Wolfdog: Read.
SH: I've got two questions. Going back to the CC where you announced the Rushware acquisition, in talking about the outlook for 1999 at that point, I believe you expressed comfort with the targets of topline and bottom line growth of 20%. I'm curious given the outperformance as the 4th quarter winds up [sic] if you're comfortable going forward looking at those kinds of levels of growth, of top line and bottom line sort of 20% from where you ended up for the year in 1998, you know sort of adjusting for the tax rates on an EPS basis?
BF: You make a couple of excellent points, Stewart, and let's focus on that. We believe the market will be very very strong again this year, as we reviewed the analysts reports like yours and other analysts out there on our competitiors, it looks like people are projecting growth rates in the 20% + range and we don't see any reason why THQ shouldn't be able to grow at least at those rates--obviously as we've been on our terrific growth curve we've been gaining share. As we get bigger and bigger, as everyone knows, it gets tougher to get those kinds of share gains but we still think we can achieve some of that. That's on the top line, so 20% on the top line is something we're very aggressively targeting. But on the bottom line, I want to point out, and I know this is somewhat technical, but when you sit down and review those numbers and dissect them all, you will note that we have a couple of items going both ways with respect to EPS [discussion of GameFX and NOL follows], so if you take out GameFx and the NOL we were somewhere around 1.75 for 98, so let's look at the bottom line on a recurring basis--on an operating basis--not with GameFx and NOL since they won't be there for 99--so when you're looking at the 20% growth on the bottom line, let's be fair to THQ, I thik we've earned that, let's look at the recurring growth, the underlying growth of the business, which is what we're focused on.
SH: Looking at the same analysis, I came closer to 1.85, but in any case you're saying that 20% growth off of your number 1.75 and then there's some accretion from the German acquisision, so you're still comfortable with those kinds of levels of target growth for next year?
BH: I mean it's our belief, and I'd like your thoughts on it too, that it looks like the market will be there for that. I mean we're very disappointed that we don't seem to be getting paid for our growth rates so we don't see a lot of incentive to be a lot more bullish than that at this point in time, just because I don't think we're being rewarded for that. I think also that if you look at the way the market is developing, it will be there, for all of us, and we intend to aggressivley grow our share as well as grow just along with the industry.
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