Please stand by. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Newell Rubbermaid First Quarter 2008 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. After a brief discussion by management we will open up the call for questions. Just to reminder today’s Conference will be reported. Today’s call is being webcast live at www.newellrubbermaid.com on the Investors Relations homepage under a Events and Presentation. A slide presentation is also available for download. A digital replay will be available two hours following the call at area code 719-457-0820.Please provide the conference access code 9477556 to access the replay. I will now turn the call over to Nancy O'Donnell Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. O'Donnell you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, welcome to the Newell Rubbermaid first quarter 2008 earnings call. Before we begin, let me take a moment to remind you that the statements made on today's call that are not historical in nature are forward-looking statements. As such, these statements are not guarantees, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking-statements. For discussion of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking-statements made today. Please refer to our most recent form 10-K and the forward-looking-statements on the Q1 2008 earnings call presentation which was posted earlier this morning in investor relation section of our website at www.newellrubbermaid.com. We will also be referring to non-GAAP financial measures on the call. A reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP is also available on our website. So with that, I will turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer Mark Ketchum.

Thank you Nancy and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today on our first quarter 2008 earnings call. I am pleased to report that Newell Rubbermaid delivered solid first quarter financial results, inline with our previous guidance on both the top line and normalized EPS. Now the US economic environment continues to be very challenging, we generated strong growth in a number of our key businesses. Although we must react to the short term turmoil and/or doing so. Our primary attention remains focused on the long term, building for sustainable excellence. We continue to launch innovative products that better meet user needs and build incremental sales. Including the recent introduction of the Graco(R) Sweetpeace(TM) Soothing Center(TM), Rubbermaid(R) Produce Saver(TM) and the Pulse(TM) Microfiber Cleaning system from our Rubbermaid commercial business unit. We closed on two terrific strategic acquisitions in April which expand our category and geographic footprint, enhance our margins and leverage innovation and branding. We are seeing a truly meaningful expense in our European business, indicating our intervention mac region are taking hold, and we have enough confident in our strategy to continue increasing our brand building spending in this tough environment. We feel good about our direction and we’re sticking with it. Overall, net sales rose 3.6% within high end of our guidance range for the first quarter. This growth was driven by the impact of favorable currency combined with double digit sales growth in our Home & Family, Rubbermaid Commercial and Rubbermaid food businesses. We also generated high single digit constant currency growth across our international businesses. Partially offsetting this positive sales trends or weaker results from our US tools and hardware and office product segments. These are the businesses most affected by the weak US economy. Gross margin for the quarter was essentially flat.…

Thank you Pat. First I would like to thank all of our employees for their continued hard work and enthusiasm in these particularly tough times. Let me add a special thanks to all the people who worked diligently to complete the very successful SAP conversion in our Home and Family segment. This represents a ton of work. The fact of this was largely invisible to the outside world is a testimony to their success. As we manage through a difficult economic environment this year. We remained focused on executing the long term transformation of New Rubbermaid into a best-in-class and class consumer branding and marketing company. I'm disappointed that we are not able to fully offset the extraordinary inflationary impacts of recent months. But I'm no less confident our strategies and actions are in the best interest of building sustaining shareholder value. We are committed to investing in strategic brand building to strengthen our brands and drive sales growth. To delivering gross margin expansion fueled by better productivity and mix, and to achieving solid operating income and EPS growth over the long-term. I'm proud of the progress that we’re making and I'm confident that we are doing the right things to improve our business. We firmly believe the investments we are making in our brands will help drive profitable top line sales growth. We are coming together as one company to improve efficiency and boost productivity, and we’re collaborating more, benchmarking more and sharing best practices to help create a culture of excellence. I look forward to sharing the results of our efforts with you on our next quarters call. As always and especially at this time, we thank all of our shareholders for their continued support. Thanks for joining today's call and I'll now ask the operator to open up the line for questions.

Thank you. (Operator Instruction). Your first question today comes from Budd Bugatch, for Raymond James.

Good morning Mark. Good morning Pat. Mark, just a couple of quick questions. One, I saw Home and Family significant revenue growth but yet no profit growth in fact I know you said strategic spending on SG&A, can you give us a little bit of better granularity and how that might unfold for the rest of the year?

e: With Aprica however, because of the startup cost there, a very little income from the acquisition this yea. So the quarter numbers will be down around 12%, I think last year it was 13.8. So sales we were very low income for this year.

Okay. And just on the EPS guidance for the year and year end, and thanks for that walk on tool with raw material. I wonder if you could give us well maybe reflection as to how that raw material and pricing will work up through the year from firm your $0.7 recovery, from pricing and I think productivity, I can't remember what the?

On SG&A $0.7.

Yes the SG&A curtailment, and how much is between pricing and how much is SG&A, and is the pricing pretty much of fourth quarter or..?

Well the pricing is more back offloaded and the SG&A cost are also. The split between the two is roughly 50-50.

Will that then, when the pricing be enough to recover all the raw material growth which you are saying then?

Not this year, we will cover rough little under half this year. But I don’t know run rate as we leave the year will be closer to 60%, and then we will need to take up this food pricing in January to recover the rest.

Okay. And just finally, can you talk a little bit about the balance sheet, you had $900 million of short term debt at the end of the quarter, I know you had a $500 million of note offering. How would the balance sheet look or how does it look now?

$500 million of notes they have been marketed, did you went up the market?

I am sorry, say again.

$500 million of notes which you are marketing now after the quarter?

Okay. Thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Wendy Nicholson with Citi Investment Research.

Hi. My first question has to do with the pricing outlook, and, I guess the question given what we’re seeing from the consumer and maybe further weakening of consumer willingness to spend more for household products. Are you worried that there is going to be more of a draw down on your volume side if you try and post the envelop too hard on pricing, and what's your confidence level on that? And then my second question is on the cash flow side, it sounds like your outlook for cash flow is still very good, but can you just reiterate that there is no rest to the dividend number one, and number two, it strikes me that this would be a wonderful time to have a share buyback program. So I am wondering it that's creeping up in terms of priority for cash flow you know as we go forward here?

Let met start with your first question, I think your assessment of pricing is exactly right in this current environment, it is very difficult to take pricing in certain of our categories because our retailers obviously are suffering problems with food traffic and the last thing they want to do is show more pricing to their end user. In fact they are obviously trying to do the opposite. So that's what built into our assumptions that our pricing will necessarily lag the inflationary rate. We just know we can't get it all in the short term. So, #1, we, as you know, take pricing generally in six month increments, so our next round of what we didn't already take in January is July, and we know we won't be able to get it all there because the retail market just won't be ready to accept it all. So that's what's built into our assumptions on price recovery. I'll let Patty answer the second half of your question.

From a cash flow perspective, we still feel good about our range. We were actually near the high end of the range on our last guidance of 600 to 650. The takedown in earnings cost us about $30 million in cash for the year. So, now we are more in the middle of that range. That cash flow includes the reduction of our inventory back to the low 80 mid day Mark which is where we ended last year. So, we do have some inventory to takeout of the system and some work to do there. As far as the dividend, the dividend is very secure, and they have no intention of chasing.

And any timing on the buyback, a potential buyback?

Well I think in the short term, given the acquisitions we just made, that’s not going to happen in the near term, and again as we said before, we will continue looking at that in the longer term.

Okay, and then I just have a followup on that question on the inventory drawdown Pat. You know obviously to the extent whatever turning your plans off or operating at whatever, not perfect capacity utilization that you try and work through that inventory, there is obviously going to be a gross margin hit. I assume you feel like this new target for the gross margin 25 to 75 includes the ramification of all that inventory drawdown?

Yeah, it does.

Okay, thank you very much.

Your next question comes from Chris Ferrara with Merrill Lynch.

Hey guys. I wanted to just ask about, I guess the approach going in to guidance. I guess one of the things we have seen with some of the more discretionary stocks out there are management teams cutting guidance and then cutting again and then cutting again. And, for you guys it seems to be different, it seems like it is not as top-line related as it is materials cost. Can you give a little color into what your approach was? I mean, how concerned are you with the idea that you could potentially have to come back to the street again with even lower guidance after this I mean. So, I guess what's your condition level in this guidance and with respect to the top-line as well?

Well let me comment both on top-line and bottom-line Chris. On top-line, I think, we've got a great deal of confidence and that's part of the reason why we took our guidance up both in terms of the impact of the acquisitions, but also reflecting currency. But, if you really think of what we're doing, we're continuing to drive new part innovations. We're continuing to invest incrementally in marketing those innovations. We've got the positive contributions from currency. And we've got proof in a number of our businesses where the business climate is better that these investments are working. So, we feel pretty good about the top-line number. The bottom-line obviously is going to be toughest one because it was, you know, the bottom-line was affected not by our sales but in fact by this inflationary environment. It’s one of the reasons that we gave more visibility than we normally would about what our assumptions in terms of resin pricing and affects going forward. Because frankly, if we sat here three months ago and you would have asked me the same question, I would have answered it the same way. All of the information we use on projections are the same best sources that are available to you as well. So who knows, but all I can tell you is that none of those sources were projecting what we actually saw in the last three months. So, for instance if we look at the current CDI, which is the major index we use to predict resin, it is an index that tries to predict throughout the balance of the year. So, it is not just a point in time, it is a projection going forward and that's a projection that was updated yesterday and updated based on their knowledge that oil is $115 to $120 a barrel. So, it is based on that. But if oil went to 140 or 150? Would we back you know? Yeah probably we would. And so, that’s the only thing I can to tell you is that its kind of crazy times, I am trying to project those. We use the best information available. As Pat said, we had a little bit of pat to protect us a little from it going a little further. And that’s what's built into our numbers today. But if the numbers continue to go crazy, and that’s what I would describe last three months of going crazy. Yeah we would be back. But I feel that we got it covered within the range of our ability to predict, and that’s why as I said we try to be more transparent so that you can see anything that’s coming down the pipe either good news or bad news by also watching those same kind of indices and exchange rates.

That’s really helpful, and just as a sort of follow up to that. With respect to top line, I know with cash flow I think Pat just said we were pacing, at the top of the range and now we are more at the middle end of the range. And the fact that you’re basically maintaining your organic like ex-currency, ex-acquisitions sales outlook of one to two and maybe at zero to two or one to two. Are you at the lower end of that range now as opposed to where you where you before? I guess it sort of the longwinded, but I mean to whittle it down. Is the macro economic environment worse today relative to your guidance than it was three months ago? I mean, how is that? And why you’ve been able to maintain sales despite that even excluding currency?

Here's maybe another way to look at the whole sales picture. We're facing declining markets in a number of our key US markets, alright. Tools and hardware were more broadly in the US now, office products, probably excluding our technology business in the US. Home decor which include our Levolor, our Amerock and Ashland businesses. Together those businesses in the US are 35 to 40% of our sales. And we are seeing those market decline averagely 5 to 10%. So our expectations that we are going to be able hold our own with the kind of innovations we are doing despite the soft retail and the emphasis that all the retailers have on driving price we are driving our innovation and expect to hold our own in those. We'll offset that decline in that 40% with growth in the other 60% of our businesses which is the balance of our domestic businesses and all of our international businesses. Those markets are not being affected with declining markets the way I just described the other ones are in the US. And in those, we expect on average to be growing 5 point kind of core what I'd call, core volume growth, unit volume growth, and then we add on top of all of that across the world these positive impacts of currency and pricing, and that’s what gets us to the 2 to 4% top line growth that we feel pretty confident of. So what I'd say holding our own and allows the US economy that’s affecting a number of our US businesses and growing our unit volume on averagely 5% around the balance of the world driven by our continued investment innovation and marketing support. So that’s not a great story, but its still a story we’re pretty proud of, and it’s one of the reasons we’re sticking to what we’re doing in terms of continuing the investments in innovation and SG&A.

Thanks a lot. I appreciate it.

Your next question comes from Joe Altobello with Oppenheimer.

Hey guys good morning, just wanted to follow up on Chris comment, a question on the top line. If you go back to the October call, you guys talked about the '08 top line being up about 2 to 3% on the base business with about a 300 to 400 basis point drag from the economy and housing. What is that second component today, that 300 to 400 basis point?

I have to get back to that. I don't have that number. I mean another way of looking our sales, that Mark just described as, you know, right now, our production on currency is about 2 points, we’re getting a little more than a point in pricing than our rethought for the year. So our core sales growth will be flat for the year. But our international businesses we expect to be up similar what we saw in the first quarter in local currency basis up in mid to high single digits. But our domestic business will be down as also as we saw in the first quarter low single digits we are down 2% in the first quarter or you expect that to continue. So what does that drag in the US is probably it could be as less as 5 points now 5 or 6 points, I guess, I haven’t really thought through that one.

Okay because it seems to imply actually that your base has improved a little bit, ex the macro issues, that’s why?

No. Again our core as we expect to be flat with the spit that I just gave you, and the market is little bit differently about business. But…

Okay

But I fondly has change much, our core sales on January, I am not sure about October, but the January is about the same.

Okay. And then going back to Mark’s comments about, having a lot of confidence in the top line outlook, it seems like the issues that you guys are facing a lot of it is unfortunately outside of your hand I mean, given retailers what if they are aggressively reducing inventories and your comments on that, would the economy worsen. So it seems like, I am just trying to figure how you guys can have a lot of visibilities in top line when the issues are primarily Marco in nature at this point?

Again what we have to do is take our best projection on the balance of year and our best projection is that the US economy is not going to get better and the current drags or headwins that we’re seeing in those business are already describe. In the US, tools and hardware products ex-technology in our home décor business, those businesses we think are going to face the same kind of headwins throughout the balance of the year, so we’re not counting on those getting better. So again our business model counts on growing and growing strongly and the US business is that are not as affected by the economy right now, and of our international businesses which are pretty robust.

Our US retailers aggressively, are more aggressively towards this point and I am talking about the home depots and the stables are particular?

Well they obviously are – they’re aggressive, and they are aggressively trying to get the traffic back into their doors and I think they’re trying to do it with promotional items and things like that, sometimes this promotional items are not in our categories and so, it’s one that’s kind of hard to answer in the macro, but there is no question that you know they’re out there beaten on their suppliers or give us something that’s going to help keep the door. What we are trying to give them is innovation, and innovation does get customers back in the stores, there is a long history that says that we can excite consumers with innovation and that’s what we are continuing to focus on not trying to describing with a price off deals or ones.

Okay. And the lastly the 2Q EPS includes some onetime acquisition costs, can you quantify that?

Again the acquisition hits about 0.2 to $0.3

$0.2 to $0.3 okay sorry. Great thanks.

Your next question comes from Connie Maneaty with BMO Capital.

Good Morning. Pat, can you give us a break down of how products are source in low cost countries, which regions represents what percentage of source product and outside of the dollar and raw material inflation what’s going on with just the general costs of doing business and wages?

Okay. I can’t give you exact percentages, but I will say that the large majority of our source product comes from China. I don’t have that exact percentage of economy, but its more than 75%, that’s the major currency that we’re dealing with currency standpoint versus the dollar. So that’s the major impact on the costs, the other is raw materials, the same material inflation worsening their office. And the third its my comparison, there is labor rate inflation whether there is low double digits right now, I mean the 10 to 15% rate. But May was only about 5% the comparative of the cost. So in dollar terms its not a big, its not as a big impact as raw material and currency.

Okay. And my second question is from all the raw material growth you talk to, which basic material do they think are in a speculative bubble and which may be moving permanently higher because of shift in supply and demand?

No I think we give that kind of estimate, first thing, I think we hold some speculative bubble. I mean you the one think all this Watch that, it’s very visible and you know that for every barrel that’s consumed there is 6 or 7 barrels traded. So that is pretty speculative, I would say. I don’t know that our other commodities seen that kind of speculation, but since obviously, some of our commodities are tied to the price of oil and natural gas, we get swept under that same speculation.

I am about to just a last question on the portfolio. Couple of years ago I think you said you had your portfolio pretty much where you wanted it to be. Given the change in the environment do you still have what you think is an optimal portfolio or are you considering either some divestitures or more reductions in the product lines?

Well nothing major from a divestiture standpoint. We continue to evaluate product lines, and every year we downsize certain parts of the product line that continued to not respond innovation or to operate in the more commodities like way. And so, we are every year continuing to reduce that percentage of our business that I would call commodity like. But no major reductions right now. The housing market will come back and when it does, we will be happy again that we’re in two holes and also products will come back -- those are businesses that for long hour we still like there will be businesses.

Okay.

Your last question is follow up and it will come from Chris Ferrara with Merrill Lynch.

I wanted to ask about SAP, why are you waiting until the back half of '09 for the go-live on you know, cleaning Organ & Décor and tools and hardware when you are just getting through your second phase I guess right now?

Well it’s a big part of business and we just have a lot of pre work to do, because that’s in shape to take it live. So that’s the time I will set up originally at the same timeline and that we communicated previously. So nothing changed for now.

Go it, thanks.

If we were unable to get to your question during this call, please call Newell Rubbermaid Investor Relations at area code 770-407-3994. Today's call will be available on the web at www.newellrubbermaid.com and on digital replay at area code 719-457-0820 with a conference code of 9477556 starting two hours following the conclusion of today's call and ending May 8. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.