Brian White (Jeffries): It sounds like in 2007 pricing was down 11% for the wholly owned and 15% for Samsung Corning Precision. Could we expect better pricing in 2008?
Jim Flaws: The pricing of 11% for the full year in our wholly owned business includes some carry over affect of the steep declines in 2006. The fourth quarter is more representative of what we were trying to accomplish which was down 7% quarter over quarter. Samsung Corning Precision price declines were greater in 2007 at 15% primarily because they had a big catch up in the beginning of 2007. If you go back to 2006, they didn’t decline as much as we did. Clearly what we’re trying to accomplish is to continue this very moderate level of price declines in 2008.
Brian White (Jeffries): When we look at your capex in the Display business for 2008 you said about $800 million to $1 billion for Display and it looks like $400 million would be for 10-G Fab in Japan. Of the remaining $400 to $600 million, what percent is going to be towards maintenance versus expansion?
Jim Flaws: Maintenance is relatively a small amount of our capital, if you have to repair tanks they do have a limited lifetime but clearly expansion dominates our capital spending. We do expect adding capacity again in 2008 in Taiwan. The other thing that’s impacting our capital is unfortunately the price of platinum for precious metals which we don’t consume but its part of how we make the glass and that’s been up a little. Maintenance is a relatively small amount of the $800 to $1 billion.
Curt Woodworth (JP Morgan): On the comparisons of quarterly growth rate in 2007 relative to 2008, did you say that you thought that volumes would be relatively flat per quarter in 2008?
Jim Flaws: No I did not say that would be flat, but the ups and downs per quarter on a cycle during the course of the year would be more muted than what we had seen this past year at a very minimum starting off quarter one we were down 13%. The other reason why I think it will be more muted will be the fact that we and the panel makers appear to be operating very close to full capacity so the increases will be primarily tend to be when panel markers bring on additional capacity. We are not saying its going to be flat we are just going to say the quarters beyond down as much as you saw this past year.
Curt Woodworth (JP Morgan): What’s the capacity expansion at Hemlock going to be this year?
Jim Flaws: We are going up to 14.5 metric tons compared to 10,000 this past year. There is none in quarter one, it starts coming after that.
John Anthony (Cowen & Company): Looking at your operating margins, could give a sense whether the leverage is going to come more form the top line or holding your expenses flat this year? Do you think you can exceed 25% in any given quarter this year?
Jim Flaws: I’m not going forecast operating margins, we don’t use that as a metric for the company it’s a combination of all of our businesses.
John Anthony (Cowen & Company): When do you think the truck sales might bottom in the outlook for DPS business? Do you think that’s first half phenomenon?
Wendell Weeks: In 2006, there were Class 8 300,000 sold medium heavy duty and bus around 300,000 for a total 2006 heavy duty diesel around 630,000. In 2007, that same comparable number was 355,000 with a combination of the impact of the buy in 2006 as well as a little more sluggish demand hitting the trucking industry. In 2007, the amount of trucks that were compliant with the new rules was 285,000. Sales of our product overall were up a little over 50% year over year. As we turn to next year, our current estimate would be a total heavy duty diesel demand to be in the range of 375,000 to 475,000 compared to the 2007 number. We anticipate increasing sales of our products this year and we would expect due to a combination of pre-buy not being here as well as at some point this year the heavy duty diesel market picking up.
Mark Sue (RBC Capital Market): Can you share with us the level of inventory granularity that is shared by the panel makers and if the data has become more reliable or less reliable in recent quarters to give us a sense of the thoughts on the March seasonality?
Jim Flaws: The panel maker’s inventory data is quite reliable. It’s reported on monthly basis by the Taiwanese and the Koreans do report fairly regularly. Inventories at the panel makers themselves are quite reliable and we spend quite a bit of time with them going through their inventories. The place that is less detailed remains past the panel makers as you go out into the set assembly and modules and then getting to retail where the data is clearly less good.
CJ Muse (Lehman Brothers): On the cost side, last year you were guiding every quarter SG&A of about 16% but in Q1 2008, you are guiding 14% to 15%. Is that 14% to 15% sustainable throughout 2008?
Jim Flaws: I won’t give you full guidance, the only thing I’ll comment on when you start using a percent; remember our top line got a little bit of lift from Yen exchange rate where much of our operating expenses are in Dollars. When the top line goes up from that the Dollar in the SG&A isn’t going to move as much. This will give us a little help on the percent. What we’re trying to do is hold the SG&A to grow at less than half the rate of sales again this year. Clearly exchange rates if they were to stay where they are today for the Yen for the whole year would obviously make than an easier goal to be accomplished.
CJ Muse (Lehman Brothers): On the Display business, can you comment on what your outlook is for tax rate in 2008?
Jim Flaws: The tax rate for Display will be slightly higher than it was this past year by a couple percent within the Display business itself.
Carter Shoop (Deutsche Bank): Could we talk about Dow Corning’s margins? It seems like we’ll see a little bit of a hit in the first quarter and in the second half of the year, are we going to see roughly a similar type of positive impact from higher pricing for the silicone business being offset by the capacity of additions in Hemlock?
Jim Flaws: For silicones, we’ve seen a slight margin erosion due to the mismatch between cost increases and price in the back half of 2007. Our goal was to try and get pricing up to cover that, we have some hopes that raw material costs will not stay at this peak level but we obviously can’t control that. Hopefully we are at a low point on the silicone side of the business in terms of margins if we get the price coming up. Hemlock remains extraordinarily profitable and much more profitable than silicone business. If you want to look at the total of Dow Corning, it’s obviously a question of the mix and how fast the capacity comes up at Hemlock.
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