I read through the 10K over the weekend, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts here.

Unsurprisingly, capital expenditures for 2010 are planned to be lower than 2009, but it is unclear how much lower. The 10K states that "We expect cash requirements for capital expenditures in fiscal 2010 to decrease from fiscal 2009 due primarily to completion of capital projects at our manufacturing facilities. During fiscal 2009 we had capital expenditures of approximately $7,000,000 related to construction of a new plant to produce engineered granules and land purchases." (page 33 of 10K)

Looking at the balance sheet, total spending on vehicles increased from $7,850,000 at the end of FY08 to $8,949,000 at the end of FY09. Thus, it seems that ODC spent $1,099,000 on the purchase of vehicles in FY09. It's possible that vehicles includes leases of railcars. ODC likely owns trucks to haul clay from mines to factories, and perhaps they bought more of these.

Construction in progress jumped from $2,650,000 at the end of FY08 to $8,220,000 at the end of FY09. This may be related to the construction of the new Verge (engineered granule) plant in Mississippi, but as a grand opening of that plant was held in early June, I had thought that plant was finished.

Land increased from $11,266,000 at the end of FY08 to $12,501,000 at the end of FY09. So ODC spent $1,235,000 on land in FY09. It's not clear to me if this covers only owned land, or leased land as well. If it's just owned land, I would guess they purchased over 100 acres, considering the amount spent.

Lastly, shipping and handling costs were $40,465,000, $42,567,000, and $33,830,000 for the years ended July 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. So s/h costs dropped by $2,102,000 from FY08, but net income increased only $547,000; this suggests that ODC used the other $1,555,000 saved in s/h costs, to hopefully invest in future growth prospects.

Comments on my observations are welcome.

Biblioguy