UGI Corp (UGI) 2005 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to this UGI and AmeriGas Second Quarter 2005 Earnings Conference. Today's call is being recorded.

For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Bob Krick, Vice President and Treasurer of UGI. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Matt.

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 which 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 weather conditions; the costs and availability of all energy products, including natural gas, propane, and fuel oil; competition from the same and alternative energy sources; currency exchange rates; political, economic, legislative, and regulatory changes in the U.S. and abroad; and the completion of a previously announced refinancing of AmeriGas debt.

UGI and AmeriGas undertake no obligation to release revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after today.

With me today are Gene Bissell, President and CEO of AmeriGas; Tony Mendicino, Senior Vice President and CFO of UGI; the newest member of the UGI management team, John Walsh, President and COO of UGI; and, of course, your host, Chairman and CEO of UGI Lon Greenberg. Lon?

Thanks, Bob.

Let me also welcome everybody to our call. I trust you've all had the opportunity to review our press releases today reporting our second quarter results.

As you know, we also announced a 2-for-1 stock split, an 8-percent increase in our dividend, and we raised our expectation for annual dividend increases from 3 percent to 4 percent, and those things were done at UGI. And at AmeriGas, we're happy to announce our first distribution increase. The last thing we did in our press releases was reaffirm our recently raised guidance of [3.45 to 3.55] for UGI and [245 to 255] of EBITDA for AmeriGas.

Frankly, I have to confess that I'm quite tempted to end my comments at this point and just ask for questions, but that would be out of character for me to do that, so I'll continue on.

Obviously, the earnings news this quarter is quite good. At the same time, the actions taken by the Board of UGI to split our stock, raise our dividend 8 percent, and raise our dividend growth target, and the actions taken by the Board of Directors of AmeriGas to initiate distribution increases reflect both management's and the Board's confidence in our future.

I'd like to comment for a moment on our results from a qualitative standpoint and then turn the meeting over to Tony and Gene.

Our results demonstrate that in the aggregate we were able to overcome the dual challenges of high commodity prices and customer conservation. Our results also show the benefits of having a diverse group of energy distribution and marketing businesses located in a variety of geographic regions.

We are pleased to have improved operating income from all of our business units other than AmeriGas, as you know, which had warmer-than-normal weather. Given the volume challenges caused by both warm weather and customer conservation, I believe AmeriGas's results reflect good efforts by all AmeriGas employees to manage those aspects of its business that are controllable.

Tony and Gene, as I said before, will have more to say about our results in a minute.

We remain very pleased with the results of our international propane operations. In particular, the contribution of Antargaz to our earnings is quite apparent. While we're very happy with the job our French management and employees are doing, I want to remind you once again that we expect the unusually high margins achieved by Antargaz to return to more normal levels as the year progresses.

Finally, I want to tell you how thrilled I am that John Walsh is here and has joined our team. I'm confident that John will be a major contributor to our long-term success.

At this time, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Tony Mendicino. When Tony's finished, Gene will comment on AmeriGas's results, and at that point, I'll have a few closing remarks. We're sparing John the opportunity to make some comments today as he is relatively new, but I assure you, any difficult questions will be given to John. So, Tony?

Thank you very much, Lon.

We certainly had another great quarter. Reported EPS was $2.23 a share compared to $1.48 for the same quarter last year. As you may recall, last year's earnings contained a 20-cent loss on the forward currency contracts that we used to hedge the dollar value of our purchase of the remainder of Antargaz. So we're actually 55 cents per share ahead of last year on a comparable basis, about a 37-percent improvement.

Similar to our first quarter, the bulk of the improvement came from international propane, which contributed $47m to net income this year, compared to less than $3m last year. Antargaz led the charge in international propane.

As you all know, we owned 100-percent of Antargaz for this quarter, compared to only 20 percent last year. Antargaz obviously had an outstanding quarter, as we will discuss later.

With the exception of AmeriGas, whose results were dampened by weather that was 5-percent warmer than normal and 4-percent warmer than last year, all of our business segments outperformed last year.

Let's get into some of the details first with our domestic propane business, AmeriGas.

AmeriGas performed well during the quarter despite the unfavorable weather. AmeriGas's EBITDA was $135.2m, compared to 146.6m last year. The decline relates primarily to lower retail volumes sold. Retail volumes sold was down about 6 percent period to period as a result of the weather and customer conservation in response to the high commodity cost of propane during the quarter. As a result of the implementation of certain warm weather action plans, operating expenses declined in the quarter by over $2m. Lower personnel and vehicle repair expenses were partially offset by increases in vehicle fuel and vehicle lease expense.

At the net income line, AmeriGas contributed $27m to UGI, compared to $30.8m for the first quarter of fiscal year '04. Gene, as always, will provide a more fulsome explanation of AmeriGas's performance in his comments.

Net income in our utility operations was $30.6m, compared to 29m for the same period last year. Net income in gas operations rose 1.1m to 26.7m on weather that was almost 6 percent colder than normal and 2 percent colder than last year. Throughput was essentially flat quarter to quarter, as was total margin. As we saw in the first quarter of this year, relatively flat throughput, despite colder weather, means that we are seeing customer conservation in reaction to high energy prices.

Expenses for the quarter in gas utility were essentially flat to last year. The favorable net income variance was due primarily to increased other income. The addition of core heating customers during the quarter lagged last year's record pace. However, we are on target to again hit our 3- to 4-percent core heating customer growth rate.

Net income at electric operations was $3.9m, up $500,000 from last year on weather that was 7 percent colder than normal and flat to last year.

Kilowatt-hours sold were virtually the same as last year. Despite flat sales volume, gross margin increased as higher unit prices resulting from price increases offset increased unit purchased power costs.

In international propane, our 100-percent ownership position in Antargaz and Antargaz's outstanding performance for the quarter contributed the lion's share of the improvement at UGI's consolidated net income.

The net income contribution from Antargaz for the quarter was $45.8m, compared to $1.6m last year when we owned only 20 percent of the business.

Weather in France was 4 percent colder than normal and 3 percent colder than last year. This contributed directly to the year-to-year increase in volumes sold. Antargaz sold about 130m gallons in the quarter, up more than 5 percent from last year.

Unit margins for the quarter continued at levels that are exceptionally high and not sustainable over the long term. As we discussed last quarter, unlike the U.S. propane market, in which frequent margin maintenance price changes are common, price propane marketers try to give their customers more stable prices. As a consequence, they adjust their prices less frequently than we do here in the States. In periods of falling propane costs, unit margins expand. In periods of increasing propane costs, unit margins contract.

Despite a cost bump in March, LPG costs in euros were about 10 percent lower this quarter than they were in the December quarter. While we enjoyed the exceptional unit margins that come from a falling cost environment, there will be periods in the future when euro-denominated LPG costs are increasing with resulting narrower margins.

Overall, we estimate that there's an approximate 15-cent-per-share benefit in this quarter from these temporarily strong unit margins.

Finally, in Energy Services, net income was $8.3m, up 4m compared to last year. Net income from Energy Services' gas marketing business more than doubled to $4.9m on a 7-percent increase in sales volume. Last year's net income was adversely affected by lower unit margins due to the effects of seasonal marginal realization.

In Electric Generation, net income was essentially the same as last year at $4.1m. On megawatt-hours sold, the unit margins were about unchanged.

Finally, let's take a look, a quick look, at our balance sheet considerations, as we always do.

AmeriGas finished the quarter with approximately $10m of revolver debt and a total of $900m of net debt. Net debt is about $15m lower than it was at the end of March, the March quarter in fiscal year '04.

On May 3, AmeriGas will close on refinancing of a substantial portion of its senior debt, resulting in lower annual interest expense and a longer maturity for the debt. The interest expense savings should be about $4m annually.

On a consolidated basis, UGI's net debt on March 31 was $1.5b, compared to $1.6b last year. At quarter-end, UGI had $110m of investable cash.

With that, I'll turn it over to Gene, who will expand on AmeriGas's results.

Thanks, Tony.

Well, the big news at AmeriGas for the quarter was the announcement yesterday of the first increase in our distribution since our IPO in 1995. Despite 7-percent warmer-than-normal weather and wholesale [booking] prices that are up 55 percent over the average for the previous 5 years, we achieved 1.2 times distribution coverage for the 12 months that ended March 31.

Factoring out the 1-time gain on the sale of Atlantic Energy, the coverage was 1.1 times for this period. It was that distribution coverage plus our confidence about the future earnings potential of AmeriGas that caused us to raise the distribution.

April also marks the 10-year anniversary of our IPO, and I'm pleased to say that we paid a distribution every quarter and our unit price is up over 40 percent from our opening price.

Turning to our results for the quarter, EBITDA was down about 11m due to a 25m-gallon reduction in our volumes. Weather was about 3-percent warmer than last year, and in addition to warmer weather, the volumes continued to reflect the impact of customer conservation.

The cost of propane for the quarter at Mt. Belvieu averaged 79 cents, about 11 cents higher than last year, and 22 cents over the average for the previous 5 years. Our margins were essentially flat, so we were successful in passing on this higher cost through higher prices, but we're concerned about the impact that these higher prices have had on our customers. We cannot control the weather or the cost of propane, but we have worked hard to manage our expenses in line with our volumes.

This quarter, our expenses were actually down by 2.3m from last year's.

To put this expense reduction into perspective, we were able to lower our expenses despite a 30-percent increase in the cost of vehicle fuel and a 12-percent increase in our bad debt expense.

As I mentioned last quarter, vehicle fuel expense increases with the cost of diesel, propane, and gasoline. Our bad debt expense increased because we reserve for bad debts based on our revenues, and revenues were up due to the higher propane prices.

I'm pleased to report that we have not seen an increase in bad debt write-offs and that our bad debt aging profile has remained essentially unchanged from last year.

Our ability to reduce our expenses year over year despite these challenges, in part, reflects our strategy of employing more seasonals and more part-time employees, which gives us greater flexibility in matching the hours worked to our volumes.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to update you on our core strategies of growth through acquisition, PPX, Strategic Accounts, and through growth in our traditional residential and commercial customer base.

We did not close any additional acquisitions in the quarter. Year to date, we've completed acquisitions that will add 8m gallons on an annualized basis, and we expect to complete additional acquisitions in the second half of the year.

We've also completed the divestiture of 8 locations this year that were not meeting our expectation in terms of return on investment.

Our PPX volume for the quarter was up about 7 percent, but the combination of competitive pressure on prices and the higher cost of propane depressed the EBITDA contribution from PPX by 1.7m.

While we have reached the end of the traditional heating season, the cylinder exchange season is just ramping up. About 70 percent of the volume for PPX will be delivered in the last half of the year, and we'll be entering the season with about 10-percent more locations than we had at the same time last year. Strategic Accounts' volume was up 11 percent over last year, despite the impact of warmer weather and customer conservation, due to an increase in the number of locations that we serve. We've increased the size of our Strategic Accounts team, and we have high expectations for what this group can contribute to our growth performance going forward.

We've also been successful this year in adding to our base of residential and commercial customers, but we recognized that the most important months are ahead of us. The high prices paid by customers this year may lead to more shopping between now and the next heating season. We'll be focusing both on retention of our existing customer base and on gaining at least our share of customers who are shopping for a new supplier. We have just started to roll out new customer service and sales training for our field employees, and we are launching a number of new marketing programs to support their sales efforts.

Looking forward, I'm optimistic that our growth strategies will bear fruit, but I continue to be concerned about the impact of the high cost of propane on our customers and on our expenses.

Closing price at Mt. Belvieu yesterday was 86 cents a gallon, and that's 37-percent higher than a year ago. Propane prices continue to track the price of crude oil, so we don't expect a drop in the cost of propane until crude oil prices come down. We have factored all of this into our EBITDA forecast for the year of 245 to 255m.

Now that we've reached the end of the heating season, I'd like to thank my fellow employees for their hard work and dedication. While it was warmer than normal, there were certainly times and places where employees had to overcome difficult road conditions and spikes in demand to give our customers the service that they expect from AmeriGas.

At the same time, they helped us manage our expenses in line with our lower-than-expected volumes and they had the tough job of explaining to our customers the high cost of propane. I continue to view the AmeriGas employees as our greatest competitive advantage.

Lon, let me turn it back to you.

Okay, thank you, Gene.

Let me leave you with the following thoughts, as I customarily do. We will continue to be challenged by both the high commodity cost environment, as well as customer conservation in the second half of this year. In addition, I want to remind you that last year our Energy Services businesses' earnings for the second half of the year were higher than they ordinarily would be because of the seasonal nature of margin realization last year, compared to how we expect it to play out this year, and you can see that in the earnings this quarter for that business.

Our business units will remain focused on managing their operations in an effective manner. As you know, we are not short-term-oriented people. We take a long-term approach, and we believe in taking actions that support our long-term views.

To this end, we will, as one normally does in a good year, make sure that we're taking good care of our maintenance of our assets and the maintenance, in general, of our businesses.

And, also, expect that our long-term compensation payouts will once again be robust given the excellent returns that our shareholders have received. As you know, our long-term comp plans are largely tied to the returns that our shareholders receive, and we are quite pleased that our shareholders have done as well as they have done.

As always, we're being attentive to 2 particular things for the future -- executing the strategies for each of our business units and seeking out growth opportunities to invest in for the future.

As we've stated many times, we remain focused on meeting the challenge of redeploying our excess cash as we have in the past and opportunities consistent with both our vision and which add to shareholder value.

In sum, we're having yet another excellent year, and we're both optimistic and confident about our future. This does not mean that there won't be challenges to meet in that future. There certainly will be challenges we have to face, but our management team and employees have demonstrated an ability to face these challenges head-on over many years.

The last thing we're going to continue to do is focus on meeting our long-term earnings growth targets of 6 to 10 percent, and we look forward to sharing those earnings with our shareholders by meeting our newly raised dividend increase targets as well.

At this time, I would like to respond to questions that are out there.

Thank you. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

David Schanzer, Janney Montgomery.

Congratulations on a very, very successful quarter.

Thank you, Dave.

Several questions. First one I'm not sure I know how to phrase, but I was just curious as to the dynamics of propane usage in France and how they differ from here, particularly in the months when there wouldn't be a significant amount of heating. Is there the same kind of usage as you see here for cooking and heating pools and canister usage?

The business in France, Dave, has a very significant cylinder business, and there's a lot of activities in cylinders over the summer months. And one of the innovations we did in France was to put a valve on the cylinders to allow people to tell when they're running out of fuel. That has really helped our market shares in that side of the business.

So we do get volume. It obviously trickles off as it does in the U.S., and so the summer months are generally periods where we're going to lose some money in Antargaz over the summer months. There are times when we'll make a little money, but we're not far from breakeven either side of the equation during those months.

Well, the general shaping of the quarter is very similar.

Yes, I would say I think the weather in Paris -- Paris is akin to New York. Is there where it is or -- in terms of longitude or latitude, or I forget where that is.

Fewer degree days.

Fewer degree days generally than we have here in the Philadelphia/New York area, but the pattern is not all that dissimilar. The one differentiating thing, David, as Tony mentioned, I mentioned, we will continue to mention, is in the French market, we don't change prices very frequently like we do here, and as a result, we have a tendency to set a price and stay with it for a while, so you don't have volatility. And this year, we were fortunate costs fell off after the prices were set. And so as the season goes, we expect those margins to return to more normal levels.

And, secondly, with regard to Flaga's performance, is it kind of a signal to more focus there, or was this quarter sort of an anomaly?

No, I think Flaga had a nice quarter, and we had some little tax adjustment in there that's not worth talking about in terms of some -- a tax matter in Austria. But we're very pleased with the overall management of our Flaga business, the growth we've had in the Czech Republic, in particular, Slovakia, and we're making money in Flaga, and we're happy about it.

So you would characterize, really, your focus as being pretty steady as far as Flaga's concerned?

Yes.

[Those increasing]?

Yes -- well, no, I would tell you that if opportunities come along where we can continue to grow that business, we will seize those opportunities. We think we've got the right management team. We're making money there. And we like those markets, particularly the Eastern European markets, where we believe over time they will turn out to be good markets.

Okay. I may have missed this in your comments, but what is the current market share for AmeriGas nationally?

It's in the 9- to 10-percent range. It doesn't move a whole lot unless we take a big -- make a big acquisition. Generally, what happens is the shuffling occurs in the top 10. There's been consolidation there, as for example, Star Gas, the propane business, separated from the oil business of Star Gas, and so that was bought by Inergy, so their market share, you know, went from something small to something larger, and -- but generally speaking, the largest of the players, [indiscernible] Gas, we are up there, and then we have the suburbans, and a few other players that are closer.

Okay. And the last question has to do with PPX. You mentioned that there would be approximately 10-percent more locations going forward. And I guess my question was in terms of experience at the existing locations. Once you establish a location, what's kind of the ramp-up in terms of volume percentage-wise, or does it have sort of a natural point where you just don't feel like you can penetrate a location any further?

I think -- and I'll take a shot, and then Gene will correct me if I under or overstep. I think that basically same-store growth is 4 percent, on the average of 4 percent, somewhere in that area, Dave. And, you know, depending upon what part of the year that you get something, you might have something more than that or certainly if you got something in the middle of the summer, for example, you might have more than that. But as a general rule, kind of a 4-percent number.

Gene alluded to the earnings, the EBITDA contribution of PPX being modestly down. And he alluded to some competitive situations that are out there. These kind of competitive situations arise from time to time. We feel that we are a long-term player in that business, and the modest changes in EBITDA that occur as a result of the competitive changes and competition in the marketplace are fine with us. We're a long-term player. We've got a great balance sheet. And we can weather any kind of competitive issues that arise in that business. And so we're happy to have that 10-percent. We're in locations that Gene referred to. We're a long-term player. We're going to keep growing in this business, and you know, if competitive situations arise from time to time, we'll handle them. We've got the strength to handle them.

Okay, great. Thanks.

Okay.

Yves Siegel, Wachovia Securities.

Lon, help me, please. I think for the 6 months --

I thought I did!

I'm honest. What can I say?

I know.

Six (6) months, you reported 372 fully diluted earnings.

Yes.

And last year in the second half of the year, you were profitable. So what are you thinking in terms of the second half of this fiscal year that would bring the full-year number down from where it's been for the 6 months?

Let me give you sort of an overview of that, Yves. We knew that question would come up.

There are a variety of things that will occur this year that are different than last year, and we tried to reflect them in our guidance. One we talked about is the Energy Services' difference in income. Energy Services had a particularly good second half last year because of the seasonal nature of the realization of their margins last year. There's less "margin shifting" occurring this year, so you saw the excellent earnings this quarter. You obviously aren't going to see as good earnings in the second half of the year from Energy Services.

And if you looked at the long-term trends of our business other than last year, you would've seen that we didn't do as well in the final 6 months.

Additionally, as I mentioned, long-term comp expense in the second half of the year is going to be a significantly higher number than last year as the share price increase is obviously a number of restricted shares multiplied by that share price increase affects the earnings for the second half of the year, as well as our relative standing versus the S&P utility index.

So as we do better, as our shareholders do much better, we move up in the rankings, and you've got to, obviously, accrue more long-term comp expense. It's a win-win. You know, we only get a very small portion of that increase in value, but it is a noticeable number.

We are cautious about the conservation that's out there in all of our businesses from the high commodity price environment. We didn't experience that last year the way we are experiencing it this year. And so when you have volume changes of some amount, you know, your expenses are largely there, and we're having a good year, and so we're not going to take actions to respond with expense reductions to compensate for lower volumes. And so you'll see some effort there, a combination of expense and lower volumes that are there.

April is 20 percent warmer for Gene. It's 16 percent warmer for the utilities. It's one of the last months that has the green days associated with it. And as I recall, September was a pretty good month last year for all of our businesses in terms of volumes going out the door.

You put all that together with my more normal cautious approach to life, and you'd come out where we came out. I would tell you that we originally came out with this guidance in April, early April, in connection with the AmeriGas refinancing. We don't change our guidance on a rapid basis. We like time to pass. We're comfortable with the guidance we have. We did a little bit better, I would tell you, in March than we thought we would when we first put out the guidance, but there's been some other things that go the other way. So bottom line for you is we're comfortable with the guidance we have. If you want to view it as cautious, I wouldn't see a strong argument out of me to the effect that it's not cautious. But I would tell you that we think it's reasonable guidance, certainly, and we're going to watch the things that I told you about, and there are reasons for it, as I explained.

Just a follow-up. Is it reasonable to expect that you'll still be profitable in the third quarter and that most of what -- the comp expense and what have you will hit the fourth quarter? Because [indiscernible] you were profitable last year in the third quarter. You were unprofitable the year before in the quarter. But I think part of that was just a mix change.

Yes, I would tell you that if you look at the spread last year, I know Energy Services had a bang-up third quarter last year, so you need to look at that number and see how that plays out a little bit. I’m just doing this by memory. The comp expense is pro rata. What we do is basically mark to market our standing and mark to market our price as we march along. So I think I would tell you that if we're profitable in that third quarter, we don't expect it as we sit today to be considerably profitable, to do nearly as well as last year. But we -- I would tell you that we're comfortable with 6-month numbers that we've given out, and it's hard for us to be precise other than to tell you that the long-term comp stuff is pro rata, April is warm, and the Energy Service number was a big number in the third quarter last year, and we don't expect it to be a big number this year.

Okay. Thanks, Lon. And then I'd like to just shift gears. Was there any impact from currency this quarter?

No, I think the currency was rather flat; it was nothing noticeable, nothing noticeable.

Okay. And then I have 2 quick ones, 1 for Gene. How's the customer retention rate looking?

Right now, it's looking just fine, but the real proof comes in the last 6 months of the year. People don't start switching suppliers until we start to get closer to the new heating season. And we are concerned with the high prices that there are going to be more people shopping out there. But right now, we're looking good.

Okay. And the last question is with all the -- well, kind of 2. One is what type of message do you want to send in terms of distribution policy going forward? I know it's like what have you done for me lately? You just raised it, and now I’m asking when are you going to raise it again. But what's the thought process there?

And then what's the thought process on -- well, in terms of $110m of cash on the books, what's the capital expenditure outlook that you're looking for for the rest of the year? I'm not going to ask you when you're going to start buying back stock.

You're a kind man, Yves.

Let me answer the distribution question first. You know, the AmeriGas Board took the action, which is evident by the distribution increase, in a year that is -- I wouldn't call an optimal year for AmeriGas, but it certainly reflects their confidence about the ability of AmeriGas to perform in the future, and I would tell you that the Board did not take that action lightly. The Board has not put out any hard-and-fast rule that we're going to do this on a regular basis or an irregular basis. I think that they're inclined to consider how AmeriGas performs. Our style is not to start these things and then abandon them. Over time, just -- we recognize that when you start these kinds of activities, that the marketplace begins to expect that. If you look at UGI's track record in raising just dividends over the last -- 18 years straight, Bob?

Um-hmm.

-- 18 years straight in raising its dividend, we're not prepared to have a policy like UGI does, where we say, "Expect us to raise the distribution X percent per year." We'd like to get a little bit more running room under us as we go forward before we'd do something like that. But the Board, I can assure you, did not take this step lightly, and doing it in a year which was a warm year should send you that kind of signal.

With regard to the cash, that cash is what we always refer to as sort of free cash. It sits at the holding company level. There are no capital expenditures associated with that cash that we need to worry about other than potential investments that we would make that would be growth investments, such as acquisitions, as we did with Antargaz, etcetera. So there's really no call on that. We have that money, as you suggested, to buy back stock if we think we should do that or to make acquisitions and other investments that are profitable, as our track record indicates.

And so we are evaluating that cash. We don't feel burdened by that. It's not burning a hole in our pocket at this point in time. And we continue to look at opportunities to redeploy that cash, from buying back stock across the spectrum all the way to investing it in transactions. So it's a wonderful model when you produce cash annually, as we do, and you add to your cash balances, and you're able to reward your shareholders with growth through investment and/or through stock repurchases. So you can expect the kind of things you've seen from us in the past with that cash.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Yves. Appreciate the support.

[OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

Stacy Saul, W.H. Reaves and Company.

Hi. I don't really have a question. [Indiscernible] to help me. I need [indiscernible] now.

Huh?

You guys, you finally gave me my distribution increase.

We figured we didn't want you to ask again.

Okay. Yeah, no, actually, you've answered all my other questions. So --

Oh, okay.

-- I hope to see you guys down in New Orleans.

Okay. Thanks, Stacy. We appreciate all the support you've given us over the years.

Thanks.

[OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS].

And, Mr. Krick, there appear to be no further questions at this time.

Okay, excellent.

Okay, I'll finish up in lieu of Bob to save his voice. We appreciate everybody's support out there. We are really proud of the actions our Board took of the earnings of our businesses, the activities of all of our employees in creating all this value for our shareholders. It's been a terrific event -- the stock split, the dividend increase, the new policy going forward -- and you know us. We don't rest on our laurels. I'm already worried about tomorrow in evaluating our businesses and how we should move forward. And so you can count on us to be focused but not let this success get to our heads and to be really out there in the marketplace doing the right things and growing this business for our shareholders. So thanks again for all your support. Those of you who will be at AGA, we look forward to seeing you, and those of you who won't, we look forward to reporting good things to you in the future. Thanks a lot. Bye bye.

And that does conclude today's teleconference. We'd like to thank everyone for their participation and wish everyone a great day. And now at this time, you may disconnect.