GT
#Thank you.
Yes, <UNK>, just quick comment on Latin America, in general.
Very difficult environment down there, particularly in Brazil.
I know your question's on Venezuela.
I will just take the opportunity ---+ our teams have been executing well down there.
In light of consumer OE business and truck business there that is down 20% plus.
As you see from our numbers we grew volume above 20% in ---+ consumer replacement volume above 20% in virtually all of our key countries down there.
So the team is executing well there in what is a very difficult environment around currency and inflation and devaluation, in general, excluding Venezuela.
We are pleased with how we're doing, but we clearly see the headwinds going on there.
Venezuela is clearly one of them, and I will have <UNK> address your question in particular.
Yes, sir, <UNK>.
So when you think about, it for us, and for tires, tires are being treated as a priority good.
Right now there's very few forms of transportation in the country.
And we continue to have access to US dollars to buy those raw materials, as I mentioned.
We just received $15 million in the third quarter.
Now, line of sight is limited.
Each company's facts and circumstances are very different.
But we continue to make and sell tires and they are in high demand.
We certainly have a tremendous amount of disclosure related to Venezuela and all of our Q' s and K' s.
For us, we continue to operate the business under normal course.
And really, predicting the future is very difficult for Venezuela.
For us that about $20 million in the fourth quarter takes into consideration the December elections.
And that, historically, and I think everyone would expect that to create even more volatility as we go, than was in the third quarter.
So for us, we see it as a balance estimate for the fourth quarter.
And, <UNK>, I would say from your question on cost savings, we still if you exclude Venezuela, which we've tried to do, they are pretty much on our forecast of cost savings if not actually exceeding it.
So, if you strip Venezuela out, and it certainly does sort of complicate things, but when you take it away I would say we're executing very well against those cost savings.
If that was an underlying question, we feel pretty good about the core business.
Yes.
We have been able to work through the inflation increases even if we have some impact further in our cost savings versus inflation.
It tends to be offset in the price mix versus raws for Venezuela.
You know, we always are monitoring our capital structure and we take a very proactive approach to managing our interest expense, and we will continue to do that.
Now, we obviously can't talk about or comment when we would be in the market or not.
But that is our history and you have seen it recently, right.
In May we amended and restated our European revolving credit facility, and I think it was 75 basis point reduction.
June we amended the US second lien term loan and lowered that by about 100 basis points.
That's been our MO of the past.
I just want to thank everyone for joining us today.
We had a great quarter and we fell very good about finishing off the year.
Thank you very much.
Yes, thank you.
