay where they are.

At the end of January.

At the end of -- Yes.

At the end of December or end of January?

Basically at the 130 or so range for the Euro is the flux here.

Okay, thanks. And with regard to the Dispensing business in your prepared comments, you mentioned something along opportunity in retail. Could you just expand on that and maybe give a little bit more granularity of what that would entail?

We have very high expectations. That there's going to be some commitment to fairly large replenishment activity here very shortly. And I won't get more granular than that for now.

Okay, would that be among several customers or a large customer?

At least one.

Fair enough. Can you just remind us, your debt coverage level ratios, where those stand? I know you're well above that. But just so we have that information.

Yes, [325] for the coverage ratio. As you see from the chart, we're well below that. We have plenty of available capability, not even close to being an issue at this point in time.

One final question and I'll get back in the queue. On the inventory level, they were obviously up in the Q4 but you've made some acquisitions. If you were to back out acquisitions that you made, where would that inventory level have been? Would it have been down in the fourth quarter?

If you look at the fourth quarter, we did realize a bit of a reduction but if you look at it on an annual basis, almost the entire, the $214 million we report versus the $177 million is all acquisitions. So, when you look at turns and that sequence of events, we're relatively flat on turns as well year-over-year.

Thanks very much.

Sure, Charlie.

Next, we'll hear from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer.

Good morning.

Hi.

Just wanted to go into a little review of customer concentration by segment. Don't know what the best way to talk about it is. Maybe top three approximation by segment.

Okay. I'm not going to quantify it but to tell you on a relative basis, our highest concentration is in Health & Science. And then you, for top three, you get to similar levels with levels of concentration for Dispensing and Fire & Safety on a global basis. And Fluid & Metering is thousands of customers. Top three for any of the segments doesn't in aggregate tally to more than about 15%, 12% actually.

Okay. 12%. Great thanks, I had to ad lib there a little. Every other question has been asked.

Sure.

Next, we'll take a follow-up from Michael Schneider with Robert Baird.

Yes, Mike?

Guys, just on the low end of guidance, you made clear you're comfortable with that number. I guess I'm trying to figure out what gets you there because as I run the math, it looks like if you do not account for the $19 million, $20 million in savings from restructuring, you're assuming a decrimental margin on that 10% organic decline of something around 170% and what I've done there is taken the top line down by 10% organically, added in $100 million from the floor acquisitions yet to contribute in 2009 and it looks like again, you're assuming a very dramatic number in decrimental margins. And, even if now you add back the $19 million, you're still over 100%. So, the $1.50 number on minus 10% seems almost inconceivable. I'm wondering what gets you there. Is it something more than minus 10% organic? Is it something about the acquisitions or is there something within the cost structure that we should be aware of that gets you there or indeed, is this just your worst case estimate?

Mike, the way I describe it. I didn't follow your acquisition scenario there. There's nothing in the acquisitions. You may have double counted the way you think of that. Think of the $1.50 as absolutely how you described it, kind of the worst case and I would also say that we've got plenty of available cost action to avoid that kind of a scenario, but obviously this is a book end. I think the $1.80, we can all do the math on the negative 6% and see how the productivity and FX and acquisitions play through and once you go to negative 10%, obviously there would be another set of discussions around cost actions that get a bit circular at the $1.50 as you might guess relative to another positioning action.

So, I think your point is well taken but, we felt the need to kind of show that bottom but that bottom is truly a bottom that we think we could avoid with cost actions which fundamentally is in your logic when you think about flow through and how the Company's operating model would work.

Right, and the flow through on the way up in this upcycle has been 35% to 40% X acquisitions and currency pretty consistently. So, I know Q1, it is somewhat of a bloodbath for everybody. But as we get into Q2 and inventories at least are more normalized throughout the system, production rates are presumably back up to that base rate of demand, is there any reason that decrimental margins, again X acquisitions and currency wouldn't be the reverse of that plus 40% and minus 35% to 40% and again, I'm just coming at this question in a different direction because the assumption on the low end is two or three times that number.

I think, Mike, your point is well taken. I think once you get -- I guess I hate to call it normalized growth, but if you get to that negative 4%, 5%, versus a negative 10%, as you might guess, the productivity equation is much different. So, yes, I would expect to see our Q2, Q3 and Q4 margins expanse sequentially from Q1, absolutely.

Okay Thank you, again.

Thank you, Mike.

Scott Graham with Ledenburg has a follow-up.

Question for you, Dom. On the cash flow statement, can you -- tell us what for the full year -- or the quarter, it doesn't matter, gross cash from operations was the change in working capital and then cash from operations?

Sure. Obviously, we'll issue this with our Q and our K. Let me do the quarter only, Scott. Cash flow from operating activity was roughly $54 million. Within that, we realized about a $9 to $10 million reduction on working capital, primarily receivables. We spent about $9 million of cash on plant property and equipment in the quarter. Which translates to the $45 million we show in the release.

Thank you.

That does conclude our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the conference over to our hosts for any closing or additional remarks.

We just would like to thank everybody for joining the Q4 '08 call. We would also like to thank you for your interest in our Company. I guess I would like to again acknowledge the really strong work done by both our corporate team and our operating leadership through the course of Q3 and Q4. Really just fantastic work done to, I think, properly position us for where we think we are now and undoubtedly in really good shape to execute well through the course of '09.

So, we'll look forward to talking with you all three months from now. If not many times in between. Thanks very much.