Operator Your next question comes from Charles [Naberg] of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Charles Naberg - Morgan Stanley - Analyst Hi, guys. Nice quarter. Had a quick question on Lanigan. How is that progressing? Is it still on time for the middle of this year – or this coming year, excuse me, middle of '08? And can you remind me about what the size of that addition is going to be? Bill Doyle - Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. - President and CEO Yes Charlie, to answer your question, what I would tell you is that Lanigan is 1.5 million tons. It’s on budget and on time for next year. You know, essentially the big piece there is the mill. So we see that progressing according to plans. You know, I read your first entree this week into the potash world. First I would say welcome to the fertilizer world and I did have just a couple comments, Charlie, just because I never have a problem with anyone’s call, you make whatever call you want, but some of the factual information in your report was a little bit suspect and I would say the – you know, the comment about Potash Corporation abandoning our discipline and I don’t know what the line was, something about us being out for pizza or doughnuts or – it was cute, but if you follow the history of the company, you’ve got the same management team for the last 20 years and if you check back and do a little research on us, you’ll find that we have always matched supply to demand and it’s not how you – how much capacity you have, it’s how you operate that capacity, Charlie. And the other thing I would say is that you know, you referred to Potash mining as being high fixed cost business. Potash mining is not a high fixed cost business. You know, we can lay people off and shut down the operations. We’ve done that for years and years when the time required it. Unlike our phosphate business, which is a high fixed cost business, because you’ve got to keep that operation hot, so-to-speak. You’ve got sulfuric acid plans, you’ve got to keep your water pumping capability in the mine site. You just really can’t shut that down. So, there is a difference there that we would be happy to try and explain to you in the future. Our earnings being highly dependent on biofuels, three quarters of the new demand growth in our business is food demand. We’ve tried to talk about that at every stage and what I would really suggest to you, I think you know, you covered a little bit on the supply side. You didn’t talk at all about the demand end. And I would say go out, visit India, pick any five cities, China, any five cities, and you’ll see the demand for food and it’s a very, very real issue. You know, the other comment about consumers banking inventory before the Spring season of 2008, that’s just impossible. Just isn’t inventory out there and everybody is hand to mouth at this time. So I would say you know, overall less than a distinguished effort but the good news is that there is nothing but up side for you for the next go round.
Yikes. Did “Charlie” have a rebuttal to any of this?
Funny but a little arrogant of the fertilizer guy. I remember listening to fertilizer company’s conference call a couple of years ago and they were a lot nicer to the analysts! Times have changed in the fertilizer world.
thats a pretty good B**** slapping
O W N E D! Guess MS will not be on the tombstone for POT offerings anytime soon…
i do agree, maybe the success of POT has made the ceo a little arrogant
Hahaha that was awesome. The Financial Post in Canada had Mr.Doyle cover page a week or so ago, he was talking about how he was calling the stock rise 5 years ago when it was in the tank and was getting ripped apart by analysts so it must feel good to rip into them now that his stock is on fire. Plus the analyst didnt even know it was 2008, pretty weak.
Charles Naberg, Morgan Stanley - Analyst 28 Hi, guys. Nice quarter. Had a quick question on Lanigan. How is that progressing? Is it still on time for the middle of this year – or this coming year, excuse me, middle of '08? And can you remind me about what the size of that addition is going to be? Bill Doyle, Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. - President and CEO 29 Yes Charlie, to answer your question, what I would tell you is that Lanigan is 1.5 million tons. It’s on budget and on time for next year. You know, essentially the big piece there is the mill. So we see that progressing according to plans. You know, I read your first entree this week into the potash world. First I would say welcome to the fertilizer world and I did have just a couple comments, Charlie, just because I never have a problem with anyone’s call, you make whatever call you want, but some of the factual information in your report was a little bit suspect and I would say the – you know, the comment about Potash Corporation abandoning our discipline and I don’t know what the line was, something about us being out for pizza or doughnuts or – it was cute, but if you follow the history of the company, you’ve got the same management team for the last 20 years and if you check back and do a little research on us, you’ll find that we have always matched supply to demand and it’s not how you – how much capacity you have, it’s how you operate that capacity, Charlie. And the other thing I would say is that you know, you referred to Potash mining as being high fixed cost business. Potash mining is not a high fixed cost business. You know, we can lay people off and shut down the operations. We’ve done that for years and years when the time required it. Unlike our phosphate business, which is a high fixed cost business, because you’ve got to keep that operation hot, so-to-speak. You’ve got sulfuric acid plans, you’ve got to keep your water pumping capability in the mine site. You just really can’t shut that down. So, there is a difference there that we would be happy to try and explain to you in the future. Our earnings being highly dependent on biofuels, three quarters of the new demand growth in our business is food demand. We’ve tried to talk about that at every stage and what I would really suggest to you, I think you know, you covered a little bit on the supply side. You didn’t talk at all about the demand end. And I would say go out, visit India, pick any five cities, China, any five cities, and you’ll see the demand for food and it’s a very, very real issue. You know, the other comment about consumers banking inventory before the Spring season of 2008, that’s just impossible. Just isn’t inventory out there and everybody is hand to mouth at this time. So I would say you know, overall less than a distinguished effort but the good news is that there is nothing but up side for you for the next go round. We have a website question here that I would like to answer. It says with the potential for slowdown in the US economy increasing, can you walk through at a high level what a slowdown would mean for your three business lines? If you look at the credit crunch, the subprime, the liquidity crisis in North America and its impact on North American agriculture, I would say it is nil. With high soybean, wheat, corn prices, you know, you just don’t see any impact of people backing off. As I said, we’re on allocation, very tight supply. Our customers are concerned about availability. They’re not concerned about price. And I would say globally, having just come back from a trip to China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, those customers feel no impact of the US subprime issue, and again, are only concerned about product availability. Operator 30 Your next question comes from Dave Silver of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Charlie’s quick response: “Dude, if things are going so well for youz guyz then why the f’ do you have your panties all bunched up over my cheezball write-up? I’m just paid to write this stuff to generate commissions. What are you guys worried about?”
Talk about getting taken down a peg or two.
That was great. He wrecked that rookie. Any other scripts?
rookie??? the guy has been covering the space for over 20 years… CHARLES N. NEIVERT joined the Board of Directors on July 2, 1999. In 1992, Mr. Neivert co-founded and is currently the Executive Vice President of New Vernon Associates, which is an investment advisory boutique focusing on select global chemical, life science and pharmaceutical companies. From 1987 to 1992, Mr. Neivert was the Vice President and Senior Sector Analyst of Anantha Raman & Company, Inc., a leading equity research boutique. From 1980 until 1986, Mr. Neivert worked with Data Resources, Inc. as a Manager and Economist wherein he developed, designed and marketed new computer-based forecasting and cost models for the chemical industry.
i just read this and made the assumption, Rookie to fertilizer? First I would say welcome to the fertilizer world and I did have just a couple comments,
I dunno, the comment above about him calling a stock increase 5 years prior is total BS. Anyone can call a stock increase given a long enough window in which it can occur. If you had listened to him 5 years ago, what’s happening now would not be as important as the 5 years you sat on a neutral stock watching the rest of the economy’s investments pass you buy, timing is at least as important as binomial directionality. Secondly, I worked in the corporate finance community for a substantial stretch after graduating college and can say firsthand that the egos of guys running those countries is unreal. I thought it was very unprofessional for a CEO to address a personal vendetta in that manner during an industry conference call, and I just lost a great deal of respect for that ancient petty @sshole. Could have been handled much better, although I was also surprised to hear of the comments from the Morgan analyst, equally unprofessional. So it looks like we have two five year olds, they should keep that junk on forums and off professional calls. Secondly, my grandfather worked for potash for many years and hearing the ceo frankly address layoffs as if they are no big deal, while displaying no manner of loyalty to his manufacturing employees upon which his current success is built is extremely disrespectful and reiterates my previous points about his apparent lack of class and maturity.
whatcfa Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > rookie??? the guy has been covering the space for > over 20 years… > > CHARLES N. NEIVERT joined the Board of Directors > on July 2, 1999. In 1992, > Mr. Neivert co-founded and is currently the > Executive Vice President of New > Vernon Associates, which is an investment advisory > boutique focusing on select > global chemical, life science and pharmaceutical > companies. From 1987 to 1992, > Mr. Neivert was the Vice President and Senior > Sector Analyst of Anantha Raman & > Company, Inc., a leading equity research boutique. > From 1980 until 1986, Mr. > Neivert worked with Data Resources, Inc. as a > Manager and Economist wherein he > developed, designed and marketed new > computer-based forecasting and cost models > for the chemical industry. I thought its Charles Nabert, not Neivert…
drs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I thought its Charles Nabert, not Neivert… Thats what the transcript says. The transcript is incorrect.
Anyone have a link to the transcript in question? I read the Q4 on Bloomberg but did not see this exchange… Thanks!
check the q3 transcript on BBG.
usually the transcipts are included in an 8k in the sec filings
The stock’s gone from $115 to $150 since that call, so looks like the CEO had good reason to give him the smackdown.