Greetings ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Methode Electronics, Inc. fiscal 2009 fourth quarter earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) This conference call does contain certain forward-looking statements which reflect management's expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof. These forward-looking statements are subject to the Safe Harbor Protection provided under the securities laws. Methode undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements to conform the statements to actual results or changes in Methode's expectations on a quarterly basis or otherwise. The forward-looking statements in this conference call involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations are detailed in Methode's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission such as our Annual or Quarterly Reports. Such factors may include without limitations the following: 1) dependence on a small number of large consumers within the automotive industry; 2) rising oil prices could affect our automotive consumer future results; 3) the seasonal and cyclical nature of some of our businesses; 4) dependence on the automotive industry; 5) dependence on the appliance, computer and communications industry; 6) intense pricing pressures in the automotive industry; 7) increase in raw material prices; and 8) customary risks related to conducting global operations. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Donald Duda, President and Chief Executive Officer of Methode Electronics, Inc. Mr. Duda, you may begin.

Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our fiscal 2009 fourth quarter and year-end financial results conference call. I am joined today by Douglas Koman, Chief Financial Officer, and Ronald Tsoumas, Methode’s Controller. Both Douglas and I have comments today and afterwards we will be pleased to take your questions. For fiscal 2009, Methode’s overall sales declined 42% in the fourth quarter and 23% for the year compared to the same period of fiscal 2008. The downward pressure of the worldwide automotive market coupled with our decision to exit unprofitable legacy business effected our sales results. Specifically, fourth quarter fiscal 2009 revenues excluded sales from Chrysler while the fiscal 2008 fourth quarter sales included revenue from this automaker. Additionally as a result of our agreement with Ford Motor Company to transfer all production at Methode’s Reynosa, Mexico facility, to another supplier sales to Ford were reduced in the quarter. The transfer of Chrysler product was substantially completed in the second quarter while expect the transfer of the Ford product to be completed by the end of August. In Europe overall auto revenues were down 29% in the fourth quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Excluding the restructuring and impairment charges Methode’s net loss was $0.10 per share in the fourth quarter compared to income of $0.42 in the fiscal 2008 fourth quarter. For the year, again excluding the restructuring and impairment charges Methode’s net income was $0.17 per share in fiscal 2009 compared to income of $1.14 in fiscal 2008. Although accounting rules mandated that goodwill and intangible assets of certain Methode business units were impaired, we believe these are still strong and viable businesses that are well positioned to rebound when the economy improves. While current economic conditions and their impact on our financial…

Thanks Donald, good morning everyone. Let me start with just a few comments on the impairment charge, the accounting rules require that we review our goodwill and other assets for impairment at least annually, usually in the fourth quarter, or whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of these assets may be impaired. In the fourth quarter we recorded additional goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges of $61.7 million. The value of the sign to goodwill and intangible assets are based on estimates and judgments for the underlying businesses and technologies. These estimates and judgments are effected by the significant downturn in the global economic activity in the last half of our fiscal year. And also considered in our market capitalization remained below our book value during the latter half of fiscal year 2009. That also is an indicator of impairment. Therefore in the fourth quarter we undertook the impairment analysis described by FAS 142 and 144, and recorded a goodwill impairment charge of $45.1 million. There was $25.8 million in the automotive segment and $19.3 million in the interconnect segment. Additionally in the fourth quarter we also recorded an intangible asset impairment charge of $16.6 million; $11.6 million of this was in the interconnect segment, $4.6 million in the automotive segment, and $400,000 in the other segment. On the restructuring front, back in January of 2008 we announced the restructuring of our legacy North American automotive and interconnect businesses. Then in March, 2009 we announced several additional restructuring actions to further reduce our exposure to the North American automotive industry and to reduce other costs, consolidating facilities and migrating manufacturing to lower cost regions. The restructuring charge in the fourth quarter was $8.9 million in the automotive segment, $900,000 in the interconnect segment, and $0.50…

Thank you very much Douglas. We are ready to take questions.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of David Leiker – Robert W. Baird David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: Just for starters here, there was a restatement and amendment to the credit agreement earlier in the week, could you just provide a quick overview of what happened there and walk me through some of the details.

Because of the significant impairment charges that we incurred this year, the bank facility is set up to be a function of EBITDA and under the agreement the impairment of goodwill and intangible assets, even though its noncash and is the equivalent of amortization, under the agreement, we weren’t allowed to necessarily add that back to determine EBITDA. So we had to amend the bank agreement to reflect those changes. So the genesis for the amendment basically is the significant impairment charges that we took this year. David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: Okay, if we look at the restructuring, the $7 million in 2009, it looks like there’s about $9 to $18 million that’s going to occur in fiscal 2010. Is there any other actions that you would plan to take on top of that or any other actions that you’re considering first and then secondly can you just provide a little bit of color on how you expect that $9 to $18 million to flow through the year.

We have no other action planned. We feel we’ve gone through most of our actions, they’ll be going on for the next couple of quarters and would hope to have them done by the calendar year. Some of those actions could go into the third quarter and perhaps fourth but again most of it in the first half of the year here. We know of no other actions we would be taking. We’ve taken some significant actions that, we rearranged our footprint but I think we’re pretty much where we need to be or at least we’ve announced everything.

I think Donald mentioned on the timing, while the expectation is that I think we said in the K that we’ll complete it sometime during the fiscal year. The hope is that we get it done by the end of calendar year. Some of the initiatives, obviously depending on, we’re still working with our customers and accommodating those issues for them for we may see more of it in the first half of the fiscal year but there may be some that bleeds into the second half of 2010. David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: If we look at the year over year decline in Ford revenue relative to exiting some legacy product lines, is there any way to quantify that in dollars or just sort of put some parameters around that. You exited some core business during the quarter, is there any way to just put some parameters around how many, the size of that, millions of dollars.

Let me try to answer it this way, in normal times that business was maybe $60 to $80 million. It had dropped to probably half that and these are approximations. And when we looked at that business probably last fall, we were thinking maybe $35 or $40 million and again that’s an approximation. But that will probably put some parameters around it. And its really that drop in volume that caused us the issue there. David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: As we look forward to the first quarter here, we’re a couple of months in, are you seeing anything in terms of your business performance that really differs from trends that we’ve seen, some of your key end markets thus far in the quarter.

I don’t think so. Our quoting activity is up slightly but that’s, that isn’t orders yet. We’ve seen some of our industrial customers, some have stabilized, others have pushed things out so it, you asked me I think that question last call. I would say that I’m slightly more optimistic then I was three months ago but again I think we’re still in the middle of all this. David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: You’ve obviously taken a lot of action to pull ahead, sort of the business model transformation that you are putting in place right now, it’s a pretty qualitative question but could you just talk about how you’ve accelerated that and versus you’re previous plans where you previously thought you would be and given your liquidity position, it seems like you would be able to take additional action if needed. Is there a chance that, accelerate things further.

Let me talk about what we did in accelerating and it was really in our legacy auto and necessity is the mother of invention, we were losing quite heavily in our legacy business so we did accelerate that. We would hope to exit legacy probably a little more gently and let programs unwind but that’s really what we brought forward, that we need to move product faster then we had intended to or we needed to but first is letting it unwind. So that was really our acceleration and then when we, once we did that then it makes sense to do some plant consolidations. But in terms of doing anything more, as I said earlier, I think we have repositioned ourselves. I’m pleased with our global footprint. I’m very pleased with the messages that we’re able to give to our customers. The liquidity that we have I would hopefully we would be able to put to acquisitions and new product development. We continue to generate, we pretty much on the cash flow standpoint in the fourth quarter, we were pleased where we ended up. Our projections look good. So again I think we’re well positioned and the acceleration was really out of necessity. David Leiker – Robert W. Baird: And then you mentioned acquisitions, what sort of, could you just talk qualitatively, what sort of opportunities are there in the marketplace. Is there distressed sellers, stressed competitors, that might have a small part of their business that you would be interested in. How willing are you to make a move in fiscal 2010 versus conserving your liquidity position during the course of the year.

That would depend on the opportunity. We have seen some interesting opportunities that I thought were, they were clearly would have been distressed type sales. We have passed on those and they didn’t quite fit our model. But I was I guess pleased, maybe that’s not the word but, that we are starting to see some of those opportunities. We had previously thought we might see them a little sooner. But it really depends on what it is. If its in auto, I think we’d be much more cautious. I’m not even sure we would do an acquisition there. But if its in power or in our interconnect segment, then if it fits the model we would act on it and I think what Methode can do today as we exit our restructuring, we are, one of Methode’s strength is our ability to go in and restructure companies and move product lines and so we would take on a project like that. I said before we wouldn’t bet the farm on anything. It would be opportunistic and where it would enhance our portfolio. But its certainly something that we continue to pursue. Not anything that we have put on the back burner.

Your next question comes from the line of Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: I might have missed this, Douglas did a good job on the balance sheet, what was the reason for the decline in inventories.

Well again just the lower sales toward the end of the year compared to where we were last year’s fourth quarter. So that’s the one benefit of businesses in decline, it does result in lower inventories. And again as I mentioned, the other contributor there other than the sales slowdown is the fact that since we’re exiting our automotive, we are not saying that we need to have to carry as much customer funded tooling inventory for automotive customers.

We also think that inventory reduction represents a good opportunity for us too in case any of our managers might be listening. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: And hope my numbers are at least directionally correct, in the auto business you had a $10 million increase in revenue sequentially which I think was better than expected but the profitability went up by about a million, incremental margin of about 10%, I would have expected it to be higher given the history of profitability in that business. What was going on there or am I just reading it wrong.

No, that’s essentially correct. As we move products out of the Reynosa facility, we need to build banks so we’re building banks on product that is not particularly profitable. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: Okay, does that go away as soon as the move is over.

Yes, essentially yes. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: When is that move going to be completed.

We’ve said the end of August, but again that is, completely not in our control. Its customer dependent and the receiver company dependent. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: And you spent a lot of time talking about legacy auto and trying to get out of it, what is the split in auto legacy versus new.

Going forward? Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: Right now or going forward.

In the US, we will have essentially exited that. I can’t think if there’s anything, with the move from Chrysler and our agreement with Ford to move out of Reynosa, that will essentially be the end of it. We have, we still ship our ASC product, the seat sensor product and then in Europe— Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: Legacy isn’t a bad word in Europe right.

No, no but I just want to make sure and I think we’ve mentioned this to you before that we’re, some of the Malta product comes back into the US. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors The way you termed legacy is kind of a bad thing. I’m just trying to drill down on legacy.

A polite way of saying unprofitable business. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: My last question is you again mentioned 40% auto in 2011, help me out understanding how you’re going to get there, refresh me, I know you do a good job at the Analyst Day and also some of your Hetronic and TouchSensor are going into auto. Do you categorize that as auto.

Yes, when we talk about center stacks, that, even though its TouchSensor technology, the backbone of that, that’s classified as auto. I don’t think we’ve got any Hetronic going into automotive. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: Potentially, I mean that’s kind of what you’re trying to do in auto with some of your net technologies, sell into auto. I’m just wondering does that 40% exclude that just because you’re about as of this quarter about 57% auto and looking forward doesn’t sound like there’s that much [prudent] besides Ford. You do have new programs growing. It sounds like you really expect to grow the rest of the businesses to bring that down and I would hope not just bring the whole auto down.

That’s correct. Unspecified Analyst – Legend Financial Advisors: So with your current stable of products, I know acquisitions are going to be a part of it, how far can your current stable of products get you there or is it really dependant on acquisitions that are going to fill that gap.

No, we feel very strongly with our, the way we position Methode, not just from a manufacturing footprint but from a product standpoint, we’ve got more than sufficient room to grow and it clearly is not acquisition dependant.

There are no additional questions at this time; I would like to turn it back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

Thank you, with that we will wish everyone a safe and pleasant holiday weekend.