Standard Pacific Corp. Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-11-03 19:11:16.0

Tags: Standard Pacific Corp., Commission, Call Transcript, Earnings, Market, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Marketing Research, Sales, Marketing, Seeking Alpha, Standard Pacific Corp., Commission, Call Transcript, Earnings, Market, Sales Strategy, Sales Force Management, Marketing Research, Sales, Marketing, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Ivy Zelman - Zelman & Associates

Ivy Zelman - Zelman & Associates

You had mentioned you were working hard in the marketing efforts and evaluating your costs there, I was just curious, it’s an easy question and hopefully it’s okay to ask another because it’s easy. Are you cutting back? Are the realtors that you work with to sell new homes, are they willing to cut back on commissions and has that been a recent trend or is it been the case the last several months and most of the year?

Andrew H. Parnes

Well, our efforts in focusing on sales and marketing are much broader than that. Clearly there are some markets where we’re more heavily reliant on the brochure community and there are some markets where more traditional kind of sales and marketing and advertising methods are more effective so we’re trying to find the right balance. We are rethinking how we utilize the brokerage community in some of our markets, but they have been very effective in a number of our markets and we want to make sure we are very thoughtful in what we do there because a substantial majority of all our sales today are coming through that network. We just want to make sure we’re paying an appropriate level. I don’t think it’s a matter of moving away from that source, particularly in the markets where they are important. Yes, you can ask another question.

Ivy Zelman - Zelman & Associates

Just a quicky on that; so they’re an important part of generating sales, but are you going up or down to help stimulate their interest? Up or down on the commissions?

Andrew H. Parnes

We’re managing that on kind of a market by market basis. There’s not a blanket approach we’re taking to it. Again, some markets, they’re 80% of our sales, so we have to be careful how we approach their compensation structure. In markets where they’re less significant we can be more aggressive and perhaps reduce the commission structure.

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Rehaut – JP Morgan.

Michael Rehaut - JP Morgan

First question just on the restricted payments if you come up against the leverage ratio, I believe, in your notes. What cash would you have available today at your disposal that is unrestricted that would allow you to continue to make margin payments on the JV’s and if necessary, if you have a quarter 2 cash flow negative, what’s available to you?

 

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