We are not highly leveraged, and we have a strong balance sheet. The rating agencies will readily admit that our financial numbers put us above investment grade.

Our cost of debt will be lower than the return we expect from this business.

Our results confirm that we have the right business plan and that Reynolds American is both on the right track and right on track.

We evaluated a host of alternatives around the cash and the debt mix. One thing to keep in mind is that we do have about $500 million of debt that's maturing this year and into the first half of 2007.

We have a history of accretive transactions that have significantly benefited shareholders.

They want to see these big cases cleared up.