Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
Steve, a question regarding your pension expense. That $55 million that you gave us that was your income sheet impact, correct?
Stephen L Bruffett
What was the last part of your question?
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
That was the income statement impact, the $55 million, correct?
Stephen L Bruffett
That’s correct.
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
Because you gave the shareholder equity impact before but that was different, right?
Stephen L Bruffett
Yes. The $363 million is purely a balance sheet entry to recognize the pension liabilities on the balance sheet and then the offset goes to shareholders equity. And then separate from that is the income statement, which we expect $55 million of expense in 2009 whereas we had a
$23 million credit in 2008. So there’s a year-over-year delta of $78 million.
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
Now how should we look – I mean, when are you going to expect to make this impact? Is it going to be spread out throughout the year? Or is it going to be lumpy? For modeling purposes.
Stephen L Bruffett
That expense is recognized reasonably smoothly throughout the year.
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
On your capital spending, you gave the net number of $70 million, Steve. Could you give us the gross? I know you guys have a lot of terminals for sale still what the combination impacts.
Stephen L Bruffett
There’s not a lot of terminals for sale. That’s the thing – the difference between gross and net for us is really the disposition of a couple of hundred tractors at Truckload. So there’s not a large difference. I think it’s along the order and magnitude of about $20 million difference.
Jason Seidl - Dahlman Rose & Co.
I guess the next question is for John. John, can you talk to us a little bit about current times? Obviously it got worse throughout the quarter. I’m assuming it hasn’t really gotten that much better here in January in the LTL side. But if I’m not mistaken you guys had a little bit easier comparisons the first quarter of 2008 than you did throughout the year. Am I correct on that?
John G. Labrie
Yes. Our comparisons in the first quarter of ’08 were a little easier than they were the remaining quarters of last year, Jason. That’s correct. And to your point about what we saw or what we’ve seen throughout the course of January, we’ve seen pretty much an environment that looked pretty similar to December. It stepped down just a little bit from December levels as it relates to shipments, ton and January revenue.
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