Harris Corp. F1Q09 (Qtr End 09/26/08) Earnings Call Transcript

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2008-10-29 18:54:13.0

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Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions). We will take our first question from Jason Kupferberg from UBS.

Jason Kupferberg - UBS

Good afternoon.

Howard Lance

Hello. Good afternoon.

Jason Kupferberg - UBS

Perhaps you can talk a little bit about balance sheet priorities; it will be certainly helpful to understand the liquidity position, where you stand with the rating agencies. So understanding on one hand that more conservatism might be needed in the current environment, but the stock price probably looks pretty attractive, and I think you only have about $100 million left on your current buyback authorization. Can you give us a sense of what management and the Board is thinking in terms of balance sheet deployment over the next couple of quarters here?

Howard Lance

Well, we have been repurchasing generally at a rate of about $50 million a quarter since we started this buyback program after we did the initial tranche of 200. We will be watching cash flow for this quarter, as well as other commitments that we have for capital spending and so on to make a decision as to how much, if any, we will buy back in this quarter.

Clearly, as you say, we agree that the stock appears to be very cheap at this point. I will say the Board's discussion in our consistent communication has been that we will not go out and incur debt for the purpose of buying back stock. Short of that, we have excess cash available and we have continuing authorization for share buyback. We are going to try to balance that with other obligations, make sure we maintain plenty of liquidity so that we can focus the highest priority on the internal growth opportunities.

Jason Kupferberg - UBS

Okay. On the cash flow point, appreciate all of the color around the system conversion. So should we assume that the billing issues have now been resolved? In other words, have the invoices actually that were delayed in Q1, have they actually gone out the door or the expectation is that will happen during the course of the second quarter? I am just trying to get a sense if cash flow will snap back in Q2 or is it going to be heavily weighted towards the second half based on the system conversion?

Gary McArthur

Jason, this is Gary. Yes, the invoices have been mailed out and our expectations are that cash flow will snap back in Q2.

 

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