Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And your first question will come from the line of Gary Giblen from Goldsmith & Harris. Please proceed.
Gary Giblen – Goldsmith & Harris
Hi, good morning Bruce and Joe.
Bruce J. Wood
Hi Gary, good morning.
Gary Giblen – Goldsmith & Harris
You know, I noticed, Bruce, in your summary comments that you said you expected the industry to get more competitive and I think that is a different tone than before where you were saying that the industry is highly competitive but the sense was that it wasn’t any more competitive. Is there a different outlook there, or is that due to the consumer or the retailers getting more aggressive, can you elucidate?
Bruce J. Wood
Well, I think, Gary, it’s a certainly one a qualitative comment and relates to the factors you just mentioned. Clearly retailers in general and certainly specific large retailers are reassessing inventory levels of products, reassessing the mix of branded versus private label, reassessing SKU counts in categories as a whole. So all of that leads to some uncertainty and certainly scrambling for business and the category does remain in a positive growth mode, albeit reduced from 52-week levels so we are seeing continued modest category growth as measured by IRI. But the battle for the pie I think will get more intense with those other factors just noted.
Gary Giblen – Goldsmith & Harris
Okay that helps, and just my second question was, can you describe what changes in the marketplace or competitive changes that you’ve observed from the new ownership of Liner?
Bruce J. Wood
At this stage, I would be hard-pressed to give you a very insightful comment. I certainly NBTY remains overall a very large and aggressive competitor on the branded side and certainly they remain a vigorous competitor on the private label side. As we have noted in previous calls, we have benefited from the Liner situation last year in our private label business. That was really prior to the acquisition, but we continue to believe that there is opportunity in the private label side for us notwithstanding the increased size and heft of NBTY as a total entity.
Gary Giblen – Goldsmith & Harris
I mean, was there any notable price increases or promotional intensification, is that’s what they tend to do when they make acquisitions, but maybe not in this case but...
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