Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Ken Goldman - JP Morgan.
Ken Goldman - JP Morgan
The question is on potential equity offering. I know that you have kept it as part of your arsenal. Can you give us some color on how likely a secondary is at this point? I know you are eager, and I understand why, to get your debt to capital ratio down, but it seems to me that if you think the business is going so well, and it seems except for a huge chunk of it going well, that you would probably think the stock would be worth more six months a year from now, why would you do an equity offering now as opposed to a year from now?
C. Larry Pope
You didn't surprise us with that question, I'll say that. Bo and I commented before this call, let's see if that will be the first question or the second. It was the first. So you didn't surprise us with that.
At this point we would tell you that we've done a good job of strengthening this balance sheet and Bo highlighted all of those things. Yet we continue to look at the balance sheet and making sure that we have a strong balance sheet. I don't think that we feel like that we have any severe pressure that we have to do anything and we have no covenants that force us to do anything.
On the reverse side of that, we certainly want to make sure that we have all the financial resources that we need to execute this plan that is certainly starting to hit on full cylinders.
So I can't really comment on that. You know I couldn't do that; that would be wrong, one way or other. But I will tell you we keep our eyes focused on the capital markets, just like everyone else does, and we have accessed them when we thought it made sense, and yet we don't feel any pressure that we have to do anything.
Ken Goldman - JP Morgan
On interest expense, $270.0 million to $275.0 million is guidance. Is that for gross or net interest expense?
Robert W. Manly
That's for gross.
Operator
Your next question comes from Christine McCracken - Cleveland Research.
Christine McCracken - Cleveland Research
I just wanted to follow-up, you had commented that you're reducing our exposure to production and you've clearly taken quite a bit out at this point. Are you seeing moves by others to take out a similar amount of production or do you expect to take additional cuts to your own breeding herd?
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