DHR
#Well the $0.40 should ramp during the year as we go after costs.
Again, we were able to get some more things done in December, and that was inclusive of Pall as well, so we're getting it out of the gate a little bit faster in Q1 from a margin perspective.
I think the offset, as you suggest, is the Industrial side.
So I think we'll get a nice accretion here in Q1, but it will clearly ramp through the year.
Thanks, <UNK>.
I don't have any great analysis on that yet.
Given our gross margin, raw materials tend to be less of a factor for us than a lot of other companies you might cover.
We are continuing to get price, still getting 60, 70 basis points, and it's hard not to think raw materials are helping us a little bit, but for us, it's really on the margin.
Well, <UNK>, there's a couple of different ways to come at that in the Middle East.
One is simply conversations with distribution partners, and a lot of what we do in the Middle East does involve some form of a distributor partner, and making sure that we have transparency as much as we possibly can into the opportunity funnels that those distributors are seeing, as well as making sure that the conversations we're having with our own Sales Team around those funnels as they roll up to our Leadership Team are as well pressure tested as possible.
The key thing about markets like the Middle East is, particularly in the businesses like ours, you have a fairly high level of project or tender-related business, and we found on the equipment side, and so really making sure that we understand opportunity funnels and are not overly optimistic about the timing within which funding will be released, as in many cases, that funding has some governmental influence to it, is really important.
It is easy to have a Sales Team get overly optimistic that the timing of funding release is going to be the same as it was a year ago or two years ago, when the reality is, things may have slowed down and tenders may be being let at a much slower pace, so being diligent about how we pressure test those funnels is key.
We're trying to be increasingly conservative as we see how government funding is being influenced.
It was interesting watching the course of the year.
Oil continued to drop, as you know, throughout the course of the year, and yet we actually saw our Middle East numbers hang in there reasonably well throughout the middle part of the year, and it wasn't until the latter part of the year that we saw a more acute shift in the Middle East, and so there was a little bit of a lag there, and it's taking a bit of time for the Team to fully recalibrate.
Thank you.
Good morning, Dean.
As you probably saw in the numbers that we put out, <UNK>, we're showing R&D down about 20 basis points, but the reality is that, that was primarily influenced by Pall, and R&D spending normalized for the Pall influence was actually up on the quarter, so we're continuing to make sure that innovation is a key priority for the businesses and that R&D spending is maintained to the greatest extent possible for the opportunities that we think have the greatest impact in the next year or two.
It was roughly the split you'd expect, 70%-30%, and that's 70% <UNK>aher inclusive of Pall.
Thanks, <UNK>.
Thanks, Leo.
Thanks everyone for joining us.
We're around all day for questions.
