Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Your first question comes from Michael Weinstein – J. P. Morgan.
Michael Weinstein – J. P. Morgan
With your commentary on the call and with your guidance for the fourth quarter should we assume at this point that the prior commentary for 2010 and 2011 is no longer valid?
Sam Leno
You could assume that but I think the issue is we don’t want to get into providing any change confirmations or otherwise until we do our fourth quarter work. We’ve really put a lot of hours into seeing where we’re at right now and where the trends are, but we haven’t rolled that up completely into a finished product and would prefer not to comment on it at this time.
Raymond Elliott
We don’t even present operation plan presentations to the Board until December. We need to get through that process and complete our strategic plan as well.
Michael Weinstein – J. P. Morgan
If I think about what your guidance for the fourth quarter which is minus 2% to plus 2% constant currency top line, anything you could see that would drive that closer to your 5% to 7% top line that you had talked about earlier in the year for 2010 and 2011?
Sam Leno
I think there’s a number of things on the downside that could directionally move it that way if we were able to get some tremendous new productivity from the CR reps. The new reps would be an example because it’s a real expansion of the force.
The outcomes of the TCT battles, depending upon which they take can fluctuate things. So there’s some big chunky things there that could move it directionally favorable. The problem is we don’t know which of those and what’s going to happen with them.
Michael Weinstein – J. P. Morgan
The 30% operating margin target that you’ve put out there for 2012, at the end of 2012, how do you want us to think about that? Should we still consider that a valid target or is it too early to say?
Raymond Elliott
It’s too early to say in some ways, but aspirationally that’s where we want to be. So we will make every effort to structure the business and format in such a way to get there. But obviously, Sam just commented, we’ve got a good handle on where the business is at now. We’re just finishing up strategic plan redo if you will over the next months or so, and then we’ve got operating plans for the Board.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
