Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions). We'll take our first question from George Staphos with Banc of America Securities.
George Staphos - Banc of America Securities
Thanks. Hi, everyone, good morning.
Tony Allott
Good morning George.
Bob Lewis
Good morning George.
George Staphos - Banc of America Securities.
I guess first question I had was, we appreciate (inaudible) the free cash for this year because it look a little bit lightest as well and looks like a lot of that was working capital. You mentioned you ran facility that sounded like in the fourth quarter a little bit ahead of what demand was running at and I guess the question is: why, but again, get ahead of some of the input the cost increases?
Tony Allott
Yeah. George, Tony. First of all that's kind of a smaller tone of the items Bob went through, so it's not a big item. The point there is that essentially December sales were a little bit softer and particularly in the can business. And so you face the decision, do you try to quickly make a reaction to your production or do you run more efficiently. And it really it would have been pretty inefficient for us to have done anything other than what we did.
George Staphos - Banc of America Securities.
Okay. And I realize January food can sales are not the well praised parameter for the whole of the year but: what's been the tone in business or from your customers early on in the first quarter?
Tony Allott
Well. The first quarter is a little tougher for us to talk about et cetera, et cetera. There is nothing really there that seems to interesting either way. I would say that in the third quarter we're talking a bit about the warm weather and soup et cetera. And so I would just comment that it definitely got colder as the fourth quarter went on, so the soup really kind of recovered a bit. So usually that's one we can talk about around Q4 and Q1. And again I'd say there is really nothing much interesting to say about that. So it seems, okay.
George Staphos - Banc of America Securities
Okay. Although, we can't help consumption?
Tony Allott
I appreciate that.
Bob Lewis
Margin disclosures in particular dropped more than we were expecting, that doesn't mean that it was below your expectations. But what was going on there in terms of margins and would expect that margin in closures in 2008 holding input cost, along with your assumption. What should they do in 2008 up or down?
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