Question-and-Answer Session
Thank you, sir. Today’s question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically. (Operator Instruction) We'll go first to Whit Mayo with Stephens.
Whit Mayo - Stephens
Hi, good morning. You spent $78 million on acquisitions in the quarter, which itself would be a record for you guys in any given years. So, can you comment on the size of these transactions and just on the timing in the fourth quarter, were they spread out kind of evenly or back end loaded? I am just kind of surprised with the amount of debt at the end of the quarter. And secondly, just given the relative momentum of late that you had in your pipeline, I just think that - I think several of us would expect that your guidance for acquisitions could have been a little bit higher. But can you just comment if whether or not the lower number is just relatively based on the larger size of some of the deals that you are seeing?
Claire Gulmi
Sure. Let me - I am going to start by answering that, Whit, and then I am going to turn it over to Chris to kind of talk on a bigger picture level. Several of the acquisitions that we did in the fourth quarter were much larger than our normal size. Two were some large multi-specialty centers and third was the largest GI center in the country that all three of those were bought on about December 1st. The rest of the centers were bought kind of evenly throughout the quarter. So, we did have several large acquisitions during the quarter. As far as the guidance for 2008, I am going to let Chris discuss that.
Chris Holden
Well, that’s been a guidance and that is a struggle particularly since the number of centers is the tough part and the size of the centers is changing. It’s been all over the Board. So, it’s been difficult to put the guidance on in terms of number of centers. And the way we came to the current guidance is, that’s been consistent with the prior performance and we still have the wild card in the air of what is going to happen to pricing. I mean will it come down? Will it fall in line? So, we took all of that into account in formulating the guidance that we presented here today.
Whit Mayo - Stephens
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