Earnings Call Excerpt
PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG)
Q1 2008 Earnings Call
April 17, 2008 8:00 am ET
Executives
Vince Morales - VP, IR
William Hernandez - Senior VP and CFO
Presentation
Vince Morales
Good morning. This is Vince Morales, Vice President of Investor Relations for PPG Industries. Welcome to PPG’s first quarter 2008 financial commentary. The financial commentary is provided by PPG’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, William Hernandez. These comments relate to financial information released on Thursday, April 17 2008. Visuals supporting this briefing may be accessed through the investor center on the PPG website at www.ppg.com.
As shown on Slide number 2, the following presentation contains forward-looking statements reflecting on the company's current view about future events and their potential effect on PPG's operating and financial performance. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could affect the company's operations and financial results, and as discussed in PPG Industries filings with the SEC, may cause actual results to differ from such forward-looking statements.
This presentation also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Pursuant to the requirements of Regulation G, the company has provided a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on Slide number 9 of the visuals supporting this briefing.
And now let me introduce PPG’s Senior Vice President and CFO, William Hernandez.
William Hernandez
Good morning and thank you for your time and interest in PPG. I will review PPG’s first quarter 2008 performance, and comment on various industry and economic trends that are impacting our performance. If you turn to Slide 3, let me quickly recap the quarter.
Our sales from continuing operations were $3.7 billion, up over 40% from last year, easily establishing a new PPG record for any quarter in the company’s history. For 20 consecutive quarters, or five years in a row, we have delivered a year-over-year quarterly sales record. Our acquisition of SigmaKalon represented a sizable portion of our sales gain, but volumes, pricing, and currency were all positive contributors as well.
We delivered solid overall volume growth of over 2% in the quarter. As a result of slower economic activity, our US and Canadian volumes were flat. European volumes were down 1%, reflecting, in part, strong comparables last year and a slowing in some European economic segments or regions. We more than offset these slightly lower volume results with very robust growth in Asia and Latin America, each advancing by about 18%.
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