Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): You''ve made it a hallmark at the company to keep in closer touch with your different customer segments, the company is becoming more global and you''re getting into new products. However, there''s a lot going on in the macro and the regulatory environment. What are you hearing from your customers? What do they need from you and how has that changed over the last few months?
Larry Leibowitz: The industry is looking for direction at this point. People like more exchange transparency during times of turmoil and they need help. There''s just a lot of uncertainty out there, people trying to figure out what to do. Clearly in the more of any other products, it''s just the need for speed and functionality and that''s sort of what we''re striving to do for them.
But a lot of it is how do we get them to scale and how do we solve some of their technology problems because they are being faced with cutbacks in their own budgets and lot of pressure. Now that we have ATS as a way to solve some of these problems with them, that''s been a big push for some of them.
Mike Geltzeiler: A big part that we are hearing from the large sell side customers is they are under so much pressure to prioritize within their own budgets that we have to be very thoughtful because the good news is we have a ton of stuff that we''re rolling out in the second half of the year. This is around the NYSE classic channel specifically in terms of new market models and functionality and speed and when we sit there and talk with our primary sell side customers, as well as the SEC, who also has a pretty full plate right now, helping articulate to them what we think is important, but also listening to both of those counter parties and what they think is achievable, we''re having a lot more of those conversations than we probably would have been having six or seven months ago.
Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): Do you have any threshold on how much cash on hand you want to keep or debt to Cap ratio you would be comfortable taking the company to over the near term?
Mike Geltzeiler: As of June 30, our leverage ratio was about two times debt to EBITDA and over the long-term, that''s a number we like to stay at or below. We might go slightly above that during this transitional phase. In terms of cash on hand, it''s something I''m looking at. We tend to have a sizeable chunk in excess $1 billion and there are reasons for that.
In the nature of our business, there are requirements in some of the European markets for us to have a certain amount of liquidity and capital on hand but we will be digging a little deeper into that and trying to make sure that we are obviously optimizing a little cash we do need to keep on hand.
Howard Chen (Credit Suisse): On the voluntary resignation program during the quarter and specifically with respect to those 75 FTEs that departed on June 30, how much do those 75 FTEs impact the run rate expense rate?
Mike Geltzeiler: The program was launched in June and so the people really left on June 30. There was no savings in the quarter from that. What we are saying is that we will save $6 million in the balance of this year. In 2008, we will realize $6 million from the departures. When the program is full from the 200 people that have signed up for the program, those individuals will save us $20 million realized in 2009 and in excess of $30 million in 2010. The real run rate is $30 million. However, the real run rate will not be realized until 2010 but we''ll actually recognize $6 million in the second half.
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