Scott Mushkin - Jefferies & Company
I’m sorry, I’m in the car, hopefully you guys can hear me but I just wanted to reclarify Karen’s last thought process there, her first question -- is your confidence the same, increased or decreased regarding your $2.00 to $2.05 number guidance?
David B. Dillon
I’d say about the same. I don’t know, Mike or Rodney, if you feel any different. I don’t see it -- I certainly don’t feel more confident but I don’t feel less confident about it, so I’d have to say about the same, yeah.
Scott Mushkin - Jefferies & Company
Okay, that’s great. And then the second question, getting back to I think it was the first question about acquisitions -- can you guys just refresh us, if we were going to make some -- you know, we’ve done a lot of tuck-in, kind of in-market acquisitions but if you were going to do something bigger, kind of what your parameters are for that? And do you think prices for something larger are working their way down or not really?
David B. Dillon
Rodney, do you want to comment on that?
W. Rodney McMullen
In terms of overall, as we’ve said many times, any time when we look at something, merging with somebody that would be a new market, we’re looking for somebody that has a high quality asset base with strong market share, great people, and a culture similar to what we have. And we think that is just absolutely critical, any time that we merge with somebody on a bigger scale. If you look at our merger with Fred Meyer, if you look at our merger with J.C. -- any of those companies, they all fit those parameters. So anytime we would go into a new market, those are things that are the first things that we look at and that we have to check off. And then we’d have to make sure we get comfortable in terms of the sustainability of their business model and what they have.
So those are things that we would continue to look at, always have and always will and it’s a characteristic of every deal that we’ve participated in. And we also look to see what does the party bring to us and we think that’s what creates our merger. If you look at what Dillon, when we merged with them many years ago, they brought a lot of things to Kroger. If you look at Fred Meyer, there’s many, many things that Fred Meyer brought to Kroger. If you think about our three-tier corporate brand program, you think about our marketplace store, you think about our price impact store -- all those are things that Fred Meyer had that brought to us.
Scott Mushkin - Jefferies & Company
And of course it brought Dave to you guys too, right?
W. Rodney McMullen
Absolutely. And Joe Pichler, two for one.
David B. Dillon
That was a two-for --
Scott Mushkin - Jefferies & Company
How about the environment for a large type of acquisition? Do you think it’s improving? Do you think prices are becoming more realistic? Do you think the pressures that are coming to bear on the market are making things more likely or less likely?
W. Rodney McMullen
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