Net debt at the end of the quarter a total of a $198.5 million which is $6.2 million lower than last year but almost $6 million higher than the fourth quarter. We increased inventories during the quarter support promotional programs and to improve aerosol product availability. We expect to significantly reduce our inventory position over the next few quarters and return to normal levels by the end of this fiscal year. We expect to draw down an inventory to produce cash which we will use to reduce our debt position. From a cover up perspective we finish the quarter with debt ebitda ratio a 3.1 times fix charges covered ratio 2.7 times. Today we are pleased with the progress we have made in the development of our insurance claim as a reminder we have received 6.9 million dollars to date from our insurance companies as a lance against the property damage portion of our claim. We are in dialogue with our insurance companies on the business interruption portion of the claim.
Before we conclude today’s call I want to make sure we review and update our annual financial expectations. The majority of our previously issues guidance remains unchanged but as John indicated earlier, we now expect fiscal 2015 net sales to be low single digits as a result of increased confidence in our recovery efforts, our sales pipeline success and trends in the market place. Also we have updated our guidance regarding selling, distribution and administrative expenses, reflecting our rate of investment to accelerate organic growth. Thank you for your attention today. Now operator would like to open the call for questions.
Operator:
Absolutely. We will now begin the question and answer question. To answer a question you may press star than 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, we ask you to please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star than 2. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Bob Lavic of CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Bob Lavik – CJS Securities
Good morning. Happy new year to you as well.
John Morgan
Morning Bob.
Bob Lavik – CJS Securities
That’s a nice quarter here. You walked through a lot of strength in the quarter and the sales type. So one of the focus there. Could you talk a little bit there about what changes since November in terms of expectations for the full year growth. Were you being conservative in November or, you know, what areas in particular are expected to be sustained and what’s the visibility towards that growth that you are expecting?
John K. Morgan
Yeah, Bob. Good question. It’s a couple of things. In November, I think I mentioned this although I was willing to sort of prognosticate low single digit. I mentioned November that I was increasingly optimistic because we’re hopeful that some of the promotions that we are being run across especially retail would be beneficial to us to a greater degree than we are internally planned for. But in addition and probably the primary thing is the rate of the decline.
Excuse me. The rate of lost sales due to the impact of the fire has continued to decline pretty substantially. As we ended the first quarter, sort of on net basis, we had very few lost sales due to fire. When I say on net basis, we clearly have law sales due to lack of available aerosol products that affected our distribution business and affected our North American sales and service business but the pleasant surprise was that new aerosols business and especially the automotive area of our business had begun to offset by the we got the end of the quarter and that happened very rapidly. That trend is continuing on in December and that’s what leads to the comments today.
