Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). One moment please for the first question. Keith Hughes you may ask your question, and please state your company name.
Keith Huges – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
Just wanted to drill into some of the numbers you gave on the Mueller sales. Did you say the brass products were down 41% in the quarter?
Greg Hyland
That’s correct.
Keith Huges – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
Wow. What was there that made so much worse than the valve on the hydrant side?
Greg Hyland
A couple of things, Keith, one I think when you see the valve and hydrant side – our brass products are 100% correlated to housing starts. And secondly, on the valves and hydrants we do continue to see, you know, a repair and replacement market for valves and hydrants that we would not see on brass products. Sometimes too, and we had a price increase last year on brass products that we announced February 1st. And, of course, then our distributors placed orders in advance last January.
Keith Huges – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
Right.
Greg Hyland
And we later, if you recall, we later rescinded that price increase. We are not the market share leader in that product. The market share leader did not increase prices. We found that we were under some pretty extreme pressures so we rescinded that. So we think we may have some year over year noise in what happened to order, because this year on February 1st we did not announce the price increase in brass products. But as I just mentioned, we did announce one effective this week, as did the market share leader on that product.
So I would say that the key reason is that we would expect to see brass products drop more than valves and hydrants, because brass products are driven 100% by housing starts. Valves and hydrants we have a repair and replacement demand. And I would say that if you look at last January there was probably some noise in terms of as year over year comparison, because of the price increased that we announced on brass products last year February 1 and not this year.
Keith Huges – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
How much of the Mueller segment does that represent in terms of revenue?
Greg Hyland
That’s about $110 million.
Keith Huges – Suntrust Robinson Humphrey
$110 million.
Greg Hyland
Yes, and that was in ?07.
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