Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from John Tomazzo.
John Tomazzo
Congratulations on the very, very good results.
John McConnell
Thank you, John.
John Tomazzo
I have two questions. First, and this is a difficult one, I apologize, could you try to characterize whether 10% or closer to 50% of the benefits of your transformation programs are realized to date, or how much of it is in hand. Second could you describe your inventory positions across the several businesses please?
John McConnell
Yes, the first one is, as you said, a difficult question. Certainly on the SG&A front, and the consolidation front when we first came out and said we were after $35 to $40 million on this front, I think we have that well in hand from an identification standpoint and by the end of ’09 I would say we will be at 80-%, 90% of that number on a runway basis.
The, kind of the transformation process is one of continued discovery in building. So at this point I would say that there is much yet we have not seen that will continue to build on itself. It is the proverbial peeling of an onion exercise. In steel we have got a pretty good handle on opportunity and at the end of July, as I said, we will have developed an implementation plan and we will start down that road. Some of those things are currently in line and I would say 2% of that effort is going to show up in ’08 as we go forward and build tremendously in ’09, just as we go.
On the inventory positions, George or John?
George Stoe
I will try to answer that John. John, in our inventory position the three major business units we have at steel processing, we probably ended the fiscal year with a little bit more than we would like to have. Not much, but a little bit. Inside the cylinders we ended up about exactly where we wanted to be and inside the metal framing business we intentionally built up our inventory a little bit in the fourth quarter. We bought more compliant secondary material to help lower the prices we are going forward.
But, in general I think we are in pretty good shape. We have had a concentrated effort over the last couple of years to keep our inventories in a very careful range of where we want them to be.
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