Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Lamb Weston Update Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Dexter Congbalay. Please go ahead Good morning. Thank you for joining us for our call today and on such short notice. Today, we announce an agreement to purchase our partner's equity interest in Lamb-Weston/Meijer, our 50/50 joint venture in Europe. Our press release and today's presentation are available on our website, lambweston.com. With me today are Tom Werner, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bernadette Madarieta, our Chief Financial Officer. Tom will provide an overview of the strategic benefits of the transaction and a snapshot of the combined company. Bernadette will then provide some details of the transaction before we take your questions. First, please note that during our remarks, we'll make some forward-looking statements about the transaction and the company's business outlook and prospects. These statements are based on how we see things today. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the cautionary statements and risk factors contained in today's press release and our SEC filings for more details on our forward-looking statements. Some of today's remarks include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered a replacement for and should be read together with our GAAP results. In addition, forward-looking non-GAAP measures related to the company's acquisition of Lamb-Weston/Meijer are unable to be reconciled to relevant GAAP measures without unreasonable efforts because of items that may impact comparability, which may include but are not limited to items such as purchase accounting adjustments, integration costs, and the impact of commodity derivatives. You can find the GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations in the materials we're presenting today, which are furnished with the SEC on Form 8-K and available on our website. With that, let me now turn the call over to Tom. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. I'm excited to speak to you today about our acquisition of our partner's 50% interest in Lamb-Weston/Meijer, our joint venture in Europe. Lamb-Weston/Meijer was created 28 years ago by combining Lamb Weston's and Meijer Frozen Foods respective operations in Europe. Over the years, it's become a leader in Europe and has also built a leading presence in the Middle East. I wanna thank Meijer Frozen Foods and Kees Meijer, in particular, for their support in helping Lamb-Weston/Meijer to become the strong business that it is. By owning half the business, we've already built a strong relationship with Lamb-Weston/Meijer and have a very good understanding of what we're taking on with the acquisition. We frequently work together when bidding on supply contracts for multinational chain restaurant customers and have exchanged key supply chain and commercial personnel to share best practices and strengthen the bond between the two companies. We believe this transaction will allow us to build on this foundation so that we may better support our customers and create shareholder value. The strategic benefits of this transaction are clear. First, it strengthens our global manufacturing footprint by offering an ability to fully leverage Europe's lower cost infrastructure to serve key markets around the world. Although the European market is currently dealing with challenges given the inflationary environment, Europe traditionally has had a competitive cost structure for our industry due to the central geographic location and lower transportation costs compared to our U.S. operations in the Pacific Northwest. This is especially useful in serving food service channels in emerging markets and value-oriented channels where Lamb Weston has had challenges offering cost-competitive products. In addition, Europe's cost structure may also provide opportunities to serve customers in North and South America. Having a single global manufacturing footprint also provides more direct opportunities for collaboration across our supply chain, including sharing and incorporating best-in-class manufacturing practices to increase efficiency, improve quality, and reduce costs. Second, the transaction will enhance our customer-centric operating model by offering a single voice to our global customers. Having separate sales forces and customer care operations can sometimes lead to confusion and may create unnecessary hurdles when bidding on new business or resolving customer issues. We believe this transaction also increases our flexibility to seamlessly support multinational customers with a truly global supply chain by being able to draw supply from whatever region makes most sense economically and operationally for Lamb Weston and the customer. Third, the transaction better positions us to continue to capitalize on growth opportunities in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. With consumption at about 9 billion pounds, Europe is the second largest market behind North America, with a low single-digit% historical annual growth rate. While restaurant traffic and frozen potato demand in the near term will be tempered due to inflationary pressures facing consumers, we believe in the long-term growth and the health of the category in Europe. Production in Europe is also key to serving the Middle East and Africa, two underserved regions with fast-growing populations. We estimate the Middle East market to be approximately 2 billion pounds today with an expected mid-single-digit growth rate. Africa is underdeveloped, but low per capita consumption and a rapidly expanding population offer an attractive and long runway for growth. Finally, this transaction provides an opportunity to pursue our global growth strategies without operating restrictions associated with a joint venture agreement. This includes offering a platform for further consolidation in Europe if such opportunities arise. It also provides opportunities to fully integrate systems and processes on a global basis in order to collaborate seamlessly, improve efficiencies, drive global innovation, and reduce costs. Lamb-Weston/Meijer is a great complement to Lamb Weston's operations. Lamb-Weston/Meijer's manufacturing footprint includes six processing facilities, including four in the Netherlands, one in the UK, and one in Austria. With a total processing capacity of approximately 2 billion pounds, we estimate that Lamb-Weston/Meijer is the number two player in a fragmented European supply landscape. In addition, a new 400 million pound line is being built at the largest plant in Kruiningen in the Netherlands, as well as a new state-of-the-art innovation center. Lamb-Weston/Meijer's total sales last year, excluding its operations in Russia, were approximately EUR 840 million, or about $955 million. It has a broad customer and product portfolio, and its sales channel mix is similar to ours. About 85% of those sales were to the out-of-home market, with about half of that amount going to quick service restaurants. About 10% went into the retail channel, with another 5% potato flakes, mostly for industrial use. Together, we'll have total production capacity of approximately 8 billion pounds through 25 processing facilities. Using fiscal 2022 results on a combined basis, we generated net sales of more than $5 billion. Our combined adjusted EBITDA was more than $700 million, which reflected profit margins below normalized levels as our pricing actions in both companies had yet to offset much of the significant input cost inflation we experienced during the year. We believe Lamb-Weston/Meijer's adjusted EBITDA on a normalized basis is about EUR 100 million or a little over $100 million at current foreign exchange rates. Finally, we're excited to be welcoming 1,500 colleagues to the 7,800-member Lamb Weston team. Marc Schroeder, the joint venture's president, will continue to lead the operations in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, supported by his management team and the talented employees of both organizations. Now let me turn the call over to Bernadette to review some of the additional transaction details. Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. I'm incredibly excited about what this opportunity brings Lamb Weston shareholders, including the ability to support our customers and create pathways for long-term growth. We will acquire Meijer Frozen Foods 50% interest in Lamb-Weston/Meijer for EUR 700 million. Upon completion of the transaction, we'll own 100% of the business. The purchase price equates to a total enterprise value for Lamb-Weston/Meijer of more than EUR 1.5 billion, including the assumption of nearly EUR 150 million of debt. This implies a valuation multiple of about 15.5x Lamb-Weston/Meijer's normalized pre-pandemic EBITDA of about EUR 100 million. This multiple is similar to what Lamb Weston is trading at today. The EUR 700 million purchase price is comprised of EUR 525 million in cash and EUR 175 million worth of newly issued Lamb Weston common stock. There are no financing conditions for the acquisition. We currently expect to fund the cash portion of the acquisition price with approximately $450 million of new borrowings, with the remainder funded with cash on hand. At the end of our fiscal first quarter, we had approximately $485 million of cash on our balance sheet. We are evaluating options for a new term loan facility that would comprise all or a portion of the new debt, depending on market conditions and other factors. Otherwise, if a facility is not in place by closing, we have ample availability under our existing $1 billion undrawn revolving credit facility to close the transaction. If we do end up borrowing under the revolver, we may seek to term out those borrowings as conditions warrant. After taking account of the anticipated transaction financing, our leverage ratio will increase to approximately 3.2x from the 2.7x at the end of our first quarter. This assumes a net debt of more than $2.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA, including unconsolidated joint ventures of $910 million, which is the high end of our fiscal 2023 outlook range. Even with this additional debt, we're maintaining a strong balance sheet, and we remain below our target range of 3.5x-4x adjusted EBITDA. Note that the adjusted EBITDA amount used in the leverage ratio calculation does not include the benefit of the half of Lamb-Weston/Meijer's earnings that we would consolidate upon completion of the transaction. Doing so would somewhat reduce our leverage ratio. With respect to the EUR 175 million paid in Lamb Weston stock, the total number of new shares we issue will be derived by using the average of the volume-weighted average prices for the five trading days prior to signing and the five trading days prior to closing the transaction. Based on our recent currency exchange rates and a Lamb Weston share price of around $85, we estimate that we'll issue between 2 and 2.1 million shares. That represents about 1.5% of our fully diluted shares outstanding at the end of our fiscal first quarter. From an earnings perspective, we expect the transaction to be accretive, excluding the impact of purchase accounting in fiscal 2024, the first full year of owning the entire business. For fiscal 2023, we expect to begin to consolidate Lamb-Weston/Meijer's full results upon closing the transaction, which, while subject to customary closing conditions, we anticipate will be during the second half of our fiscal year. Excluding the impact of purchase accounting, we expect the transaction to have little to no impact, and depending on timing of when the transaction closes, may be dilutive to consolidated fiscal 2023 earnings, as Lamb-Weston/Meijer's results will be affected by a below-average crop in Europe, high energy and input costs, soft demand as inflation pressures restaurant traffic and consumers, and pricing to offset inflation catches up. Interest expense associated from new borrowings and transaction-related costs will also impact results. We will provide additional details regarding the transaction's impact on our financial outlook for the year when we report our fiscal second quarter earnings in early January. Now, let me turn the call over to Tom for some final words. Thanks, Bernadette. We're excited about this opportunity and look forward to working even more closely with our new colleagues in Europe. We believe this transaction offers significant strategic benefits when it comes to strengthening our manufacturing footprint to serve customers around the world, further developing our customer-centric model, enhancing our position in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and being able to more freely pursue our growth and operating strategies. We are committed to integrating our organizations quickly and thoughtfully, and I'm confident that this opportunity will enhance Lamb Weston shareholder value over the long term. Thank you for joining us today. Now we're ready to take your questions. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, simply press the star key followed by the digit one on your telephone keypad. Also, if you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Once again, press star one at this time. We'll pause for a moment. We'll first hear from Andrew Lazar of Barclays. Hi. Good morning, everybody. Morning, Andrew. Morning, Andrew. Hi there. Maybe to start off, Tom, you mentioned that the deal improves Lamb Weston's platform for further European consolidation. I was just hopeful maybe you could go into that a little bit more in sort of what ways specifically does it improve it? I guess, as a result of the deal, do you now see the opportunity for maybe closer in opportunities for consolidation in the region, particularly in light of the consumer environment in Europe? I ask this because obviously, you know, this deal ups the company's broader exposure to Europe. I know that that region is far more fragmented from a supplier perspective than your core North America region. You know, further consolidation would seem pretty important, you know, should it be able to accelerate from here. That would be the first question. Yeah, Andrew. The thing that this does is it really simplifies our ability, assuming some things, you know, if we see opportunities or some things start happening, consolidating in Europe, we have control over this asset now as Lamb Weston. There's complications with the joint venture structure that you know would really be some hurdles we'd have to get through if things start happening, which I believe they will, especially with what you just said, the European environment is really challenging right now. You know, and the other thing is, if you think about it, and I won't get into the specifics of the JV agreement, you know, we have to jointly agree how we're going to pursue a potential target, and, you know, how the capital is raised and all those kind of things that I'm not gonna get into the specifics of it because it really doesn't matter now. It just simplifies things. And I think, you know, Andrew, the other thing is, you know, it sends a message to the market. We got a, you know, like Bernadette said, we got a healthy balance sheet. You know, and I think I believe this is gonna, you know, people are gonna open their eyes a little bit in this market, I think. They're really helpful. Thank you for that. Closer in, I know that in North America right now, the industry is I think still in a position where it can't fully supply necessarily all the demand that's out there. Even though I know there's some risk in North America of, let's say, some casual dining or full-service dining sort of slowdown, you know, we're still in a position where the industry is kind of producing sort of, correct me if I'm wrong, but like all it can basically. Does that same dynamic exist in Europe right now in terms of the industry structure, such that even if and when, you know, there may be some further slowdown, again, short term in nature in sort of the away from home dining, sort of arena, that there's still this scenario where you and others are kind of producing all you can anyway so that it's a little bit less impactful? Or is that not the case in Europe? Thank you so much. Yeah, Andrew, great question. In this environment, our feeling in Europe in particular is that it's similar to what's happening in the US. Now, a lot of that, our belief is, and we're experiencing it in our European business right now, is there's still some supply chain challenges. You know, across our business here in Europe, and, you know, as a team, the team here in Europe have done a great job catching up to inflation through pricing. You know, our belief is even the competitive landscape, they're trying to catch up and produce as much as they can, but there's a lot of challenges with supply chain in this market right now. The answer is, right now in this environment, yep, everybody's kind of producing as much as they can. You know, certainly there's more inflation here than what we're experiencing in the U.S., and we're trying to catch up on our pricing, which the team has done a good job getting through. We'll start seeing those results, you know, again in the back half of the fiscal year. Thanks so much. Next, we'll hear from Peter Galbo of Bank of America. Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Morning. Hi, Peter. Hi, Bernadette. Hi, Tom. Hi. Maybe you guys can just talk about a bit how this kind of came, you know, together. You know, I don't think anybody is surprised maybe that this has been announced. I think it was always kind of a longer-term goal of yours that if Meijer was looking to, you know, to sell, that you'd be interested. Just curious to understand, you know, has this been in discussion for a while or is there something, you know, more around this year or the past two years that's really kind of, you know, made this deal come together quicker? Yeah, I you know, there's always been a really great relationship with myself and Case and, you know, certainly over time we've, you know, he's understood exactly my intentions and wishes. You know, I have a lot of great respect for Case and it really came down to, you know, him deciding, you know, as he looked at some things personally that it was. He thought it was time. You know, it's been a rough couple of years, the environment. No question about it. We've all experienced it and, you know, he just made that decision. You know, certainly he knew I would be willing to do it, and it just came together. That's as simple as it is. Okay. No, that's helpful. Maybe just the capacity update is helpful, I think on slide 6. I guess just two kind of clarification points there. Can you just give us a global capacity update? You know, the 6 billion pounds that you have, is that just a North America number? Is that only existing capacity? Does it include, you know, announced capacity for American Falls and Mongolia? Just, you know, and I know Argentina, you're adding capacity. It sounds like Netherlands, you're adding capacity. Just where will things stand, I guess, once all of your announced capacity is up and running versus that 8 billion combined number you have? Yeah. Dexter, you want to take that one? Yeah, I can take that one, Tom. Okay, great. Yeah. We've got the 6 billion pounds currently, and as we have announced, and you mentioned, we've been investing to support the long-term growth, and that'll add another 1.2 billion pounds of capacity in the next 2 years. That includes the expansions in American Falls, China, Argentina, and then also Kruiningen that Tom mentioned in his prepared remarks. Got it. All in will be a little north of $9 billion, between $9 billion and $9.5 billion when all is said and done. That's right. Got it. Okay. Very helpful, guys. Thank you very much. Yep. Next, we'll hear from Chris Growe of Stifel. Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. Good morning. Good morning. I just had a question for you know, now that if you step back and consider you have 25 manufacturing facilities and clearly, you know, adding these facilities in Europe. Is there a way in which you can achieve better efficiency in servicing maybe not accounts, but servicing some accounts and/or countries around the world? Is there more efficiency to come from this combined entity? Is my question. Yeah, Chris. That's the belief, and that's part of the underlying, you know, in my prepared remarks, the efficiencies and the ability to really analytically evaluate, cost to deliver, cost to serve. Mm-hmm. As you look at our entire footprint. On the surface, it sounds really easy to do that, but there's a lot of decisions that go into, you know, determining and capabilities we have to build, you know, with our ERP, determining, you know, at any given point in time, what makes sense to deliver X product to Y country based on freight, currency, cost to deliver and all that. But the important thing to remember is now we have 100% control and visibility to all that once we get systematized, I'll call it, going forward. It's gonna take us some time to get there. We do that to some extent today, but it's a lot of manual heavy lifting to do that. We have gotten a lot better, especially with our multinational chain customers. Like I noted, we get our teams together, we're taking a look at our entire footprint and how to make sure we're as cost competitive as we possibly can, with those customers. It sounds like the key to a lot of that is the systems. I know that Lamb-Weston/Meijer is going through a similar systems upgrade. Are they on the same timeline as you in terms of when that should be? Is it a couple more years and they'll have a system in place where you can then try to go after that opportunity? Yeah, Bernadette, you can add on to this. We've been working in parallel, hand in hand. They've had a team working with our team as we're, you know, starting down the path of our ERP implementation. They've been part of that process. The intention is, and has been all along, as we, you know, implement that, we're gonna have one system globally, and this just reinforces that decision, you know, now that we've come to agreement with the Meijer family. Okay. Yeah. I just have one. Yeah. Go on. Sorry. I'm sorry. No, I apologize. The only thing I'd add there is we have designed the system together, both, you know, the Lamb-Weston/Meijer team and Lamb Weston team. We're now in the process of determining what that deployment strategy is. To your question in terms of timing, that'll all be determined as we move forward here. Okay. I just have one quick follow-on. We talked about you talked about a normalized EBITDA level. I just wanna. I'm not trying to get guidance for the year, but is there, is it. Are you on a run rate to that normalized EBITDA later this year? Like, are the pricing actions in place, even with the weaker crop there, to kind of get back to that normalized rate of EBITDA? Again, not looking for a number, but more just like a timeframe for any actions they're taking to try to get to that level of EBITDA. Yeah, Chris, like I said earlier, we're seeing improvement. We're seeing you know actions we've taken starting to flow through the market. you know, so we all expect that, you know, kind of the back half of the year, we'll start seeing some normalization of run rates. you know, in Q2, just like earnings call, you know, we'll think through how we address some of this. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Our next question comes from Adam Samuelson of Goldman Sachs. Yes, thanks. Morning, everyone. Morning, Adam. Morning. Morning. So I guess the first question, and it sort of dovetails a little bit on Chris's question on the margins. It's just thinking maybe longer term about the margin difference between the Meijer business versus the parent Lamb Weston. Obviously the last 12 and 18 months or even this year are not reflective of kind of what that margin gap between the two businesses has been long term, but there is a gap. I just would love to get your thoughts on, is it just, look, industry concentration in the U.S. is higher and certain channels are more important and have higher margins in the U.S. than they do in Europe. Is it a cost? Is it just a structural cost of production and operating cost dynamic in Europe? Just how we think about the margin gap between your European operations and the U.S. and what could theoretically start to narrow that over time. Yeah, the big push there is the fragmented market, Adam. You know, certainly it's more, it always has been, as long as I've been around this business, more competitive in the marketplace, and it's just the nature of the number of competitors. You know, the thing that Mark and the team have been working on, just like we have in the business of the U.S., is really focusing on mix management, both customers and product, to help start driving the margin back to normalized levels and obviously get the pricing in too. You know, it's just the nature of the market drives the overall margin structure. Okay. No, that's really helpful. Then just as a follow-up, I mean, you have a bunch of different capacity actions underway right now, to come online over the next two years. Does buying in the JV maybe alter some of the thinking around kind of the buy versus build discussion longer term? Or does it make you think that, hey, there's even more reason to want to be buying in Europe versus building more in the US? Or do you think there's room for both? No, I think there's room for both. I mean, we're expanding in our Kruiningen operations as we speak. You know, as we think through the next two, three years based on the expansions we're doing around the globe, I feel really excited and confident about how we're positioning this company to support the growth of our customers around the globe. You know, as we have in the past and continue to drive our strategy, we're gonna continue to evaluate these opportunities and markets outside the U.S., as we have shown we've actioned going forward and make sure, you know, as we think through the additional capacity expansions four or five years down the road, what we're going to need based on our assumptions on category growth, we'll still drive to do what makes the best sense to keep us cost competitive, especially in the international markets, going forward. It's, I guess, Adam, to answer your question, it's all the above. Okay. All right, no that's all very helpful. I'll pass it on. Thanks. Thanks. Next we'll hear from Rob Dickerson of Jefferies. Great. Thanks so much. Maybe just to take that line of questioning a step further, you know, when you kind of mentioned the longer term growth potential and growth rates of the region, I guess even inclusive of the Middle East, and then we compare it to the margin structure. You know, it is there something you're essentially implying such that, you know, this allows you to kind of more effectively continue longer term, you know, to kind of hold that more consistent top line growth rate that we even saw pre-pandemic. But maybe, you know, obviously the margin structure is no different since it's consolidated, but, you know, top line growth here is kind of what's imperative and then hopefully margins improve later once we cycle out of the current dynamic. I have a quick follow-up. I think the you know, just eliminating the JV structure gives us, what we were talking about a little earlier, a lot more freedom to support international markets around the globe than we had, you know, we've experienced with the structure with the JV structure. There, there's gonna be more customer collaboration. You know, organizationally, there'll be more collaboration about, you know, servicing potentially the U.S. market out of these factories over here as we build more capacity that can be more cost competitive to get to the East Coast, quite frankly. You know, Rob, I look at this as it really has the potential to unlock. Now we got to We've unlocked some different growth opportunities that we may not have been able to execute on just because of the structure we've been in. You know, but we've got to build the muscles to look at things differently than we have in the past, and it's gonna take some time to execute against that. Okay. Fair enough. Just quickly, you know, you still have your Win as One program. You know, and at some point previously you'd mentioned, you know, what some of the gross productivity that could come out of that over a long, you know, a longer period of time. I'm just curious, you know. As you went through that exercise, right? You kind of where to optimize, where to improve efficiencies, what have you. you know, was there or has there kind of been work done, you know, such that you feel like you have a pretty, you know, clear line of sight, with respect, you know, to those optimization and, you know, other efficiency improvements kind of now with the JV that you can overlay such that, you know, yes, you know, longer term, you would expect kind of the margin profile of that business to improve? That's it. Thanks. Yeah, Rob, you know, definitely there's going to be a tremendous amount of, you know, sharing between the organizations. You know, some of the programs and we have in the past, but some of the programs that we've executed against in the Win as One in our North America footprint, you know, the intention at some point was to share all those learnings and the wins and, you know, some of the challenges we've experienced, you know, across the joint venture. You know, that was always down the road. You know, we want to get through our factories first and get it executed. You know, down the road, those things will start to be shared. You know, we got to need to make sure the timing's right. It makes sense. There's a number of things going on in this business, the joint venture right now, and we just need to make sure we resource everything right and set the organization up for success when we roll those things out. Yeah, that's right, Tom. You know, even though we were rolling it out more in piecemeal, as we've discussed before, there are some things that the Lamb-Weston/Meijer joint venture's already been doing in terms of portfolio optimization and modifying specs and SKU rationalization. They've been taking advantage of some of the things that they can do and have been doing so and continue to gain ground on that. Okay, super. Just quickly, just to check the box, I didn't really hear anything such that, you know, there's incremental CapEx needs, you know, outside of what you've already discussed in, you know, other programs that are expected. Is that right? Yeah. From a CapEx standpoint, we'll update our outlook on what our revised guidance will be when we announce in January. The largest other than maintenance capital is the Kruiningen project, which we've already discussed. Yep, got it. All right. Thanks so much. Our next question comes from Carla Casella of JP Morgan. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I'm wondering, so you mentioned that there's advantage to bringing this 50-50 JV in-house and managing it all on your own. Do you see similar advantages with any of your other JVs, or, was this a unique situation? Yeah, I mean, it. Right now it's kind of a unique situation. The other JVs that you alluded to, Carla, you know, I think our intentions on those are known as well. But again, you know, it's gotta be a agreed upon non-hostile arrangement. You know, the businesses are doing great, the JVs are great, the partners that we have are terrific. We're all working towards the same goals, just as we were with the Meijer family. You know, we'll see where all that goes. Certainly I think they're probably aware of what's happening here, so they may think differently in the near future, but we'll see how that shakes out. Okay, great. Then just to clarify, I think from the slide you implied that the adjusted EBITDA, including unconsolidated JVs, was 910. Is it right to assume this was $70, about $80 million added, and that there must have been $80 million already included for it? Is that right? Yeah. I can take that. In terms of the consolidated EBITDA, you know, we reported that Lamb Weston's was $657 million, and that's without the Lamb-Weston/Meijer. Then 100% of it in fiscal 2022 was the $46 million, for a combined total of 703, if that's what you're referring to on the slides. Again, the normalized pre-pandemic EBITDA is around $100 million. Okay, great. Then I started to can also just ask, so your target leverage is still well above where you are, a bit above where you are today. Does that imply? Is there a signal that you want to do more M&A or share buybacks, or is that really just for potential fluctuation in commodity prices? Yeah. You know, we like to keep our leverage low. In the event that there are other opportunities that present themselves, we'll be prepared to take advantage of those. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Dexter for any additional or closing comments. Again, thank you for joining our call today, as on especially short notice. Any follow-up questions, please email first. I mean, email me first and we can set up some time and we can set up calls over the next day or two. Thank you very much again, and have a good day. That does conclude today's call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.