Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Michael Coleman - Sterne, Agree & Leach.
Michael Coleman - Sterne, Agree & Leach
I wanted to ask, you mentioned you're going to maintain a conservative financial position, but could you talk about potential acquisition opportunities you have perhaps in Latin America or other parts of the world that you would expect to see grow?
Mogens Bay
You mentioned Latin America, and I can tell you currently we are not looking at any acquisition in Latin America.
But in general we are constantly looking at acquisitions. We have looked at a number of acquisitions this year. None of them came to fruition for one reason or another - valuation, strategic fit, whatever it may be.
But we have a high level of effort looking at acquisitions that will click well into our businesses. As you can see, we have an extremely strong balance sheet, and we will at some point in time find good acquisitions to put some of that to work in.
Michael Coleman - Sterne, Agree & Leach
And your comment regarding your backlog on the USS segment, could you put brackets around the word significant in terms of whether it would be down 25% or down more? When you say significant what do you actually mean by that?
Mogens Bay
We do give exact backlog numbers at the end of the year, but I would say that the backlog in the Utility business is down maybe about 25% compared to what it was last year same time.
Operator
Your next question comes from James Bank - Sidoti & Company.
James Bank - Sidoti & Company
In the USS group in the press release and also, Mogens, you had referenced in your prepared remarks, the factory fixed cost, was that reduced at all or was this pure fixed cost utilization?
Mogens Bay
In the Utility business it was pure utilization, leverage from very busy plants.
James Bank - Sidoti & Company
I'm a little confused then because sequentially, unless you got great pricing in the third quarter, sequentially it looks like the volume was down from the second quarter, yet the operating margin was up considerably. So I guess I'm trying to connect the dots with the fixed cost utilization. And then clearly raw material played a role in there, but I was wondering if you could help me out there.
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