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Spartech Q4 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

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2007-12-18 14:28:29.0

Tags: Spartech Corp.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator instructions] the first question comes on the line from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank

Thank you, good morning. Randy, have you lost any share in your businesses, either in Q4 or in 2007?

Randy Martin

To say I’m glad to say we haven’t lost any share in any of our business would probably be an overstatement but I wouldn’t be able to support completely. I think in particular if you look at the Greenville scenario with the Greenville, Richmond and Clair, we do have a backlog. It’s very strong right now. This suggests that we do have a lot of business and pent-up demand from some of the constructions that we’ve had. I can’t say unequivocally that we haven’t lost some temporary share.

I think in view of our management team that is closer to the customers is that we haven’t lost any customers and we haven’t lost any permanent share but we have certainly delayed some shipments and haven’t been able to meet all the deliveries that we should have been able to in the last half of the third and certainly the fourth quarter. I don’t believe it to be permanent and I think the cost position that we’ll have with the consolidated facility and our capabilities will prove out over time. But we’re probably still a couple of months from getting that to be exactly where we want it to be.

David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank

On the price versus resin price increases, have the higher resin prices structurally impaired your earnings power going forward?

Randy Martin

I don’t think they have with our existing business. I think at some level there is less of a motivator to move in to plastics when you have volatile and high prices. I don’t think we’ve reached that level yet, but I think we do maybe have a decelerating pace of things converting into plastics or some new initiatives. We saw some pretty strong opportunities. A lot of our opportunities exist because they are trying to reduce their cost structure and they’re trying to reduce the weight in an RV or a heavy truck. We are seeing many opportunities because of energy prices rising, if we do decelerate with some of the resin prices.

But I think there’s that potential, David, that at some level someone may want to convert something on the margin into plastics. Those things allow them to be lighter weight, more formability, more creative in their product design, that’s still going to happen despite resin prices being up. It’s not as if plastics are unique to paper and metal and other products that have gone up as well. Maybe it’s gone up more dynamically more recently, but other prices and commodities have gone up as well.

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