The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: David C. Silver - C.L. King & Associates - Analyst
: Yeah, hi, good morning. Not used to being called first. Okay, thank you very much.
I do have a couple of questions regarding kind of the balance sheet and the cash flow statement in particular, and I understand there's a number
of, relatively different events kind of puts and takes.
Can I just ask you, unlike most, March quarters, the accounts receivable level actually rose from December to March, and overall, I mean, I think it's
at a very high level relative to your sales or historical season ending levels, is there something going on there or why shouldn't I think that this
would be a significant source of incremental further, incremental cash going forward? Just some comment on kind of the March March month end
level of accounts receivable please.
Question: David C. Silver - C.L. King & Associates - Analyst
: Okay, very good. And then, maybe a business question but I'm sure your team this has to do with the upcoming bidseason, and I'm sure your team
is very proficient at kind of reading the tea leaves, I guess.
But what can you say or what can you divulge divine, I guess from the early requests for bids? In other words, have the volume commitments, that
the customers are seeking, have they noticeably increased versus the past year or two or the delivery points indicating areas that maybe the depot,
depletioned that maybe you cited in your remarks just I know it's early, but the bidding does start pretty early or at least the bid process starts
pretty early. What can you divine from from what's available to you at this point?
Question: David C. Silver - C.L. King & Associates - Analyst
: Okay, great. I'm just going to sneak in one more but this would be related to your SOP business.
And I just as a note I mean, To me that business still, has a lot of potential to kind of improve the margins there.
Especially, given the two consecutive quarters, I think of pretty high shipment levels Ed you I understand the salt segment and particularly the
icing inventories was job one here, but what what do you see over the next few quarters or next year or so in terms of restoring kind of that cash
cost or cash production cost performance level to I don't know, more more historical levels and maybe driving some incremental cash flow from
that part of your business.
Question: David C. Silver - C.L. King & Associates - Analyst
: Okay, thanks very much. I'm going to get back into cue. Appreciate it.
Question: David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank - Analyst
: Thank you, Carly, for the moderation here. I appreciate that and thank you all again for your interest in Compass minerals. We are focused on
delivering on our back to basic strategy. We're making good progress in that regard, and I'm excited about the steps the company is making. Please
don't hesitate to reach out to Brent if you have any follow up questions. We look forward to speaking to you in the next quarter.
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