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Operator:
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Good
morning, my name is Kila, and I will be your conference operator
today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the
Iridium second quarter earnings call. All lines have been
placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the
speaker’s remarks, there will be a question-and-answer
session. If you’d like to ask a question during this time,
simply press star then the number one on your telephone
keypad. I will now turn the call over to James
Babski. Please go ahead, sir.
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James
Babski:
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Thank
you, operator. Before I review the structure of this morning’s
call, I'd like to read the Safe Harbor statement.
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This
conference call could contain forward-looking statements about GHL
Acquisition Corp. or Iridium Satellite, LLC within the meaning of the
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not
historical fact. Such forward-looking statements are based upon
the current belief and expectations of the management of GHL Acquisition
Corp., and/or Iridium Satellite, LLC, and are subject to risks and
uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ from the
forward-looking statements. Such risks are more fully discussed
in the GHL Acquisition Corp. filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission.
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The
information set forth herein should be considered in light of such
risks. Neither GHL Acquisition, nor Iridium Satellite assume
any obligation to update the information contained in this conference
call.
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I'd
now like to turn the floor over to Scott Bok, CEO of GHL Acquisition
Corp., for some brief comments. Then we’ll hear from Matt
Desch, Iridium’s CEO, who will take us through the highlights of the
second quarter. Eric Morrison, Iridium’s CFO, will then review
details of the financial results with us, and then we’ll take your
questions. Now I'll turn the program over to Scott
Bok.
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Scott
Bok:
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Thank
you, James, and good morning to everybody on the line. Before
we move on to Iridium’s results, I want to update you on our planned
combination with Iridium. I'm sure many of you saw our recent
announcement on July 29th when we made
further progress toward the acquisition of Iridium with a warrant
restructuring. GHL Acquisition entered into agreements with
certain of its warrant holders as a result of which approximately 26.8
million warrants issued by GHL Acquisition, including 4 million warrants
held by Greenhill & Co. Inc., the sponsor of GHL Acquisition, will be
repurchased or restructured upon the closing of the Iridium
acquisition.
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The
warrants subject to those agreements, combined with those subject to
previously disclosed agreements relating to warrant repurchases or
forfeitures represent approximately 69% of the 44.1 million GHL
Acquisition warrants that would otherwise have been outstanding following
the Iridium acquisition.
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The
effect of the agreements for the warrant holders is to significantly
reduce the number of fully diluted GHL Acquisition shares that will be
outstanding following completion of the Iridium acquisition. A
reduction in fully diluted shares at an attractive cost has further
reduced the valuation of this transaction for the benefit of all of our
investors, both long standing holders, as well as new
investors.
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The
next steps on our path to completion are approval from the Federal
Communications Commission, and our shareholder vote, which we expect to
schedule for the month of September. We look forward to GHL
Acquisition becoming a public company on NASDAQ very
shortly.
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Now
turning to Iridium’s financial results. The second quarter was
obviously an extraordinary one for Iridium. I think investors
will struggle to find any other major company with 30% EBITDA growth in
the face of a very weak economy. And today, the company is
updating its guidance for the full year as well to imply a slightly higher
range of operational EBITDA growth than indicated
earlier.
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The
key factor driving this impressive growth is the company’s installed base
of nearly 350,000 subscribers, including the U.S. government as the
company’s largest single customer, which have continued to generate
growth, even in a weak economic environment. This factor more
than compensates for a sharp decline in equipment sales, which one would
expect to be more sensitive to economic conditions.
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With
that, I'll turn it over to Matt to give you more color on the
results.
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Matt
Desch:
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Thanks,
Scott. Hello, everyone.
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This
year so far has not been typical for Iridium, but our second quarter was a
good one, and we’re maintaining positive momentum. Let me share
a few points and some observations on the quarter, and then I'll turn it
over to Eric to go through the numbers in greater
detail.
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So
first, total subscribers reached 347,000 in the second quarter, that’s a
24% increase over this time a year ago. This represents healthy
growth, and keeps us on track to increase subscribers by 20% or so in
2009.
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We
saw strong performance during the quarter from commercial service
revenues, which increased 22% over the same period last
year. We’re particularly pleased by this, because commercial
service represents a recurring revenue stream in our
business. This growth is an excellent indicator of the
fundamental strength of our business, even in difficult economic
times. In short, Iridium customers value our services and
continue to spend money on them.
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As
we indicated in our release, subscriber equipment was off 26% compared to
the second quarter of 2008. Last year was a record year for
equipment, and
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| of course, this year the economy is causing everyone to curtail spending on new equipment. So while service revenues were up, lower equipment revenues brought total revenue increases to just 1% over the same period last year to $83 million in the quarter. | |
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Despite
the global economic climate contributing to slower subscriber equipment
sales, we still shipped our 1,000th Iridium OpenPort
unit in the quarter, and realized strong revenue growth for this
groundbreaking product. Customer demand and usage continues to
highlight the attractiveness and value of our smaller hardware package,
adhesive installation and its competitive service costs. Our
distribution partners have gotten creative with new application packages
that increase the variety and frequency of Iridium OpenPort
usage. Take-up of the new 9555 satellite phone has been strong
too.
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Let
me now turn to service growth, which is the highlight for the
quarter. In terms of commercial voice and data traffic in the
second quarter, usage increased in our markets, including maritime,
aviation, land, mobile and machine-to-machine, or M2M. Combined
commercial voice and data traffic grew 5% for the second quarter of 2009,
compared to the same period in 2008. This included growth in
voice traffic of 3%, and growth in traditional data traffic of 10% during
the quarter, as compared to the same quarter in 2008. Usage is
a strong indicator for us, and we’re pleased to see it increasing even at
a time when, say fewer business jets are flying or ships
sailing.
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Our
commercial service revenues typically consist of a monthly service fee, in
addition to a per minute or per kilobyte pricing, so even when airplanes
are grounded or ships are in ports, we’re generating monthly service
revenues from the customer.
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Our
partners also tell us that while cargo loads may be smaller, most maritime
customers are still sailing, which our service revenue
corroborates. The crews still call home from abroad, and the
captains still need to communicate ship’s business with the fleet
owner.
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In
fact, the maritime industry as a whole continues to represent a great
opportunity for us. New regulations, such as management of
fishing in protected waters, homeland security issues, such as tracking
large container ships entering international ports, and other regulatory
concerns continue to field growth and generate revenues for Iridium since
we provide the only communications service that works in all
regions. With our truly global communications service, our
phones and data devices work everywhere, even above and below 70 degrees
latitude north and south in the Arctic and Antarctic
regions. This is true of no other MSS provider, much less any
other type of communications service.
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Particularly
with the opening of the northwest passages of shipping route, maritime
vessels, assets and personnel are using Iridium based devices for tracking
and reporting locations, speed, temperature and status where access to
this important data was previously unavailable.
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Iridium
also continues to see growth and opportunity in the aviation
market. Again, from petroleum service helicopters, air
transport, medivacs and other specialized aviation installations, such as
the U.S. Forestry Service, Noordzee Helicopters and Sundance Helicopters,
which we announced this quarter.
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On
the last quarterly call, I discussed Iridium’s opportunity to provide
safety services to the aviation market, and we continue progress towards
securing full international regulatory approvals for Iridium to be used
for air safety communications by commercial carriers, particularly on
their transoceanic flights.
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Air
carriers are looking for reliable communications for their polar rights
that are supporting this. In the second quarter, Iridium gained
two approvals from the RTCA, the regulatory commission focused on
aeronautical communications, which clear the way for our final flight
certification program with the FAA and Continental
Airlines.
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While
we’ve been pretty much the standard for general and corporate aviation
over the last several years, we’re looking forward to growing more into
the higher ARPU commercial aviation segment.
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Finally,
we experienced again exceptional growth in the second quarter in our M2M
data market, in terms of both subscribers and revenue, which we continue
to see as a great driver of future Iridium growth. Iridium M2M
subscribers grew 71% in the second quarter of 2009, in comparison to the
second quarter of 2008. And Iridium experienced 60% growth in
service revenue over the prior year’s quarter.
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We
attribute this rapid growth to our industry leading offering, which
combines small, affordable, easy to integrate two-way data modems which
our partners manufacture into a broad array of complex devices for
different industries. This is coupled with our ability to help
them track and monitor assets globally.
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There
is clearly great demand for this service used in diverse and important
ways by our industrial M2M partners and their customers. It’s
really incredible what customers are finding to do with an affordable,
real time, two-way Internet link to a device or machine anywhere on the
planet. For example, aircraft use us to collect weather data,
government organizations are using us to track their vehicle fleets, and
ships are saving money on fuel thanks to Iridium based fuel management
systems, for example.
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They’re
all tapping Iridium for a better understanding of the environments in
which they operate for personnel and assets they’re tracking for safety
purposes, and the financial responsibility day-to-day that impacts bottom
line and cost containment initiatives.
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So
let me transition to our government customers now. This was
another good quarter in our long standing and valued relationship with the
U.S. government and the Department of Defense, in
particular. Government service revenues increased more than
15%, including revenue from our consulting service
contracts. Iridium continues to be a critical part of the
military communications infrastructure in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
other parts of the world. Moreover, in a trend that parallels
our commercial business, we see more and more defense department uses for
our M2M services as military assets are deployed and tracked around the
world.
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We
are fortunate to announce an important contract with the DoD in the second
quarter, as well as the achievement of certain milestones in an important
joint U.S. government initiative with Boeing. First, as we’ve
reported before, the U.S. Navy awarded Iridium a contract for DTCS, which
stands for distributed tactical communications system, or what we call
“netted Iridium”, our push to talk capability. Similar to
tactical radios, DTCS is designed to fulfill the DoDs need for two-way,
one to many communications for groups to soldiers anywhere in the
world. What’s special about DTCS is that it allows for
communication in what are called nets that cover more distance than
standard military radios.
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As
such, DTCS facilitates what the DoD calls over the horizon, on the move,
and beyond line of sight communications, which are extremely valuable
capabilities for the on the move soldier. We’ve been actively
involved with the development of DTCS for several years now, and this
contract represents the funding commitment from the DoD to build what we
call DTCS phase two.
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Phase
two will include updates to our satellite constellation, development of a
ground based management system, and design and production of several DTCS
tactical radio devices. We’ve had a productive relationship
with the DoD on this program, and even had U.S. Army Brigadier General
Mark Bowman call DTCS the most significant tactical communications
improvement developed and fielded during the global war on terror, which
I'd say is a pretty outstanding endorsement.
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In
a joint release issued with Boeing, we also announced the completion of
two milestones with the U.S. Navy around the high integrity GPS program,
otherwise known as IGPS. Milestone one involved the software
upload to Iridium satellites to enable faster, more accurate GPS position
fixes. This is key for military users who operate in
restrictive GPS environments, such as urban areas, forests, mountains and
canyons. Milestone two involved the demonstration of the
acquisition of a GPS signal under substantial jamming while moving in a
vehicle, which is becoming increasingly important as the enemy attempts to
jam critical GPS signals during battle.
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Due
to the unique global design of the Iridium network, we’re able to help
deliver added precision and robustness to GPS capabilities, which are
critical to DoD operations. With both of these announcements,
we were pleased by the DoD's validation of Iridium as a mission critical
communications tool, and finding avenues for using it in more ways in
coming years, especially as we gear up to launch our next generation
satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT.
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Before
I turn the call over to Eric, I also want to update you on that topic,
which is the status of Iridium NEXT. We continue to work
through the final stages of reviewing the design proposal submitted by our
two prime contractor candidates, Lockheed Martin and Thales Alenia
Space. We anticipate announcing our final selection of our
prime contractor by the end of the year. The two candidate
companies are offering interesting and creative solutions to meet our
requirements for our new network. It’s a very close
competition, and we appreciate how hard each of them is working to win our
business.
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As
we’ve previously indicated, Iridium NEXT will be backward compatible for
current customers, and will also enable Iridium to provide enhanced
capabilities, higher data speeds and flexible communication
alternatives. We are also working with perspective hosted
payload customers, since NEXT will provide a significant and cost
effective means to operate important payloads and sensors in
space.
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Now
I'll ask Eric to provide further detail on the second quarter results, and
then we’ll be available to answer your questions –
Eric?
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Eric
Morrison:
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Thanks,
Matt, and good morning, everyone.
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As
you’ve seen in this morning’s press release, Iridium had approximately
347,000 total cumulative subscribers as of June 30, 2009, which marks a
23.9% increase in subscribers, compared to our numbers at the close of
second quarter 2008.
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Revenue
in the second quarter of 2009 was $82.7 million, versus $81.7 million in
the second quarter of 2008, which represents a 1.2%
increase. As Matt indicated, the overall revenue reflects a
decline in subscriber equipment revenue, while commercial and government
service revenues increased.
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Subscriber
equipment revenue was down 25.7% to $24.6 million from $33.1 million in
the second quarter of 2008. While commercial service revenue
was up 21.6%, increasing to $39.9 million from $32.8 million in the same
quarter last year.
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Operational
EBITDA increased 31.5% to $36.7 million, from 27.9 million in the second
quarter 2008. You’ll recall that we define operational EBITDA
as EBITDA that excludes revenue and expenses incurred in the development
of Iridium NEXT, as well as non-recurring expenses related to the
company’s financing activities, including the transaction with GHL
Acquisition.
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The
company tracks operational EBITDA because we believe it is a useful
measure to evaluate the ongoing operational performance of our
business. Our management team also uses operational EBITDA for
operational planning purposes, including the preparation of its annual
operating budget, financial projections and compensation
plan.
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Net
income was up 52.9% to 28.6 million from 18.7 million in the second
quarter of 2008. There was a one-time $3.5 million accrual
reversal of a NEXT expenditure in the quarter. Absent this
accrual reversal, net income would have increased by
34.2%.
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In
closing, I'd like to echo Matt’s comment that although we are still
feeling some effects of the economy in our equipment sales, overall, we
are pleased with our results. We’re still on track to meet our
guidance of low single digit revenue growth, 14 to 20% growth in
operational EBITDA, and a 20% increase in cumulative subscribers for the
full year 2009.
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With
that, I'll turn the call back to Scott.
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Scott
Bok:
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Thanks,
Eric. And congratulations to the entire Iridium team on a job
very well done.
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On
this morning’s conference call, you’ve heard that there are myriad new and
emerging uses for the Iridium network across many different
industries. You’ve heard that the company is growing resilience
in a tough economy, and
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All
of these factors make us very enthusiastic about Iridium in both its
current results and its longer-term prospects. Thank you for
your time and attention, and we’ll now be happy to take any questions –
operator?
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Operator:
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At
this time, I would like to remind everyone that in order to ask a
question, please press star then the number one on your telephone
keypad. If you’d like to withdraw your question, press the
pound key. We’ll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A
roster.
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We’ll
hold for your first question. One moment,
please.
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Your
first question comes from the line of Henrik Nyblom of
Nomura.
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Henrik
Nyblom:
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Hi
there. Very quickly, can you perhaps, in a way, quantify or
give some additional color on the success of your new Iridium 9555
phone? That would be very useful, thank you.
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Matt
Desch:
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Yes,
first of all, the 9555 phone has gotten rave reviews I think from our
customers and partners. We’ve only heard really good things
about it, I know you probably saw over in Europe, the Financial Times endorsement of it as one
of the best phones they’d ever seen. It continues to perform
extremely well, especially for a brand new phone, it has really had
absolutely no problems in its introduction or rollout in the
field. We had allowed our customers time to get the 9505 phones
out of their channels, but we’ve been more aggressive recently in terms of
our pricing of it, et cetera, too. And I think that’s showing
up as customers see it as a more attractive price now. But it’s
being very, very well received, the size as you know is better, the
usability of it is better, the antenna is being integrated, makes it a
much more compact package. And of course, it still is kind of
without competition in the world right now, it’s the only phone that
really works everywhere in the world, and I think that that’s seen in the
take-up.
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So
it’s performing very well, we’re really pleased with
it.
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Henrik
Nyblom:
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OK,
thank you.
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Matt
Desch:
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Thanks
Henrik.
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Operator:
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Again,
to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone
keypad.
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Again,
we are holding for questions. If you have a question, please
press star then the number one.
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Scott
Bok:
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And
if there aren’t any, operator, that’s absolutely fine. I think
this morning’s news is fairly straightforward, so I'm not too
surprised.
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Matt
Desch:
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We’d
be glad also to answer questions offline if anybody has
any.
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Scott
Bok:
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Yes.
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Operator:
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And
I’m showing there are no further questions.
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Matt
Desch:
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OK,
thank you very much, everybody, for calling in. Bye
now.
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Scott
Bok:
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We’ll
see you, now.
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Operator:
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Thank
you. This concludes today’s conference, you may now
disconnect.
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END
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