Oil-Dri Corporation of America F4Q08 (Qtr End 07/31/08) Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-10-14 08:33:10.0

Tags: Call Transcript, Earnings, Standpoint, Manufacturing, Marketing Research, Marketing, Seeking Alpha, Oil-Dri Corp. of America

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ethan Star.

Ethan Star

I’m wondering how is the current economic and credit environment affecting Oil-Dri’s sales and receivables? And, might the credit squeeze force any competitors to sell out or shut down?

Andrew N. Peterson

I think in looking at it in terms of our customers I don’t think we’ve seen a change. Our customers are relatively large companies that I think are doing pretty well. As it relates to how are our competitors doing, Dan?

Daniel S. Jaffee

In general you would think that the smaller, the weaker the player, the more regional the player is going to be more impacted. So, you can draw your own conclusions from that. But, clearly we like our position going forward.

Operator

Our next question comes from Robert Smith.

Robert Smith

I’m amazed that you guys turned the market the way you did. It was amazing.

Daniel S. Jaffee

Are you telling us we turned it up or down?

Robert Smith

Up. Wasn’t that the reason for the strong rally this morning?

Daniel S. Jaffee

If you can figure out the reason for anything, I’m all ears.

Robert Smith

You mentioned in the press release about becoming more aggressive with new products so what can you tell us about that?

Daniel S. Jaffee

Just that we’ve been investing heavily. Our, what we call our 2008 all in initiative launched on time and on budget. We’re just now getting it out to the marketplace, getting the necessary registrations, we have very high expectations for that. We are already investing in the 2009 all in initiative which will be launched sometime towards the end of this fiscal year.

Additionally, and I think I mentioned these on prior conference calls, we did launch a couple of cat litter items, Cat’s Pride Natural to go with the green movement and Cat’s Pride Complete to go right after multi cat owners who want the best odor control. Those have been received very well and are doing well. Knock on wood, so far all new product launches are moving in the right direction.

Robert Smith

Dan, what is all in?

Daniel S. Jaffee

All in is just a term, obviously it’s a general term but for us it focuses us. When we were trying to do everything we tended to get nothing done and so we identify one real big opportunity every year that everybody can rally around, we can put our resources behind and we can make sure that we nail it. Both from a manufacturing standpoint but also from a support standpoint, a marketing standpoint and it’s clearly going to be in line with our mission of creating value from absorbent minerals.

 

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