Herbalife Q2 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

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2007-08-08 03:55:54.0

Tags: Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Call Transcript, Earnings, CFO, Taxes, Free Trade, Financial Planning, Finance, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from Chris Ferrara from Merrill Lynch.

Christopher Ferrara - Merrill Lynch

Hi, guys.

Richard Goudis - Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Chris.

Christopher Ferrara - Merrill Lynch

I wanted to ask about the accretion from the buyback versus the tax friction associated with having the nondeductible interest expense. What is your view of whether it is accretive, dilutive? It looks like it is completely offset for the full year '07 so far, is that right?

Richard Goudis - Chief Financial Officer

Slightly, Chris. I still think it was about $0.01 accretive in the second quarter net-net. And we expect it to be accretive $0.01 each in the third and fourth quarter. I think what you're really seeing, the majority of the increase in the? sequentially in the effective tax rate was really reflecting country mix.

Christopher Ferrara - Merrill Lynch

So you are saying that there is no tax friction associated with buying back the shares for 2007?

Richard Goudis - Chief Financial Officer

There was. I think we said last night it was probably 20 to 30 basis points of the sequential move.

Christopher Ferrara - Merrill Lynch

Got it, okay. And just shifting over to the European business in general, I guess could you just refresh us on the plans in place to move more toward the developing side of Europe versus the developed side of Europe, given that we're still seeing sluggishness in the market?

Gregory Probert - President and Chief Operating Officer

Yeah, this is Greg. I think what you'll see is we're developing... currently developing plans to more strongly penetrate Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. Including we just hired a new General Manager for Poland and Central Europe. And she will also be assisting us on Russia.

I think that is... part of the strategy is really to move a lot of our resources from, I think, Western Europe where we have... you know, we have some growing markets, but I think it is a stable and single digit growth business in countries like the UK, and Sweden is a very hot right now, and move a lot of our resources over into Eastern Europe, Central Europe, where a lot of other direct selling companies are very successful and experiencing double-digit growth.

That was also part of the OFG process last year to really start the process of realigning those resources. I think you'll see additional realignment throughout 2009.

 

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