Here’s the entire text of the Q&A from Ericsson’s (ticker: ERICY) Q3 2005 conference call. The prepared remarks are here. We recognize that this transcript may contain inaccuracies - if you find any, please post a comment below and we’ll incorporate your corrections. And please note: this conference call transcript is a Seeking Alpha product, so feel free to link to it but reproduction is not permitted without the explicit permission of Seeking Alpha.
Question & Answer
[Operator]
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will begin the question and answer session. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS]. As always, please limit yourselves to one question at a time, and please keep your questions at a broad level. Detailed information is provided in the report and Ericsson's Investor Relations and Media Relations teams will be happy to take additional questions and discuss further details with you after the call. We will take our first question from Tim Boddy from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, sir.[Tim Boddy]
Yes, thank you very much. I'd just like to pick up your growth guidance for 2006 and just ask if you wouldn't mind highlighting, on a region by region basis, how you see that moderate growth unfolding. Also, whether you continue to expect to grow faster than the markets. I'd also particularly like to ask about Europe, where I just was interested in whether you think there's some kind of pent up demand developing. We did see, in the second quarter, a significant increase in the minutes of use in Europe, for the first time in a while, and it does seem surprising that operators, in that environment, are able to suppress CapEx. Thank you.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Well, let me walk you through a little bit how we see things, although remember that we are early here and this is just our initial views on 2006. And I think what we'll see is continued high activity level in U.S., especially on the Wideband CDMA side, where Cingular is doing another rollout and where we are active, of course. I think we will see Latin America continue with a lot of activities, although just mathematically it gets increasingly difficult to beat last year's numbers. I think the growth numbers, in percentage, may come down a bit. I think the CEMA region will continue much as we've seen this year. It's a lot of growth opportunities. And we can see that, on one hand, Russia is probably going to a the end of this initial 2G rollout. And then they will start looking at rolling out 3G and so on and there will be fill in investments and so on, but not as active, maybe, as this year. On the other hand, we have similar starting activities in the surrounding countries there, neighboring countries. We have activity levels in Eastern Europe and Africa also. CEMA region continues much as before. APAC, I guess, we expect also similar development. And, of course, we should have increasing activities in China and the longer things are waiting there the more pent up demand there is. Europe is, I think we have more of a flattish outlook right now in Europe, but I think your question is well put, because Europe has the position of having had the highest tariffs in the world and therefore also the lowest minutes of use. Five times higher minutes of use in U.S. and a fifth of the tariffs. I think this is a development that we will see also in Europe, over time, developing. And as that happens, traffic goes up and capacity is needed. The problem is, of course, that the operators are sitting there and seeing no growth on their top lines but increasing traffic and then capacity needs. So they do everything they can on getting efficiency out of the networks and working as smart as they can. Of course, that will, over time, be followed by equipment raise. That's an obvious. It gets the other effect, as well, and that is that services get even more in focus, because if you can get the savings that we provide, for example in managed services, then you have to go for that. Every single idea to lower operating costs are in focus. Your final question whether we can continue to take market share, that's obviously our ambition and we believe we should be able to do so, although I think one has to be clear that this is a highly competitive industry. And, unless we are really working hard and doing our best in every single aspect of the business, we won't do so. But we are optimistic that we can continue and gain market.
[Tim Boddy]
Thank you very much. And just to follow up within that, 3G in China, how much of the growth do you think that would contribute? How much are you relying on 3G coming through in China to achieve this moderate market growth?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Well, in reality, from a more overall point of view, not necessarily talking about the first quarter or second quarter or so on, but if they build out their capacity for more traffic through 2G or 3G doesn't really change the picture. I think what happens, if you buy 3G, is that you may have some additional spend simply because you're rolling out another network and it positions yourself for more higher value added services and so on in the networks going forward. But if you continue with 2G, that is less cost efficient technology and means more spend from that point of view. It's not making a very big difference.
[Tim Boddy]
Okay. Thanks very much.
[Operator]
Thank you. From CSFB, we now take our next question from Kulbinder Garcha. Please go ahead.
[Kulbinder Garcha]
Thank you. Could you please give us a comment on how you see your positioning in your fixed business? And in particular, there seems to be continuous speculation regarding potential acquisitions that you might make. Do you think your fixed line business requires acquisitions in the long term or do you think you can organically grow that? Or do you think it will remain relatively small in your overall sales?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Well, we have pretty robust ambitions, actually, on the, I'm not sure whether one should call it the fixed side, more the converging side, with the new wave IP based technologies, where we will probably see the same core networks dealing with both ways of access and the same thing in transmission. And as we're coming into converging networks, it's essential for us to play a leading role in that field. And that is a field that migrates both from the fixed and the mobile, with a lot of the mobility behavior driving the services that people want to see. But, at the same time, it's being much built on fixed network technologies and migrating from those platforms. And our basic strategy is always to do the necessary R&D and build our position through internal growth. We are well positioned to do so and, as you know, we took the BT 21C contract and we're taking a lot of contracts of that kind right now. And I think you will see growth whatever we do in call it the fixed line side. And because of our commitment to this strategy, we're seeing also more traditional fixed business coming our way, because we seem to be an interesting partner to be with. Should we then do acquisitions? Well, I'm sure that there are areas where products or technologies or even an install base customer relationships can add value, but we are certainly not dependent on doing such.
[Kulbinder Garcha]Okay, thank you. And just one very quick follow up. On your position within India, we know that there's going to be a very significant tender coming up. And I know Ericsson have done very well so far in avoiding some of the very low margin contracts your competition have accepted. Now, I'm just wondering do you feel the need to involve to bid more aggressively on that and could that have any could that inject any further volatility into your gross margins going forward? Or are you happy with your market share in India today?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
We have an over 40% market share in GSM in India. We're the leading player. We have more people on the ground and are stronger than anyone else there. Because the tender that you talk about is an open tender, because that's the government business, that gives it a lot of attention, but that's just one part of all the business that goes on in India. We are certainly not going to lead prices down in auctions or tenders on that kind, that is not the role we play. Remember, though, that we are a large supplier into that operator's network and still are, and even got quite a significant portion in the existing circles we're in, in the former tender that came out.
[Kulbinder Garcha]Okay, thank you very much.
[Operator]
Thank you. We now move to Stuart Jeffrey from Lehman Brothers. Please go ahead.
[Stuart Jeffrey]
Hi there, I have two questions really for Karl-Henrik Sundstrom. In the cash flow, I'm still a little bit confused around the changes in other net operating assets. I think Karl-Henrik mentioned that the $2 billion FX effects weren't leaving the company, so I was hoping you could perhaps go through a little bit more detail as to exactly what's happening on that line, how much of that is really coming out of the company and how much might come back in future years, or future periods?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
The ForEx thing, it is the following, and what is happening is, under the IAS rules 39, you have to market-to-market valuate your hedge portfolio before the contract portfolio, which means that the balance sheet is increased and in that sense the counterpart in the funds flow will be the working capital. But that explains only part of the working capital increase, and that's all in all about 2 billion. However, in the other part, I said it is receivables, work in process, but also around these timing difference on the big roll-out projects, you are building up working capital, but we are working to get down in the fourth quarter when we get acceptance of a number of big networks.
[Stuart Jeffrey]So why then other operating net assets rather than inventories or something like that?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
Because part of it is in other receivables. Part of it is in, as you've probably seen also that we have taken costs against provisions, like you do in any big timing difference in any big roll-out project, and these are the things that add up, all in all, to the slightly more than 8 billion that you have in the total working capital build-up in the quarter.
[Stuart Jeffrey]So your net change in provisions is about 1.5 billion, is that the amount that's also gone through the cash flow?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]Yes, of course.
[Stuart Jeffrey]
The 1.5 billion?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]Yes.
[Stuart Jeffrey]Thank you.
[Operator]Thank you. Our next question comes from Mats Nystrom from Enskilda. Please go ahead.
[Mats Nystrom]
Yes, hello. Firstly, was there an element of increased pricing pressure in the slight decline in sequential gross margin? And secondly, on R&D expenses, I heard from the press conference this morning that R&D costs may increase above the 24 billion target due to the U.S. dollar development, but how do you look at '06 there? Should we model at least 26 billion there on R&D? Thank you.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]No, R&D is not exceeding its targets, and there is, I wouldn't say that there is any change in the price pressure. I think that's rather stable, and if anything, I think over the year back or so on it, it was even more intense than it has been historically. I think we're back on historical trends.
[Mats Nystrom]
But how should we model then, R&D '06? Will there be an increase in absolute terms?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
In price pressure?
[Mats Nystrom]Okay, and maybe R&D costs in 2006. Will that increase substantially over the '05 level?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
Our overall ambition in R&D is two things. We believe that we can do R&D work more efficiently, not because people are not working efficiently, but by developing our ways of working and our processes of workflows, as we've done in all other parts of the company, but R&D is slightly more complex, and we have an ambition to dramatically reduce our lead-times and get faster with products to market and so on. That would free up resources, so if the only thing we did was that, we should actually see a decline in R&D expenditure without losing output, that's our ambition. At the same time, we have needs to expand and accelerate our investments in next-generation networks, and if we play it right here, I think we can keep R&D costs reasonably well under control here.
[Mats Nystrom]
Okay, thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. From Exane BNP Paribas, we now move to Alexandre Peterc. Please go ahead sir.
[Alexandre Peterc]
Hello, can you hear me?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Yes, please go ahead.
[Alexandre Peterc]
Yes, thank you. I was just wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on India again? You said in the last quarter you experienced some lumpiness in that market and I wondered how that was moving ahead? And second question was related to North America, if you could explain how the Cingular contract is going to work out in India coming quarters? Are we still going to see such strong traction or will there be some slowdown that you have predicted for this quarter for this region? Thanks.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Regarding India, this is a market like China. It has a very steady subscriber growth, presently, I think, around 65 million subscribers, although that's a moving target, obviously. The government wants to see 200 million, 250million within a few years, and it's certainly going to happen, and there is a steady activity level that's just steady growth. Of course, that can still mean that there can be more or less of invoiced larger projects, in particular quarters, but principally, a steady growth and an interesting market. When it comes to North America, the Cingular project is rolling well. We are well on par with all our commitments and the major rollouts are really still ahead of us, and we are coming into Q4 and next year they will continue to grow there.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
Next question please Operator?
[Operator]
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Brian Moldoff from Deutsche Bank.
[Brian Moldoff]Hi, yes, I was wondering if you could course your outlook both on '05 and '06 between your GSM and your WCDMA businesses? Can you give us growth trends that you would see in both businesses this year and next?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Well, it gets increasingly difficult, actually, to comment on the difference, because I think we're seeing more and more of an evolution, actually, and we are where we are building and migrating the networks more step-by-step. We're having more wide-band CDMA in larger cities and so on, and you are tying the efforts more closely together. We're even introducing radio base stations where you can basically provide both functions and so on, so they are not that easy to split apart. But basically, we see, continue to see good strength in the GSM market. It's so far one third of the world's market have started the migration to 3G, and that will continue for more years, and we are more or less the only vendor that continues to invest in R&D and cost rationalizations and so on in GSM. So I think we have a good outlook for GSM for somewhat more time. On wide-band CDMA where we still are in an early phase of a new technology, small differences can make big differences in numbers here and percentages, and obviously our leading role in the Cingular contract alone, for example, which is the largest roll-out the world has seen so far is going to change the numbers in our favor.
[Brian Moldoff]
And quickly, do you see an impact on your gross margins next year from HSDPA upgrades? Thank you.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]We're not giving any particular guidance on the gross margins, but there are no dramatic things happening here.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
I think it's important also to remember, this is Karl-Henrik Sundstrom speaking, that HSDPA will be part of our WCDMA offering, but it will not be, so to say, an upgrade. It's just like EDGE on our built-in tool, basically on our deliveries of GSM.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Next question please?
[Operator]Thank you. Our next question from Wojtek Uzdelewicz from Bear Stearns. Please go ahead.
[Wojtek Uzdelewicz]Thank you, one just clarification, and then more of a macro question. In Sony Ericsson's statement on the Page 22, the sales to Sony Ericsson more than doubled year-over-year and royalties from Sony Ericsson also almost doubled. But if you look at the Sony Ericsson sales, they were up about 9% sequentially, so I was just curious. What would be the reason for such a significant jump? And the second question, more of a macro level, I was in a meeting with management of Vodafone, and one of the things they are kind of insisting that over the next couple of years they will bring down the CapEx revenues below 10% and their share of spending will shift from 70% of base stations to more of 70% in a core, in the backbone of the network. How would you see other operators trying to bring down, how realistic do you think that the carriers can bring down the CapEx so low given that the traffic is growing? And second, if that shift from the base stations is more to the backbone of the network, are you looking at some acquisitions, or are you shifting more of your focus on R&D more towards backbone? Can you give us some sense of the direction?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]Hi, this is Karl-Henrik Sundstrom speaking. I will answer the first one. The reason for that movement between Ericsson and Sony Ericsson is that we have signed a new IPR license and in the third quarter for Sony Ericsson it is actually two months included of two quarters of IPRs, which is basically €15 million, €16 million, and then that will continue of a quarterly charge going forward.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]When it comes to Vodafone, I think that particular comment, I guess, they should answer themselves, and I'm sure you ask them. But in general, they are, first of all they are the operator that have invested the most, so they have a new 3G network on the radio side, and they have some capacity that they can use there. Obviously as in every technology shift, with more capacity, we soon come up with new services and learn how to use that, and traffic increases so, so there is obviously expansion around the corner somewhere. But I think you're also right there that it is an interesting comment that you're making, and it's well in line where we are, that the heavy build-outs that have taken place, and are taking place on radio access, broadband access, is creating significant growth in the core networks and I think we will see a bit of shift in investments towards, or not necessarily away from radio. There is a lot of potential in radio, but more investments in the core area and maybe even more so in the transmission area. It is clearly an area of growth, and maybe an area of under-estimated growth here, so give it a few more years. I would be surprised if our transmission area hasn't grown in significance.
[Wojtek Uzdelewicz]Do you plan to invest or look into more acquisitions that would give you more like a fiber or more of a switching IP capabilities?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]It is clear that, as we said, as I've said before, that our strategy is based on growing what we have to internal means, but it is in the transmission area and it is on the fixed line business where we can, where it is of interest for us to add the capabilities. It is not, this is something that is in our R&D plans anyway, but if something comes by, of course, we'll always evaluate it, and that's how we got internet speed and access it and so on. That also adds value so yes, somewhat right there.
[Wojtek Uzdelewicz]
Thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. From UBS, we now move to Jeffrey Schlesinger. Please go ahead.
[Jeffrey Schlesinger]Thank you, Karl-Henrik Sundstrom. I just want to clarify a comment you made on your 2 billion because of the IAS rules 39. Was there any impact in that? You said it was all balance sheet, there was nothing on the P&L. I just want to clarify that, but also go back to the provisions, the 1.5 billion that came out of provisions. You said that was all on the P&L. Is that correct, or was some of that in the cash-flow statement? Thank you.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
It's in the cash-flow because it's against costs.
[Jeffrey Schlesinger]
Which were you referring to, the 2 billion or both, the provisions?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]No, the provisions.
[Jeffrey Schlesinger]The provisions? Okay, I thought I heard P&L but it was cash flow. Thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. Richard Kramer from Arete Research has our next question.
[Richard Kramer]
Thanks very much, a couple of quick questions. First, since the start of the year on various websites, EKN, IFC, Hermes, we've seen that Ericsson's got well over $1 billion worth of export credit financing for its various customers. Can you talk us through how that might impact both the P&L and overall profitability and perhaps soften some of the moves in working capital that we've seen? And then could you comment at all about any plans for cash returns to shareholders in the coming months or into next year? You're still sitting on a substantial amount of net cash on the balance sheet, that would have effectively return on capital not employed. Can you talk about any plans you might have for that, barring any major acquisitions or other uses for the cash? Thanks.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
Well, let me just start by a couple of comments and I think Karl-Henrik wants to add here as well, but financing is not as big a matter as it was in the 90s when there was a lot of operators starting up Greenfields with basically just an office and a bank account. Most roll-outs are today done by profitable catch and rating operators. It's not that big a deal but it is still a matter of importance, especially in emerging markets, and it has always been extremely helpful to our business. It's fractions that we have lost over many, many, many years, because as networks are being rolled out, there is an asset that is traffic that is cash-flow, and if we don't get paid, we don't serve the networks, so we basically end up first in line when it comes to get paid, so that is very unusual that we lost anything, and it tends to be also in markets where profitability is not, not every competitor is able to work and have established all the resources and so on that are needed. So our proportion of the sales is, we have higher market shares simply in those markets, so it's a positive. So there are really no negative effects on the P&L there, rather the opposite. But when it comes to our cash position, we are sitting on a pretty strong cash position, but it's well in line with Notecase or Microsoft is, or Cisco is, so I think it is a helpful position to have. There are different things that could happen here. Theoretically, the market could take off. It's not our basic scenario but assume that new services come in and tariffs go down and traffic increases, and the market takes off, that would probably require some additional working capital investment. It could be, if we have political problems or anything else unexpected, we could have a downturn. Also there, a strong cash position, I think, has proven historically to help. It could also be bolt-on acquisitions or so where cash position is also useful. Should nothing of this happen, and we continue to generate profits and cash in the way that we're doing, of course, we're getting to the point where we have to talk about increased dividends or buybacks or something, but that's not really where we are right now, and it's also board matters.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
When it comes to the ECAs, or the world and in particular EKN, that is the way where we can give credit to our customers without taking any risk ourselves, and basically offload it with a guarantee from the ECA of the world and then put it in the bank world. This is a great help for us and that has been fueling some of our growth in the emerging markets.
[Richard Kramer]And what might be the profitability benefit that you would get from now having to attach risk provisions, for example, to business in those many markets, EKN helps you with?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]It's actually depending on the customer profile. So you can't talk generally, but I can only say one thing. Both the EKN, which is the biggest one, and Ericsson, has had very little credit losses in emerging markets, as Karl-Henrik said. We have actually had bigger credit losses in the U.S. and in Europe.
[Richard Kramer]
Okay, thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. From CIBC World Markets, we now move to Ittai Kidron. Please go ahead.
[Ittai Kidron]
Hi, good afternoon. I just had a follow-up question to Wojtek's on the transition to more core-end transmission. How would that play into your gross margins? Would that be a positive, at least from a directional standpoint, to your gross margins?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Well, no change really I would say.
[Ittai Kidron]Okay. And a bit more of a macro question, there are some concerns about the macro environment specifically here in the U.S. going into next year. What are the risks that you're seeing of the macro environment to your business?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
The American situation for us in particular is very much now dominated by the Cingular business. Other businesses that we have in the U.S. represent more opportunities to us and I would say there are very small risks for anything particular happening to us in the U.S. That is such a forceful project going on right now.
[Ittai Kidron]Okay, thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. Peter Dionisio from Morgan Stanley has our next question.[Peter Dionisio]
Thanks. My other questions have been answered but just a follow-up question, to what extent do you think Ericsson mobile platforms, outside of Sony Ericsson, can have an impact on Ericsson's operating margins over the next year? And my second follow-up question is that could we assume that given the growth in your emerging market related sales, that we'll see a convenient lengthening in your DSOs as we saw in Q3 over the coming quarters, and hence a tying up of greater working capital in the future? Thanks.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
Well, on EMP, EMP is a very research driven organization that has therefore high gross margins on the deliveries they're making, so if they, I think in general that EMP enjoys a strong position and has great opportunities to continue to expand and grow as basically the only really big independent platform provider in the world. They are still not incredibly big here, and whatever they do, has a positive impact but not dramatic on Ericsson, at least where they are right now. When it, what is it for? Oh, DSO. I would say that what we are, we have come back maybe to, even though we think we can, but we have ambitions in basically every area, and we are a little bit irritated that it has gone a few days up more than we thought it should have gone, but we are more returning to a normal situation. It was more of an unusual situation in 2003, with basically no big roll-out projects and more just capacity add-ons and so on. Now we're back into more of a normal mix of larger projects, smaller projects, add-ons and services so I don't think there is a particular reason to expect that, to expand further. I don't know what to say, Karl-Henrik.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
No, we're going to work very hard towards our target, very hard.
[Peter Dionisio]
Thank you.
[Operator]
Thank you. From Bank of America Securities, we now move to Tim Long.
[Jeff Walkenhorst]
Hi, good afternoon, it's Jeff Walkenhorst for Tim Long at the bank. A question on the other operating revenues and costs, we saw a huge spike this quarter, up 70% year on year and over 90% sequentially, and over 2% of your revenue or up margin. Can you talk about the dynamics in the quarter and how we should think about this on a go forward basis? What's the evolution and was there any impact from Cingular turning on their networks in the U.S.? Thank you.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
No impact on Cingular turning on their network, and it was basically coming back to Wojtek's question. We had signed a new IPR agreement with Sony Ericsson where you actually get two quarters in one, and then, for the guidance that we have said before, between 300 and 500 on this item here, it's going to remain with a usual tendency of a little bit more in the fourth quarter.
[Jeff Walkenhorst]Okay, and so on a more normalized basis, as you look out into '06, how should we approach that? Thank you.
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]300 to 500.
[Jeff Walkenhorst]
Say it again?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]300 to 500.
[Jeff Walkenhorst]
Per quarter?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]Yes.
[Jeff Walkenhorst]
Great, thanks.
[Operator]Thank you. We now move to Ed Bell from Cazenove. Please go ahead.
[Ed Bell]
Yes, I've just got one question on the tax charge. It seems to have been creeping up. Why is that? What's your long-term tax rate? Is there anything you can do to reduce the tax rate going forward?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]The tax rate is actually a little bit of a mix between the countries where we make the profit, and of course, we are trying, but it's a little bit hard if you get a lot of profit in a high tax country and a little bit low, so you shouldn't judge that really on a quarter by quarter basis. We are trying to be good citizens, but also to make sure that we don't pay too much tax.
[Ed Bell]
So what's the guidance for this year?
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]
No, I think you should, you should have the round 30%.
[Ed Bell]Thank you very much.
[Karl-Henrik Sundstrom]We're ready for the last question, Operator.
[Operator]
Our last question comes from Mark Davies-Jones from JP Morgan.
[Mark Davies-Jones]
Hi, thank you. Sorry, can you hear me? I just wanted to ask a question on the profitability of services. I know you've always said that lower gross margins but comparable operating margins, but are you seeing any tougher terms on taking on new managed services businesses now, because you were clearly early to focus on that area but most of your competitors are now chasing business as well. Are your operator customers getting tougher on the terms on which they let that business?
[Carl-Henric Svanberg]
The margins that we are creating there are really dependent on how we can leverage over-last with our own organizations, and the fact that we can also utilize certain other revenue opportunities like we tend to have right-to-use sites where we take the sites of the operator and we have the right to with a bit of split of profit there, we can rent that side to also other operators, and there tends to be a big demand there. There are many reasons for build-up to the margins beyond the radio operator can do it himself. The fact that others go into this segment doesn't really impact us, because primarily, you operate networks where you are the main supplier or going to be the main supplier. So the alternative is not another vendor, it tends to be more often the in-house alternative, and therefore I would say that if others enter into that market, it's probably more positive because it means that you increase credibility for this type of outsourcing.
[Mark Davies-Jones]
Thank you.
[Gary Pinkham, Vice President Investor Relations]
Okay, before we finish today, I would like to inform you that our next management briefing is scheduled for November 10 in New York. The agenda and registration information is available on our website. If you have any questions regarding this interim report, please don't hesitate to give us a call, and thank you again for attending today.
[Operator]
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Related:
- The prepared remarks from this call are here.
- A list of full conference call transcripts available on the Seeking Alpha Network.
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