Mike Harrison: All right. And then in terms of M&A, just kind of curious, you guys did a transformative deal back in 2014, when you acquired AMCOL. And you were looking at another major deal a few years ago, just wondering if you can provide some updated thoughts on your appetite for a larger or more transformative deal? What criteria would it need to meet? And how much would you be willing to lever up the balance sheet versus that 2.0 times net debt to EBITDA target leverage in order to complete a larger transaction?
Doug Dietrich: So let me start by answering it. So we have, M&A as a stated part of our growth strategy. We’ve demonstrated that through kind of four bolt on acquisitions over the past, for probably going on now, five years. So, we see that as an opportunity to pull in valuable pieces. And as I said, build positions that makes sense for the company. And in each of our product lines, I’ll also note, the four product lines, we have both good organic opportunities that we have capital to fund. And each of them have some inorganic opportunities. And so it’s set up that way. And so we’re going to look at that going forward. And I think there’s a nice pipeline in each of the product lines for some additional bolt-ons to help — can continue and actually accelerate some of the growth targets that we’ve given you in the past.
As far as a transformative acquisition, there are some of those in our portfolio that we’re looking at. And, but those are things that we look at, on a number of different elements. And so how much we’re willing to lever up depends on the environment, what we see how we’re, the synergies available to it, where we are now the capital markets, environment, and the risks associated with it as we go forward. I would say, where we were with AMCOL let’s say four and a half times before, I would think that our leverage targets would probably be lower than that. But I will say, when we go into these deals, we in the past, we would look at them from all angles, and making sure that both risks are understood that the cash flow was understood that the synergies are very well understood.
And that the debt pay down happens very rapidly. So, and I think we demonstrated that and our ability to de-lever with the AMCOL transaction I think anything we would do of size would have that same type profile. We would look at it, its risks, first and foremost, the benefits of the company the value created and the rapid debt paid down. That’s how we look at these. So I can’t answer how high we go. It really depends on the target what we see at the time.
Mike Harrison: All right, very helpful. Thanks very much.
Operator: Our next question or comment comes from the line of Steve Ferazani with Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.
Alex Hantman: Good morning. This is Alex Hantman on for Steve. My first question is around the buyback. Given the sizable buyback announcement, is there still room to reduce debt? And generally how do you prioritize share purchases and debt reduction?
Doug Dietrich: Sure, so our kind of the policy and the way we look at our capital allocation is we take, we look at free cash flow, which is typically around $150 million a year, kind of average. And we see that continuing to grow with our growth and profit expansion. Over history, we typically allocate about 50% of that back to shareholders and typically in the form of a share repurchase program. And so, at this point in time, a dividend increases plus the $75 million share repurchase program is around half of that, that kind of free cash flow, but that still gives us half of that free cash flow to be able to, to de-lever. And again, we usually look at this kind of capital allocation when we’re at our target leverages, which is around two times.
