Deere & Co. (DE)
Q4 Earnings Call Transcript
November 25, 2009 10:00 a.m. ET

Executives

Marie Ziegler - Vice President, Investor Relations
Susan Karlix - Manager, Investor Communications
James M. Field - Chief Financial Officer

Analysts

Stephen Volkmann - Jefferies & Co.
Robert Wertheimer - Morgan Stanley
David Raso - ISI Group
Eli Lustgarten - Longbow Securities
Meredith Taylor - Barclays Capital
Ann Duignan - J.P. Morgan
Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse
Andrew Casey - Wells Fargo Securities, Llc
Henry Kirn - UBS
Seth Weber - RBC Capital Markets
Andrew Obin - Bank of America/Merrill Lynch

Presentation

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Deere’s fourth quarter earnings conference call. Your lines have been placed on listen-only until the question-and-answer session of today’s conference.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Marie Ziegler, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Marie Ziegler

Good morning. Also on today’s call are Jim Field, our Chief Financial Officer, Susan Karlix and Justin Marovec, from the Deere Investor Relations staff.

Today, we’ll take a closer look at Deere’s fourth quarter earnings and then spend some time talking about our markets and provide our first look at how things may shape up in 2010. After that, we’ll respond to your questions.

Please note that slides are available to complement the call this morning. They can be accessed on our website at www.johndeere.com.

First a reminder, this call is being broadcast live on the Internet and recorded for future transmission and use by Deere and Thomson Reuters. Any other use, recording or transmission of any portion of this copyrighted broadcast without the express written consent of Deere is strictly prohibited. Participants in the call, including the Q&A session, agree that their likeness and remarks in all media may be stored and used as part of the earnings call.

This call includes forward-looking comments concerning the company’s projections, plans and objectives for the future that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. Actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company’s most recent Form 8-K and periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company, except as required by law, undertakes no obligation to update or revise this forward-looking information. The call and accompanying materials are not an offer to sell or solicitation of offers to buy any of the company’s securities. This call will also include financial measures that are not in conformance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, otherwise referred to as GAAP.

Additional information regarding these measures, including reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures, is posted on our website at www.johndeere.com/financialreports, under other financial information and under conference call information slides.

Call participants should consider the other information on risks and uncertainties and non-GAAP measures in addition to the information presented during this call.

And now, for a closer look at our fourth quarter, here’s Susan.

Susan Karlix