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Coca-Cola Europacific Partners PLC (CCEP)

Q1 2009 Earnings Call· Tue, Apr 28, 2009

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the CocaCola Enterprises business outlook conference call. At the request of CocaCola Enterprises, this conference is being recorded for instant replay purposes. At this time, I would to turn the conference over to Mr. Thor Erickson, Director of Investor Relations.

Thor Erickson

Management

Thank you, and good morning everybody. We appreciate you joining us this morning to discuss an update on our business, including our outlook for 2008 and 2009. Before we begin, I would like to remind you all of our cautionary statements. This call will contain forwardlooking management comments and other statements reflecting our outlook for 2008 as well as future periods. These comments should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary language contained in this mornings earnings release as well as detailed cautionary statements found in our most recent annual report on Form 10K. and subsequent SEC filings. Our release also contains a reconciliation of nonGAAP comparable figures referenced during this call. A copy of all information will be available on our website at www.cokecce.com. This morning's prepared remarks will be made by John Brock, our CEO, and Bill Douglas, our CFO. Steve Cahillane, President of our North American Group, and Hubert Patricot, President of our European Group, are also with us on the call this morning. Additionally, we have a guest speaker, Sandy Douglas, President of the CocaCola Company's North American Group. Sandy will be providing insight on CCNA's outlook on key areas where we are working together to revitalize our system in North America. Following the prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. In order to get as many people as possible the opportunity to ask questions, please limit yourself to one question. And we will take followup questions as time permits. Please note, this is a call for CCE investors and questions should be directed to the CCE leadership team. Now I will turn the call over to John Brock.

John Brock

Management

Thank you, Thor, and thanks to each of you for joining us. We appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you our current business outlook and the work we've done to begin the process of restoring sustained profitable growth to our company. As you read in our news release this morning, there are some encouraging signs. In North America, we achieved better than expected volume results after implementing our September price increase. In Europe, our performance remains solid. These factors have enabled us to raise our comparable earnings per share guidance for 2008 to a range of $1.28 to $1.31. Bill will discuss our outlook with you in more detail in a few minutes. Although we're encouraged by this trend, we recognize that 2008 results remain below initial expectation and will not reflect the full potential of our business. This demonstrates the importance of our work to find solutions to the key marketplace and operating issues that have restricted our performance. We have conducted this work within the framework of our 120day review. We believe our efforts have identified opportunities and produced tangible plans that, over time, will drive renewed growth, enhance our efficiency and effectiveness, and strengthen our work in the marketplace. An important factor in the success of this review has been the close participation by the CocaCola Company. We are pleased that Sandy Douglas, President of CocaCola North America, has joined us on the call today. Sandy will have remarks in a few minutes and outline our joint efforts to restore sustained growth in North America. As we move through our discussion today, here is our agenda. First, we will identify the key objectives of our 120day review and then detail how these initiatives will help reinvigorate our North American operations. Next, we will look at Europe and…

Sandy Douglas

Management

Thanks, John. Our teams have been working hard together to build a winning plan for our business, and I am glad to be here with you guys today to discuss how we, as a system, return our North America business to profitable growth. As everyone knows, the North American beverage business has faced significant challenges over the past several years; and the difficult external environment has made the situation even more challenging. It's against this backdrop that the leadership teams of Coke North America, Coke Enterprises, and our bottling partners across the country have faced and I would say are seizing the opportunity to tackle some very important issues and opportunities. As we move into 2009 and beyond, we are aligned on a consumer and customer focused plan to achieve four strategic goals. First, to revitalize and grow sparkling beverages. Second, to lead profitable growth in still beverages. Third, to develop bestinclass commercial and customer service capabilities as a total system. Fourth, to drive productivity in everything we do to improve performance and enable reinvestment. Addressing the first two of these goals from a marketing perspective, our system has an aligned plan in place for 2009. While I won't use this time to cover all the details, let me expand for a minute on John's preview with a summary of the main elements. Regarding our first goal to revitalize and grow sparkling beverages, our plan is all about sustainable brand building of the world's greatest beverage brands: CocaCola, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Sprite, and Fanta. These brands are the core of everything we do to drive growth in our sparkling business. In 2009, we will continue to lead with our CocaCola trademark as John said, our Red, Black and Silver focus. We will expand new proprietary packages for both immediate…

John Brock

Management

Thank you, Sandy, and we very much appreciate your partnership and your support. We agree there is still great potential ahead in North America. Now, let's take a look at our outlook in Europe, which has continued to generate solid performance throughout the year. In Europe, we have continued to deliver volume growth fueled by strong execution and solid brand development. In addition, our European team has done an excellent job of managing the expense side of the business. We remain optimistic about Europe's outlook, but despite these advantages we continue to monitor the economic situation there closely as well as its potential impact on our business. We know, for example, that GDP growth is slowing and consumer buying habits are changing and that retailers are more focused on price and value as traditional retailers consolidate and hard discounters gain strength. The profitability of our business in Europe is well balanced by package, brand, and channel, enabling us to seize each growth opportunity. Even as we monitor changing economic conditions, we believe our business has important advantages in Europe. For example, low per capita consumption rates in sparkling beverages continue to create good growth opportunities. We also believe we have excellent 2009 operating plans in place for each category, including sparkling and still beverages, energy, sports drinks, and water. And we will more fully utilize and leverage the scale of our European business to maximize efficiencies. In addition to these plans, we have a proven record of expense management driven by a systematic approach to the transformation of our business. Steve Cahillane implemented this approach while he was our European president, and Hubert Patricot is continuing it. The approach includes work to improve back office efficiency, optimize our gotomarket strategy, and manage expenses through ownership cost management. These efforts to…

Bill Douglas

Management

Thanks, John. As mentioned earlier, we have seen betterthanexpected volume trends in North America during the fourth quarter that have, in part, have enabled us to raise our EPS guidance for the year. We now expect a North American volume decline of approximately 1.5% for the full year with a fourth quarter decline of approximately 7%, which was favorable to our prior guidance in October of Q4 volume decline of approximately 10%. For the full year, North American net revenues per case should increase on a net singledigit range and cost of goods sold per case will increase in a high singledigit range. In Europe, for the full year, we continue to expect low singledigit increases in volume, net revenue per case, and cost of goods per case. These figures are on a comparable and currencyneutral basis. On a total consolidated basis, we now expect full year 2008 earnings per share in a range of $1.28 to $1.31. Cash flow from operations, less capital spending, is expected to be approximately $650 million, with capital spending of approximately $1 billion. The comparable effective tax rate for 2008 is currently expected to be approximately 25% for the full year. I also want to note that as part of our annual routine, we conduct impairment tests for intangible assets. This test compares book value versus fair value. Fair value taking into account our outlook as well as the market's outlook as determined by our share price. Though our outlook in North America has improved, our share price has declined in the recent months. We will continue to analyze whether this will result in any additional impairment. Now, let's turn to commodities. Commodity costs growth is likely to remain above historical level of increase, which have been around 2% to 3% annually and continue…

John Brock

Management

Thank you, Bill. I do completely agree on the achievability of our longterm growth objectives. And I have to say I am encouraged by our efforts to reach those levels of performance. Now, let me leave you with a few key points. First, our business continues to face challenging economic conditions that we cannot control. However, we have a solid 2009 business plan that is based on the things we can control outstanding marketplace execution, diligent cost management, and world-class effectiveness and efficiency. We are helped in our efforts by the benefits of our three strategic priorities, which focus on brands, the effectiveness of our system, and our people. These priorities have better positioned us to overcome the obstacles we face today. We made significant progress with our 120day initiative and produced tangible benefits, including accelerated plans to improve performance and an enhanced working relationship with the CocaCola Company. And, importantly, there are some encouraging signs in our current performance, which have enabled us to raise our 2008 guidance to $1.28 to $1.31 per share; and for 2009 we expect comparable currencyneutral EPS growth in the midsingledigit range.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is from Bill Pecoriello Morgan Stanley.

Bill Pecoriello Morgan Stanley

Analyst

My question is on the price volume tradeoff for 2009. You put in a sizable price increase postLabor Day. The volumes are turning a little bit better. I know you are not giving the components of that revenue guidance for 2009, but do you see the pricing to continue at the level that you have taken? You have that new price pack architecture you are testing that's going to help out. How are you thinking about the pricing relative to what we have been seeing in the fourth quarter?

John Brock

Management

Good question. Let me ask Steve to address that.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

We are pleased with the way the price increase as gone in the fall, as John and Bill both mentioned. As we look to next year and we see the environment in front of us, we would anticipate a price increase in February around 2% or so. And then we will obviously look towards the balance of the year, in the back half of the year, to see if there's any opportunities. But we'll be very conscious of the volume value equation going forward.

Bill Pecoriello Morgan Stanley

Analyst

If I can just followup, will Coke's concentrate move up with this incidence new model kind of in line with that pricing or would it move up, you called it a transition year?

John Brock

Management

Let me ask Bill Douglas to address that question.

Bill Douglas

Management

I will try to keep it simple. Clearly, we are transitioning to a new concentrate model which is difficult to compare it on a likeforlike basis. But if I add it all in and we look at the average concentrate price we expect to pay in 2009 versus the average concentrate price that we paid in 2008, we are expecting that netnet increase to be approximately 2% on the P&L, but the components will be somewhat different.

Bill Pecoriello Morgan Stanley

Analyst

So longer term, if you had the revenue per case up 6%, you would expect to concentrate up 6% but in the transition year, we are going to see a disconnect between those two.

Bill Douglas

Management

That's a fair representation. Going forward, the basis of the incidence is the concentrate would track fairly closely the net wholesale price increase realization.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Judy Hong Goldman Sachs.

Judy Hong Goldman Sachs

Analyst

John, can you just talk about how these initiatives really improve your takehome profitability. Clearly that's been a key issue for a lot of the bottlers and just trying get a sense of how significant takehome profitability could improve and how quickly that you would see takehome profitability more aligned with the immediate consumption.

John Brock

Management

I think there are a couple of things happening there. First of all, the price increase that we put in place in September was heavily weighted to future consumption, takehome business. So that's been a big step in the right direction. Then beyond that, as we look at the 120day initiatives, all of these items are aimed at improving profitability across the whole. We have a whole series, as you heard Sandy describe, on price package architecture, which are both future consumption and immediate consumption focused. And then superimposed on top of that is the new economic model. When you put it all together, our objective over time is, I think, really twofold. One is to have an improved economic relationship with the CocaCola Company where we more effectively have similar alignment on various packages and then the other one is to get closer to our European model, where we have profitability across all packages. I think what you're seeing here is a combination of all of the things I just described. We're moving pretty substantially in that direction.

Judy Hong Goldman Sachs

Analyst

If I can just followup. In the fourth quarter, the improved volume performance in North America, is that primarily improvement in takehome? I know the immediate consumption has been relatively challenging. Has there been improvement from that perspective?

John Brock

Management

Let me ask Steve to address that question.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

Judy, it's mostly in future consumption where we've seen a very good performance relative to what our expectations were. Immediate consumption did have a pretty good November, which had more to do with the falling of the holiday. We unfortunately have not seen a real turnaround in the overall industry trend. But we've been very pleased with our future consumption performance, and I think it just goes to prove that we represent a great portfolio of brands and the consumer is willing to come back and pick them up.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Lauren Torres HSBC.

Lauren Torres HSBC

Analyst

Good morning. Over the years, John, we have seen a number of restructurings at CCE. I was just curious if you could just talk about the flexibility that you have to realign your businesses. You made comments that you're matching your labor costs with demand. I was just curious thinking a little bit longer term that your ability to kind of build up your business once that demand returns as we've seen this occur, restructures over the years, just curious to hear about what you would do and how you can pare back so quickly and then your ability to build up that business again.

John Brock

Management

Let me just say that we know that you and others have heard about restructurings over the years. We understand that and we appreciate it. I think what we've been going through over the last four months is dramatically different. I think the overall approach that, first of all Steve has brought to the party here, is significantly different. We have restructured our North American business so that it is much simpler, more standardized, more streamlined. We have four business units in the U.S. instead of six. We have dramatically simplified some of the major staff activities here in Atlanta. Beyond that, as that organization restructuring has gone throughout the whole of North America, we have been very systematic and aggressive in getting our business the way we want it from a structure standpoint. I feel very good about where we are, and I would characterize this one as different than the ones in the past. Although I know we need to demonstrate that through our actions going forward, so that you and we can see that. Just in terms of your question around temporary labor, actually, it's a lot easier to flex up than it is to flex down. So, we flexed down in the fourth quarter understandably, because we had less volume and so we did it. It is a very easy thing to flex up. In this economic environment, it's easier than ever because you got such a high level of unemployment. Steve, if you want to add anything, to that, feel free. It's very easy for us to flex up. Don't stay awake at night worrying about whether we can get account managers and merchandisers as our volume increases.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

The only thing I would add, right on obviously, is we are already planning on some flex up in 2009 in terms of revenuegenerating positions. The type of cost savings that we're doing are very much with the goal of reinvesting in top line initiatives and revenue generators.

Lauren Torres HSBC

Analyst

If I can ask a quick followup on Bill's question with respect to the incidence pricing, I am not sure if you can talk about this, but as far as how this relationship is with Coke as far as sharing a percentage of sales. Is sales not profits? I guess is the first question. Beyond 2009, how do we think about this multiyear agreement? Can that percentage shift over time or is it somewhat established beyond 2009?

John Brock

Management

Let me ask Bill to address that.

Bill Douglas

Management

What we are striving to do is optimize the revenue generating capability of the system and the operating income growth of the system. The agreement that we've reached is working for 2009. It's the intention of the parties that it will continue. But this is a groundbreaking territory for North America, so we reserve the right to working together, collaboratively to modify it to make sure that it's delivering the intended results, which is to motivate both sides of the system to grow packaging equally between the various channels. I think at this juncture, that's the most detail I can go into. As we have some experience working with it during the course of 2009, we will be as transparent as we can.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala UBS.

Kaumil Gajrawala UBS

Analyst

As we think about the supply chain, the new supply chain company, to what degree are you relying that some of the independent bottlers need to sign up to extract some of those cost savings? And have any of them signed up so far?

John Brock

Management

Excellent question. A number of discussions have taken place, and there's certainly a high level of interest out there. But the numbers that we've talked about with you, so far, are only involving CocaCola Enterprises and the CocaCola Company. If other bottlers, and we would expect others to join over time, any kind of savings that would be realized would be over and above the numbers that we passed on to you.

Kaumil Gajrawala UBS

Analyst

If I could ask a bit on the marketing side and, Sandy, if you are still on the call, we're clearly seeing some deflation in media spending. Does that mean there could be a decrease in overall spending or potential increase in what we see to be consumer impressions as you look at 2009 versus 2008?

John Brock

Management

I am not going to try to answer for Sandy, but I think I would say that's a call that will need to be addressed by the CocaCola Company in February, when they have their results announced for 2008 and talk about an outlook for 2009. Steven can make some comments appropriately about it, though, and I will ask him to do that.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

What I can say is that we've worked collaboratively on this 2009 plan. We're optimistic that we have a very good program going into 2009 from a marketing standpoint that's end to end. So, more from Sandy in February, I'm sure; but right now we're feeling very good about where we are in the plans that we have in place to win in the marketplace in 2009.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from John Faucher JP Morgan.

John Faucher JP Morgan

Analyst

Quick question on the CapEx guidance. Bill, you mentioned the fact that it's being impacted by currency, and it seems like that may be sort of the majority of the yearoveryear reduction in CapEx. Can you talk about X the impact of currency, do you feel like you are making significant cuts in terms of the budget and can you keep CapEx flat relatively over the next couple of years as you go to this more, sort of pricingfocused business model? Therefore, are we going to see limited volume growth going forward? What's the longterm outlook for CapEx?

Bill Douglas

Management

The capital reduction that we're making, the 10% cut, is effectively currency neutral. If you look at the amount of capital spend between North America and Europe, as well as the timing of when the European capital was spent, it is actually a 10% reduction on a currency neutral basis. Second part of your question, I think we are focused on driving return on invested capital. As our business returns to growth, I think it's reasonable to think we would keep the capital reinvestment rate somewhere between 4.5% and 5% focused of our net revenue. And the growth of our business would be driving that.

John Faucher JP Morgan

Analyst

Taking this to the next step, you talked about your reduction in your ROIC improvement guidance. Aside from the lower base issue, which obviously is a problem, what is the big delta there? Is that just, you haven't changed your longterm growth targets, doesn't sound like you're changing your capital spending targets, what's the differential there in the ROIC?

Bill Douglas

Management

If you do the math, if we significantly reduced the denominator of the capital employed, we get a very inflated ROIC number, albeit from the impairment. I think if you would like to, Thor and I can talk offline and we can run through the calculation with you.

John Faucher JP Morgan

Analyst

It's more about the manageable level of invested capital as opposed to sort of the artificial level from the writedowns.

Bill Douglas

Management

It's both.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Carlos Laboy Credit Suisse.

Carlos Laboy Credit Suisse

Analyst

John, when you look at your incidence model and you benchmark it against the others out there, why is this a good model? You get one year, the Mexicans get 10 years of economic clarity and you don't really have any contractual reassurance that you are going to be able to keep your cost reductions.

John Brock

Management

We think it's an excellent first step. We are not necessarily trying to replicate what anybody else around the world had, in fact, we don't necessarily know what they have. I don't think that's particularly appropriate. From our standpoint, we really put our best minds to work on how we can put something together that would work for North America, and what I can tell you is we didn't come up with a secondrate proposal. We came up with a proposal that we thought was right for us, and I know that CocaCola feels the same way. We're excited about it. In fact, we were no more interested in having a multiyear agreement here than CocaCola was. I think we need to try it out and make sure it all works in transition and then we'll move forward a year from now. I am very optimistic that this is going to be right for us and that it will become a multiyear kind of approach. But it needs the kinds of agreements on both sides.

Carlos Laboy Credit Suisse

Analyst

Can you expand on the progress you're making in the discussion with fountain and food service?

John Brock

Management

We look forward to having more to talk about in days to come there. We've done a lot of work in that arena. It's not simple. It's not easy. But we and the CocaCola Company have a keen interest in trying to figure out a way of making that total business situation better for everybody. We are hard at work on it. We're going to continue to work on it. We recognize that we have some very unique situations here in North America which aren't really replicated anywhere else in the world. We have an outstanding fountain business here and a market share probably higher in fountain than anywhere in the world. We got to figure out how to make this thing work from everybody's standpoint. All I can say is we're all committed to working on it hard and you're going to hear more about it in days to come.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus.

Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

John, on your outlook for Europe, if I got it right, it's mid to high singledigit operating income. Could you talk a little bit more about beyond what you've told us about your revenue view? But a little bit more about your view of mix as a driver of that. Within that, the role of Monster, what your expectations, or at least directionally, what your expectations there are? And then on the cost side, anything notable other than what you have already told us in the cost of sales per case, really on the op ex expense level, what are you thinking about there as a source of profit growth?

John Brock

Management

Thanks for asking a question about Europe. It's been a terrific business for us this year; and we are, again, optimistic about what it's going to do next year. Hubert Patricot, who runs it, is here; so let me ask him to address your question.

Hubert Patricot

Analyst

Let’s start by saying we are really stick with the economy context in Europe, which is a tough one, too. But we consider we have a good strategy to continue to grow in Europe. We will combine the top line growth. I guess it's the bulk of your question, where will the revenue growth come in Europe? It will come from three Coke strategy first, with Coke Zero continuing to grow strongly next year. At the same time, we are going after the Icee opportunity, which is still huge in Europe. Leveraging at what we call the boost zone strategy. Which is coming to the takeaway outlets in a very [identified] environment. This is leveraging a good growth on the 500ML PET bottles, which is a huge and high margin package for us. Combined with three Coke strategy, the Icee acceleration, and our entry with Monster in the four European countries, this is the basis of the solid revenue and mix management for next year. In terms of op ex, we'll continue the trajectory of what we've achieved this year. Basically, we will launch what we call the ownership cost management initiative by [mid-May] this year and we will have the full benefit of this initiative next year. And on top of that, some new approaches in food service vending, cooler services, that will also deliver some additional benefit. If you combine the top line and the bottom line approach and strategy, we are quite confident we can deliver the figures you are talking about.

Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

If I could follow on the Icee element of what you just said. Could you a little bit more about (a) what you're seeing in the way of Icee trends presently in Europe and (b) how much incrementality you expect from Icee, simply by putting more coolers out there.

Hubert Patricot

Analyst

I think we have to refine approach when we look at Icee in Europe. I would say it's true in [inaudible] of four countries. The traditional Icee channel, cafes on the continent in GB. It’s suffering quite a lot, a decline of 10% basically. At the same time, the takeaway, the bakeries, what we call the fast lunch activities, are doing quite okay. This is really what we are targeting for next year. Implying a larger range, focusing on [inaudible] and with a launch of Abby Well water in GB. So with the meal deal strategy, which is a clear focus of us. It’s not only about placing a cooler. In each outlet, having the right [inaudible], combining range, meal deal activation. We know by experience. And when you place a meal deal in a takeaway business in Europe, you increase your sales by 20% to 25%. This is really what we are driving for next year.

Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Your comment about midtier, you're talking about the price point? When you call it midtier you are talking about the price? The retail price?

John Brock

Management

I didn't understand that. Midtier?

Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

I might have misunderstood you. I am just trying to figure out that 500ML product that's going to be out there a lot more aggressively. How is it priced at retail? For the consumer who's feeling some pressure, how does it price versus other alternatives that are out there?

Hubert Patricot

Analyst

It varies by channel, but you can say that on average, in the takeaway business in Europe, it would be from 150 to 2 Euros.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Christine Farkas Merrill Lynch.

Christine Farkas Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Just a quick followup if I could on the supply chain. I guess I am trying to get a sense of how broad this could go. I didn't hear it, forgive me if it was mentioned. I didn't hear much discussion about any plant shutdowns or capacity rationalization, but does it include or do you envision that kind of planning and then as a follow up to that, the $150 million in incremental savings expected by 2011, does the word incremental, is that meant to imply net of planned reinvestment? Or gross of reinvestment?

John Brock

Management

Let me ask Steve Cahillane to address that.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

Right now, we view the supply chain as an excellent first step. Right now, what we're calling CocaCola supply will not be managing plans on a daytoday basis. But they will be managing largescale infrastructure planning, other customer service elements. So, one could envision as you look at the footprint between CCE and CocaCola North America, that there would be opportunities to rationalize in the future. We will look very much at that. If you were to design the supply chain from scratch today, you clearly wouldn't design it the way it is. Part of putting the teams together is to get to that stage in the future. We can't promise that for next year, but we clearly are looking in that direction. Because we have big opportunities to rationalize our supply chain in the future.

Christine Farkas Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Then on the $150 million?

John Brock

Management

The question on the $150 million?

Christine Farkas Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Just the language in your press release suggested incremental savings to the system. I am trying to understand if the incremental savings is meant to imply that's after planned reinvestment. I suspect there's some reinvestment behind the brands and initiatives or if that's a gross number and there may be reinvestment taken from that.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

That is a gross number, and that's what we plan on achieving as a run rate going forward, thinking in terms of the back half of 2010 and into 2011.

John Brock

Management

If I can just, Mark, back up to the question you raised. I think I just realized what the confusion was. Hubert was talking about meal deals and how important they are in Europe and how it drives soft drink beverage consumption. I think you might have heard that as midtier. I just wanted to make sure we had that straight. It's meal deals. That's what is so effectively driving our immediate consumption business in our boost zones.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Celso Sanchez Citigroup.

Celso

Analyst

I was hoping you could give a bit more color on the price/pack architecture initiative, and specifically how the rest of you see that roll out, that expansion, is it something that's targeted to be rolled out fully by the middle of 2009 and end of 2009. Is it a multiyear phasein? And also, how might we gauge progress on that initiative?

Sanchez

Analyst

I was hoping you could give a bit more color on the price/pack architecture initiative, and specifically how the rest of you see that roll out, that expansion, is it something that's targeted to be rolled out fully by the middle of 2009 and end of 2009. Is it a multiyear phasein? And also, how might we gauge progress on that initiative?

Citigroup

Analyst

I was hoping you could give a bit more color on the price/pack architecture initiative, and specifically how the rest of you see that roll out, that expansion, is it something that's targeted to be rolled out fully by the middle of 2009 and end of 2009. Is it a multiyear phasein? And also, how might we gauge progress on that initiative?

John Brock

Management

Let me ask Steve to address that one.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

We're actually, I would classify this as a fairly aggressive launch. We are going in the cold vault, and we're going in in a big way with immediate consumption entry-level packages. We have seen a host of examples where the consumer is looking for value, you can think 99¢ meals and so forth. We think 99¢ is a very good price for a 16ounce PET bottle in a large portion of our geography. Other geographies, a 14ounce PET would be appropriate and we've also seen great success with 16ounce cans, again priced at 99¢. So, we will be very aggressively pursuing this strategy in 2009. We are very optimistic that we've got the right mix, based on the testing that we've done in 2008 and we continue to do. And to be able to gauge our success because on things like the type of incidence we're driving. We're really looking at this as a significant way to drive recruitment, and it's a key part of our recruitment strategy and we're confident we'll be able to get the lift necessary with the 14 and 16ounce packages to make up for any cannibalization that we'll see in the 20ounce.

Celso Sanchez - Citigroup

Analyst

So at the margin, if we see a bit of tweak down in volume, then we should see, obviously, an improvement on the mix.

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

Can you repeat that? Celso Sanchez – Citigroup: If we see a bit of a decline in volume that reflects the downsize, we should certainly see that balanced out by the price mix?

Steve Cahillane

Analyst

Yes. That's a fair way to characterize that.

John Brock

Management

Operator, we will take one more question if we could please.

Operator

Operator

Mark Swartzberg Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Thanks for the meal deals clarification there. Bill, quick question on currency. Can you tell us, do you have any hedges? Can you give us some idea of how hedged you are for 2009?

Bill Douglas

Management

If we look at currency, just as a reminder to everybody, typically what we do is we hedge our transaction exposure, where we are cross currency raw material, for example, where we buy products in Canada in U.S. dollars we would hedge that currency exposure. And in Great Britain, where we have commodity exposure in your Euros, we would hedge that exposure. From a transaction perspective, we are fairly fully covered for 2009. We do not, however, hedge translation, and that's always been our practice. If you look at core commodities, we're hedged between 50% and 75% on both aluminum and HFC S and a lesser degree on fuel in the U.S. We are unable and do not hedge PET. On the translation, we try to have Euro and Canadian debt outstanding so we try to use debt as a natural hedge from that perspective. So that would affect our interest expense line.

John Brock

Management

On that note, let me say thanks again to all of you for joining us today. We appreciate your tuning in and we wish all of you a very happy holiday season.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your participation. This does conclude today's conference call. Have a wonderful day, and you may disconnect.