Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from [Unidentified Analyst] – J. P. Morgan.
Unidentified Analyst – J. P. Morgan
If we start out at Aerojet just sort of looking for some insight into the top line, both the near term and I imagine there’s some more visibility into next year. Would we expect revenues to be higher year-over-year in fourth quarter? And also fourth quarter has been traditionally the highest revenue quarter for the company. Would we expect that to be the case again in 2008?
Scott Neish
We do expect to see an increase in revenues in the fourth quarter over the third quarter. It will be about the same as the fourth quarter of last year and we have some opportunities there.
Unidentified Analyst – J. P. Morgan
And as you look out to next year what kind of opportunity do you see to grow the top line? I imagine there’s some visibility there. And also if you could comment on the appropriations bill that Congress passed earlier in the week, and how that makes you feel either better or worse about the opportunities for the company going forward?
Scott Neish
First the passage of the continuing resolution and it looks like we’re going to have both defense and NASA authorization bills and we are encouraged by that. We don’t see anything damaging to us in either of those bills and we believe that they are going to be consistent with the plans that we have going forward. We are in the process of putting together our plan for next year and it’s too early for me to share any specific numbers with you, but we do expect to see a healthy increase in both top and bottom line for next year.
Unidentified Analyst – J. P. Morgan
And what do you think some of the potential drivers are going to be for next year’s growth?
Scott Neish
Well Orion is going to continue to be a very important program for us and we’re going to see probably an increase in that program that I just talked about. And some other increases are possible in the area of missile defense. Also the commercial launch market, both entrepreneurial space and the NASA [Cox] programs are going to be positive for us.
Unidentified Analyst – J. P. Morgan
If we talk about margins at Aerojet, I see they’ve sort of bounced around a little bit this year. And if you’ve talk about what the outlook is going forward, what was the impact of the Atlas program on margins this quarter? I know it was probably quite positive in the second quarter. And also I know there were a couple of issues earlier in the year that held margins down. Have all of those been resolved?
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