Ecolab Inc. Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-10-27 14:15:17.0

Tags: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Raw Material, Call Transcript, Earnings, Ecolab Inc., Pricing, Marketing Research, Sales Strategy, Marketing, Sales, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Bob Koort with Goldman Sachs.

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

Good morning, Mike. Hello?

Operator

Bob, please go ahead with your question.

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

Can you hear me? Hello?

Doug Baker

Operator, it seems we have a problem.

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

Mike, can you hear me?

Michael Monahan

I can hear you now Bob. Can you hear us?

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

Absolutely. My question for you is on institutional business, early in the year you guys talked about changing a program with the distributor and that it should have a backend benefit, are we going to see that, did we see in the third quarter and are we going to see in the fourth?

Doug Baker

Yes, Bob, Doug Baker. We exactly did talk about first and fourth quarter, we have not seen it in the third quarter. We didn’t expect to. We will see it in the fourth quarter, and we anticipate institutional sales will be positive and part of that positive is clearly going to be the promotion impact.

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

And then the U.S. margins that you guys are delivering now, do you think there is upside to that as you go forward or is most of the upside going to be around demand, resuscitation and revenue growth?

Doug Baker

I think our conversation around margins has been -- we have got two sizable opportunities in front of us. Clearly, there is a top-line opportunity, we chase the big market and have a 10 to 11 share. And the others within the business we’ve got a number of opportunities in terms of driving improved margins by driving efficiency within the company. So, our expectation overtime is that we will continue to grow our margin, but a lot of it’s going to come through work within the company.

Bob KoortGoldman Sachs

And then lastly, if I just might ask, the raw material outlook, I know it’s been somewhat volatile end of this year, what would be your expectation next year for that and the pricing response you might implement?

Doug Baker

Yes, I think our view on the raw material market at least our momentary view is, it’s going to, we expect the raw materials will be favorable next year versus this year, particularly in the first half. Simply because you got to remember the base they're going against.

 

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