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PPG Industries, Inc. (PPG)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Fri, Jan 16, 2009

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the fourth quarter 2008 PPG Industries earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Mr. Vince Morales, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Vince Morales

Management

Good morning, this is Vince Morales, Vice President of Investor Relations for PPG Industries. Welcome to PPG's fourth quarter and full year 2008 financial commentary. Joining me on the call for PPG is Chuck Bunch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bill Hernandez, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer and Dave Dave Navikas, Vice President and Comptroller. Our comments relate to the financial information released on Friday, January 16, 2009. Visuals supporting this briefing may be accessed through the Investor Center on the PPG website at www.ppg.com. As shown on slide number two, our prepared remarks and possible comments in the question-and-answer session, may reflect forward-looking statements reflecting the company's current views about future events and their potential effect on PPG's operating and financial performance. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could affect the company's operations and financial results and as discussed in PPG's filings with the SEC may cause actual results to differ from such forward-looking statements. The company is under no obligation to provide subsequent updates on these forward-looking statements. This presentation also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Pursuant to the requirements of Regulation G, the company has provided in the appendix of the presentation materials a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures presented on slide number five of the visuals supporting this briefing. Now let me introduce PPG's Chairman and CEO, Chuck Bunch.

Charles Bunch

Management

Thank you Vince. Welcome everyone. In a few minutes Bill Hernandez will discuss our fourth quarter and full year financial results. Before he does that I will provide a quick recap of our businesses performance and I will also review the significant progress we made in 2008 toward continuing to transform our company. Without question the fourth quarter was a challenge. Like many other companies, PPG experience dramatic volume declines and settle of the industrial end use markets that we serve due to the rapid deterioration in the overall global economy. Most significant were industry activity levels in automotive OEM which were down between 20-30% in each global region versus 2007 and a variety of general industrial end use markets which experienced equivalent declines. As a result the earnings in our industrial coatings and glass reporting segments and the silica business unit which is part of our optical and specialty materials segment were significantly impacted. Both our industrial coatings and glass segments which collectively account for about 30% of our business portfolio actually reported operating losses in the quarter. However, the remainder of our business portfolio representing about 70% of the company’s sales, delivered solid performance in the quarter despite the dramatic economic slow down. Our commodity chemicals segment grew earnings and performance coatings matched strong 2007 results. Our optical products business unit delivered once again organic volume growth and our architectural coatings EMEA segment in what is always a slower quarter due to seasonal trends performed slightly above our expectations. Throughout the quarter we have continued to implement a variety of initiatives to reduce costs in all of our businesses in response to worsening global economic conditions. These actions were in addition to the initiatives we have underway as part of the restructuring program announced in September. Of equal…

William Hernandez

Management

Thanks Chuck. I will spend a few minutes covering PPG’s overall financial performance both fourth quarter and full year. I will also provide some details by business segment and discuss some macro trends relative to the year 2009. Reviewing the slide detailing our fourth quarter sales our results increased 3% to a new fourth quarter sales record with our SigmaKalon acquisition the main driver of the gain. However, as Chuck mentioned, the quarter was truly a global end mark demand story. We, along with most other industrial companies, were heavily impacted by rapidly deteriorating volumes driven by economic weakness including lower overall consumer demand combined with industrial customer inventory de-stocking. These lower activity levels were apparent in most of our businesses which directly face industrial customers resulting in our year-over-year volumes for the quarter declining by 12% or nearly $400 million. I will discuss this in more detail when I review each segment. Our industrial coatings and glass segments were most heavily affected as a result of lower global automotive OEM and general industrial end-market demand. Our sales pricing continued a positive trend as our selling price gains accelerated during the quarter despite the slower volumes. Currency served as a headwind in the quarter and our divestiture of our automotive glass business reduced our sales in comparison to last year by $230 million. The next slide details our full-year results showing our sales grew to $15.8 billion, up $3.6 billion or 30%. Again, our acquisitions accounted for the majority of this growth but we delivered $0.5 billion of favorable pricing gains as well. Volume fell over 2% or approximately $325 million with the entire volume shortfall occurring in the fourth quarter but partially offset by favorable currency. Of note is that our combined coating sales grew by 47% to $11…

Charles Bunch

Management

Thank you Bill. As I mentioned at the outset of today’s call our performance this past year under intensely difficult market conditions continues to demonstrate our strength and business portfolio and the success of our strategic direction. We delivered solid earnings and record cash generation despite rapidly rising energy costs and substantial declines in various industrial end-use market demand levels. Of equal importance is that we have continued to transform the company and I believe our strategy accomplishments this past year including our notable portfolio changes were greater this year than in any of the 30 years I have been with PPG. The progress will prove even more beneficial as we move into 2009 including our stronger and more stable cash generation capabilities. Regarding 2009, Bill touched on several of the issues we and many other companies are facing entering the New Year. Of these the one issue of most concern to me is the demand levels in the global end use markets we serve. While we have made tremendous strides in diversifying the company and while coatings and optical remain very low fixed cost businesses, if volume declines persist at the magnitude we witnessed in the late stages of 2008 it will prove to be a challenging environment for many companies including PPG. Our early read on 2009 is that the first quarter and possibly the first half of the year is shaping up to be an even greater challenge than this past quarter. Our immediate focus is on improving our operating margins as we will manage our businesses to cost levels that reflect the pace of the slower end-use markets. We do expect relief in the form of lower raw material and energy costs which will help mitigate a portion of the impact of the decreased volumes and…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital Markets. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital : What is tougher, the first quarter of 2009 or the Ravens’ defense on Sunday?

Charles Bunch

Management

I would say speaking as a Pittsburgher I think the first quarter 2009 may be tougher than the Ravens’ defense. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital: One of the things we are trying to get a handle on and you talked about difficulty in the fourth quarter with the de-stocking phenomenon working its way through the chain, do you have any sense how much further that has to go? When do we get to an underlying level of demand and along those lines could you offer an expectation of global GDP in 2009?

Charles Bunch

Management

Let me take the first question. Volume levels and de-stocking in the first quarter of 2009, we are still at a relatively low activity level especially in the automotive and industrial segment in January. A lot of our customers here in the U.S. and also around the world in automotive have not yet restarted their operations in a significant way. We also have an early Chinese New Year at the end of January so I would say on the automotive side we are not going to have good visibility until February/March. I think we are still going through some de-stocking this month but I think you are going to see a return to lower volumes but somewhat more normalized here as we move through the quarter. I think in some of our other non-automotive businesses we are seeing some activity levels that are up from the very low December levels. I think in other segments we are going to see a modest pick up from where we were. I think the de-stocking in many of the non-automotive and industrial businesses is moving through the system. Overall, we looked at GDP growth on an overall global basis in 2008 of about 2.5%. We are probably going to be in our calculus probably slightly positive on a global basis, a couple of tenths of a percentage point. Certainly here in the first quarter and first half we are looking at negative growth on the GDP side in North America. Frank Mitsch - BB&T Capital: You mentioned it is your belief as we marched through the fourth quarter conference call that PPG will have out performed the competition with the results you posted here today. What gives you the confidence to say that?

Charles Bunch

Management

I think as we look at our businesses we do not think that we are losing share or position in our end-use markets. Obviously the weakest end-use market we have is automotive and I think relatively to other automotive peers I think our performance is going to be at least as good, if not better. Our confidence level is more about the fact we are well positioned in our end-use markets across the board. We are gaining share in a number of them and not losing any share or position in other markets.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Kevin McCarthy -Banc of America.

Kevin McCarthy -Banc of America

Analyst

Of the $465 million in cost inflation you experienced in 2008 how much of that would you expect to unwind this year and then of the amount that unwinds how much do you feel you can retain versus sharing with your customers?

Charles Bunch

Management

If you look at our input cost inflation during 2008 we are now obviously unwinding the costs in a couple of areas. Obviously the energy markets, natural gas and what we saw in 2008 in terms of our transportation of fuel cost bills on surcharges. We are now seeing in the fourth quarter of 2008 we started to see for the first time declines in our key raw materials dependent on the raw material at the region but those have started to come down now and we are approaching levels we saw earlier in 2008. We are, however, seeing some resistance now because the volume or activity levels in our businesses are lower with our customers they are lower. Many of our suppliers are saying we are having difficulty matching the price declines you are expecting because you, PPG, are not taking the kind of volumes you had historically been. So there is some resistance I would say because of this lack of economies of scale with the lower volumes. I expect that our input costs are going to decline across the board during 2009 and my hope is that we will share some of that with our customers but for the most part we intend to improve our margins because as you have seen in many of our segments margins have declined for PPG despite our productivity actions. We need to restore those margins and that is a priority for PPG.

Kevin McCarthy -Banc of America

Analyst

To follow-up on architectural coatings, particularly in Europe, can you comment on your expectations for volume trends as well as pricing in Western and Eastern Europe in 2009?

Charles Bunch

Management

Volume trends in 2009 are going to be relatively flat. We have not seen a recovery yet in some of the markets that started to weaken in 2008, notably the U.K. We started to see in the fourth quarter a weakening in the continental European markets. Right now our forecast would be for flat volume for 2009 for our European architectural business. The raw material pricing has been at a slightly different phasing in Europe. We saw a little more increase actually as we went through the year because of the weakening Euro and the fact they had not passed some of the raw material increases on. So we are still now increasing our prices to maintain margins during 2009 and keep the levels that we had in 2008 with what is going to be I think very flat volume across the board in Europe.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Sergey Vasnetsov – Barclays. Sergey Vasnetsov – Barclays : Can you comment on some businesses that in the past have been counter-cyclical which is the auto refinish business for example? If people are not buying new cars maybe they will repaint the vehicles more than they have done in the past. Have you seen that and do you expect it in 2009?

Charles Bunch

Management

I would say that as you saw in the performance of our refinish business which is within our performance coating segment those earnings have held up relatively well. This is an after-market business that has traditionally played that kind of balancing role for us in that portfolio. The volumes have not been quite as resilient because we have seen some declines in miles driven both here in North America and now in Western Europe. Gasoline prices are coming down so I expect we are going to see that decline reverse itself. We are also having some very severe weather here in North America and I do agree with you as people are keeping their vehicles longer, because we are not seeing the OEM sales here in automotive, I think that there is an opportunity in our refinish business to post a I think better volume performance during 2009 for these reasons. Sergey Vasnetsov – Barclays : Bill, you have a few hundred million dollars of free cash flow in 2009 and I think you can find different [size] banks these days with the amount of money. What is your range of priorities for this surplus cash for expense? Maybe speak to a couple of areas?

William Hernandez

Management

As we said, we do think we have several hundreds of millions of dollars of cash flexibility next year. Our current thought process is we are going to be fairly conservative especially in the early part of this year until we get a little more visibility on what the future is going to hold for us. I think we will keep quite a bit of cash on hand. I mentioned we are starting the year here with $1 billion in cash and we will keep commercial paper. I think we will keep doing that. We are starting to see commercial paper rates dropping. It is getting a little bit better and it is being placed for longer periods of time. So we will keep a good amount of cash. Then as we go into the year I think one of the things we may look at is being a little more aggressive at paying down some of the debt. As I mentioned we only have a little over $100 million of long-term debt maturing this year that we have to pay down and actually that $100 million is from a term note we took out in 1999 when we did our acquisition at the end of that decade of about $300 million and we have very quietly paid down that debt since it was well above 7% interest rate. I think one of the scenarios would be a little more aggressive in paying down some debt. Depending on what happens in the equity markets and the effect that may have on our pension fund we may decide to increase or decrease the amount of cash we put into our pension plan. Then probably acquisitions, as we mentioned earlier, will probably be less of a use of cash for year but we will continue looking at that. Last, we always look at our stock price as a flywheel for any excess cash.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank.

David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

Can you comment on the resilience of the optical business in 2009?

Charles Bunch

Management

So far we have been quite pleased with the continuing performance of our optical business. As you know, this business has probably more of a healthcare profile with some exposure obviously to some consumer discretionary purchasing but it is behaving more like a healthcare end-use market and as you know in this economic environment we have probably seen the strongest relative performance from the healthcare segment. I think this is giving us a little bit of confidence we are going to continue to see this as an opportunity to grow and to balance our portfolio. We still have some momentum from the Generation Six launch in Transitions. As Bill indicated in his remarks we only launched that in North America and in a few select markets in Europe. Now that is going to be rolled out in the first quarter in the rest of Europe. That should give us a lift. Overall we are still looking for very good things from our Transitions portfolio business and our optical portfolio.

David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank

Analyst

You mentioned potential further cost actions. What would cause you to pull that lever and what would they be in terms of size and areas of focus?

Charles Bunch

Management

If you look at our last restructuring announcement which was in September of last year and a third quarter item it was really focused really in two areas. One was capturing synergies from the SigmaKalon integration and also select and targeted actions primarily here in North America in our automotive coatings business and also in our glass segment. What we saw, however, in the fourth quarter was the rapid spread of this decline in automotive around the world and we have seen continued weakness there so we were, I think, now saying we probably did not do enough in that industrial coatings segment. We have to look more broadly there. If these lower volumes and activity levels persist from an overall corporate standpoint we have to look more broadly at actions especially in some of our weaker segments. I would say we are certainly a ways away from making those decisions but I would say throughout the first quarter we are going to analyze this and you will see I think something we will come up with early in the year if we see these conditions persist and we get confidence that we could take cost out of our operations and the magnitude I would say it would not be significantly different than what we saw in the third quarter of last year.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Amy Johnson – Goldman Sachs. Amy Johnson – Goldman Sachs: On the pricing front, I noted most of your [inaudible] posted the pricing gains during the quarter which was a little bit surprising to us given how weak the demand environment was in November and December. My question, what would be your pricing strategy and also pricing outlook in 2009? As far as we know several of your competitors already have stopped pushing prices in the latter part of Q4.

Charles Bunch

Management

At this juncture we are looking at 2009 as not being a year where we are going to be able to significantly increase prices. If you look at one of the larger segments for us from a pricing perspective which was chlor-alkali we feel pricing peaked in the fourth quarter and we are seeing I think modest declines there. In many of the other segments I don’t look for increased prices during 2009 and it will be more of trying to improve margins through our productivity actions and holding onto some of the gains that we were able to get in 2008 and again with an emphasis in restoring margins through productivity and holding onto those increase rather than passing them through because there has been a margin shift in our businesses either to suppliers or customers over the last couple of years. Amy Johnson – Goldman Sachs: Can you give us a little more color on what is going on in Asia? I saw your PowerPoint during the quarter Asia volumes actually dropped more than 10%. Are there any business line or any country particularly weak in the quarter and what is your outlook for that region?

Charles Bunch

Management

We saw a decline in activity levels throughout Asia in the fourth quarter. We saw it even in markets that had been growing nicely prior to that. Korea was weak in the automotive sector in the fourth quarter as was China. I think there was anticipation after the Olympics we would maybe pause and then resume growth. Certainly the growth in the fourth quarter in a sector like automotive or our overall industrial we did not see that return to the growth patterns earlier of 2008 and in fact if you look now at the end of the 2008 quarter or how we are starting in other important segments in addition to automotive like consumer electronics those were actually starting to weaken in China and more broadly in Asia. We are seeing that start slowly in 2009. We have this early Chinese New Year at the end of January so we are looking now to February as the real indicator of what kind of recovery we are going to see but yes, broadly across markets and countries in Asia we saw weakness in the fourth quarter that has not corrected itself as of yet in 2009. Amy Johnson – Goldman Sachs: Regarding SigmaKalon I am not sure if you addressed in your prepared remarks, what is your profit expectation for that business? Fourth quarter that business was break even on the profit line. Is there any chance in 2009 given the fact the deterioration of the outlook in Europe and housing and construction market is there any chance in 2009 one could see that business see to an operating loss?

Charles Bunch

Management

I would say as we talked about there is a seasonal variability in the architectural coatings business. In Europe it is no different there. Actually the performance in the fourth quarter for us was ahead of our plan. They had very solid growth and earnings during the course of 2008. We expect that to continue. They were able to meet their targets in the fourth quarter even on some lower volumes. So we think they are quite resilient and have a very sound business. At this point even though we are not looking for a lot of volume growth in 2009 we are looking for SigmaKalon and architectural EMEA business to have another solid year in 2009.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: I just want to follow-up, you mentioned in several of your businesses headwind from foreign exchange when it comes to revenue line. Can you give us an idea of what the impact of foreign exchange would be on your operating profit line providing the dollar stays at current levels?

William Hernandez

Management

The headwind is mainly in comparables versus last year. We had a very weak dollar at the beginning of the year and I think what we are really talking about is comparables as we begin comparison with the year and where we go. Looking forward I think it is anybody’s guess exactly which way all currencies will play out for the remainder of the year. It is a headwind at the beginning of the year. I don’t think it will be a headwind as we progress through the year. It is more comparison here in the first quarter. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: I understand that. I’m not asking you to predict where the dollar is going to go but if it stays at current levels I am just trying to determine what kind of year-over-year sensitive is to foreign exchange on the operating profit line.

Charles Bunch

Management

For every dollar change on the top line it is about 10% on the bottom line. We think there is about a 10% headwind. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: In regard to your performance coatings business I think you talked about fourth quarter volumes in architectural coatings being down 15% for the division overall. Can you give us an idea of the relative performance of the U.S. market versus the Asian market? Have you seen comparable declines or was one worse than the other?

Charles Bunch

Management

I would say we saw weakness here in North America as well as in other parts of the globe. South America, they began experiencing some of the same issues we have had here in North America during the fourth quarter as did Australia and China was not as strong either. I would say that this recessionary environment for the construction industries has spread rapidly around the world, not as severely as automotive but certainly we are seeing weakness outside of North America as well now with Europe and our position there and our SigmaKalon business holding up the best. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: Turning attention to the commodity chemical sector you talked about the overall demand in early quarter being strong and then falling each month with the pricing holding steady. What was the volume decline you witnessed in the chlor-alkali segment and what are the current utilization rates? If volume keeps declining can you keep shutting down capacity to maintain utilization rates?

Charles Bunch

Management

We saw volume or utilization rates decline through the quarter. October was actually a very strong month. We were recovering from the September hurricane and operating levels were quite good. In November they declined somewhat but were still pretty solid. In December, you saw many of the chemical customers for our business and some of the other industries that are served by the chlor-alkali industry started shutting down to kind of manage inventories and do de-stocking in December. So we did see a sharper fall off in December. As I said earlier in my remarks in January we have actually seen these levels come up a little bit here in chlor-alkali. Activity levels are better and that is in contrast to some of my comments about automotive where we have seen in January activity levels still remain low for our automotive customers in January with we hope a pick up starting in February. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: Do I take to mean the modest reductions in capacity in January you were able to execute to maintain utilization rates we will be able to maintain that pace in 2009 so that utilization rates allow for some pricing stability?

Charles Bunch

Management

I think that pricing is going to…there are some declines in pricing right now, some industry price levels such as the alumina contract are still being discussed. I think pricing in the first half of the year is going to be relatively stable if at a lower level and activity levels, they will probably be obviously weaker at the start of this quarter than they were at the start of the fourth quarter because October was quite a good month for us but I would tell you I think that operating rates for us will be fairly stable and we should be able to manage our inventories and operating levels to be solidly profitable in the first quarter and first half of the year. Dmitri Silverstein – Longbow Research: On the glass segment, did I hear you correctly the architectural glass business was up for the quarter? What is the current make up now that you have de-consolidated the automotive glass? What is the current make up of the division between fiberglass and other types of glass, flat glass?

Charles Bunch

Management

There are really just two businesses within that glass segment. One is flat glass or performance glazing. That makes up a little more than half of the sales of that segment. Fiberglass is a smaller piece of sales although they do have a significant joint venture that is not consolidated on the sales line. I would say they are equally present within the segment and yes performance glazing business on a relative basis had a better quarter than the previous year whereas fiberglass because of the rapid de-stocking especially in the thermoplastics side of the business which has end-use markets in automotive and industrial, they experienced a very rapid drop off in demand starting in November. Because of the higher fixed costs in that business it is a little tougher to adjust capacity but we are doing that now.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Steve Schuman – Lafayette Research. Steve Schuman – Lafayette Research: A question on your projection for 2009. You had said things are probably a little worse than you had expected. With that what are the chances of doing another major restructuring? Automotive in particular doesn’t look to recover any time soon; at least on the big three side.

Charles Bunch

Management

I would say we are looking at that now and I would say in the next couple of months we will determine whether we can execute a restructuring but certainly given the weakness of the markets we have right now we are going to work hard to try to identify some opportunities to lower our costs and that would mean more than likely a restructuring action. We are still working at it right now. Steve Schuman – Lafayette Research: The few hundred million of free cash next year does that include or exclude the voluntary pension payment of a couple hundred million also?

William Hernandez

Management

It included it. That is over and above the pension numbers we talked about. Steve Schuman – Lafayette Research: That also takes into consideration that you thought you could bring CapEx down by 50%?

William Hernandez

Management

Yes.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: For the pension expense for 2009 for the full year what do you expect it to increase and as part of that answer what are you using for your discount rate for 2009 versus 2008 and your assumed rate of return of assets in 2009/2008?

William Hernandez

Management

The discount rate we are using is just a little bit above 6% as what we are looking at over the coming year. We think about an 8% return on assets and it has been pretty steady over that time period. As we said, the pension expense we are talking about is several hundred million dollars for this coming year. On an after tax basis it will be about $250-300 million. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: I’m not talking about pension cash contribution. I’m talking about pension expense going forward.

William Hernandez

Management

Expense going forward we are looking somewhere between $25-30 million a quarter for increased pension expense for each quarter of 2009 versus 2008. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: The 6.2 or 6.2 discount rate, how did that compare with the discount rate you used in 2008?

William Hernandez

Management

It is pretty close to the same. We are talking one or two basis point difference. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: Chuck, on the chlor-alkali outlook for 2009, when you consider the effects of both volume, price weakness, help on natural gas, do you think the combination of those items keeps earnings the same in that segment or do think it gets a little better or a little worse?

Charles Bunch

Management

I wouldn’t want to make a direct forecast but I would say in view of what we see overall in the markets and some of the weakness I think it will be a challenge keeping those operating earnings at the same level for the full year. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: Your comment about SigmaKalon expecting to be flat in volume how was their volume in 2008 versus what it was when SigmaKalon had them in 2007?

Charles Bunch

Management

Volume was up slightly. It was down in the U.K. but up overall. It was modestly up. I would say this is certainly just less than 2%. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: When you had it up 2% in the total year which wasn’t so bad economically in Europe until late in the year and we see Europe decelerating at a fairly rapid pace, being flat in volume would be a darn good performance. I would call that optimistic. Why do you feel so confident that volume could stay flat as the whole economic scene in Europe is deteriorating rapidly?

Charles Bunch

Management

2008 was a record year for SigmaKalon. It was there performance improved over 2007 and that top line is a combination of volume and price. We have seen their ability to adjust their costs and expenses to fluctuate with volume so we think the combination of flat volume, some pricing in margin maintenance and lower cost as an opportunity to have another good year for SigmaKalon in what is arguably going to be I think a tougher environment next year. Saul Ludwig – KeyBanc: CapEx will work against them as well?

Charles Bunch

Management

Yes it will.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Silka Koopf – JP Morgan. Silka Koopf – JP Morgan: A question on the domestic architectural coatings business. Can you talk about the magnitude of the volume decrease in the fourth quarter and what volume expectations you have for full year 2009 and also how large is architectural coatings as a part of performance in coatings?

Charles Bunch

Management

Architectural coatings broadly, this would be North America and the rest of the world; I would say was over 20% of the total for performance coatings. Volumes were down here in North America modestly and what we were able to do though because we have been adjusting costs, reducing our footprint we actually had a better performance in the fourth quarter of 2008 on lower volumes. I think we have proven we can make the tough decisions here and take costs out. These were costs we took out without the benefit of a restructuring reserve. I would tell you that we are not looking for a pick up in architectural market here in North America. We think we are going to be able to continue to perform better because we have been aggressive on cost, productivity and trying to make up for the weakness in the market with our own actions.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from John Roberts - Buckingham Research.

John Roberts - Buckingham Research

Analyst

Do you manage the seasonal ramp up for the architectural coatings business different this season at all? Do you normally build to inventory in addition to serving the inventory needs of the customer? Is that going to change given the uncertainty that is out there in the ordering?

Charles Bunch

Management

Typically we start building inventory in the architectural business at the end of the year or the end of the fourth quarter so you start to see that in December. This year I think we were a little more cautious and we are starting to do that now here early in the first quarter. We are not expecting a significantly weaker environment in the architectural business here in North America this year. We are 2.5 years into what has been a housing recession. We think there is a lot of stability in our customer base in every channel and even though we are not expecting a lot of strong growth here we think we have a good handle on demand and our inventory needs and we are managing that now. We are starting to add inventory here in the first quarter to handle these seasonal requirements. Thank you very much. I look forward to talking to you at our next quarterly earnings release and question-and-answer session.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for attending today’s conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect.