Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Ryan O'Connell with Citigroup.
Ryan O’Connell – Citigroup
Recognizing that this was a very, very difficult month, December, my recollection, Peg, is that when we talked on the pre announcement call, I think you all were looking toward an operating loss ballpark in line with the first quarter of 2008, which is about $60 million. So based on a quick review of the press release today, it looks like the operating loss exceeded exceptional items, which is about 115. So could you walk through what caused the delta there?
Peg Broadbent
Yes, certainly. We referenced, as you indicated, that we are expecting at the beginning of December a fourth quarter operating loss similar to that of the first quarter, which was about $60 million. Included in our first quarter results were revenues of about $200 million, and I just mentioned that we have revenues in the fourth quarter of about a little less than $150 million. So that was one sort of major factor that drove the discrepancy between what we were expecting at the beginning of December from an operating loss perspective and what actually came through. We incurred a number of mark to market writedowns during the course of December on several positions that we hold across our high yield business and some of our equity block trading positions, where we continue obviously to be mark to market and continue to be conservatively mark to market. In addition to that, we had some one-time unusual additional operating expenses that we weren’t necessarily anticipating in the beginning of December, and I referenced some of those during the course of the script.
Ryan O’Connell – Citigroup
Okay. So again bearing in mind that it was a tough month, so basically if I heard you right, it sounds like the real differences here were just you got off a high yield market and maybe some unusual for you all mark to market [ph] trading funds and equities. Is that fair?
Peg Broadbent
That's correct, yes.
Ryan O’Connell – Citigroup
Okay. Then I guess the other question, just on our old friends, the managed funds, what do you think the outlook is there? I mean just you know there has been one quarter of profit over the last six quarters I think.
Peg Broadbent
I think there the good news is that we continue to reduce our capital that is at risk. The fourth quarter particularly reflected poor performance in one fund where continuing 0capital commitment at this point is very small, so we would like to think that the worst of that is behind us and we shouldn't have the kind of drag that we had in 2008 but obviously no one knows for sure. But I think that reduced capital commitment and the concentration to a very small handful of funds that had performed better than the average over the last year or two, we’re slightly optimistic we will be in a better place with them.
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