Reformatting numbers

I have some data which is exported into excel by a package I can't amend. The information comes into excel in the format

00:00:04 (representing hh:mm:ss) but if I look at the formatting of the cell it says the formatting is general. I want to be able to cut and paste this into another spreadsheet and then apply conditional formatting to colour the text if the value is above 00:00:09, but try as I might, I can't! When I cut and paste (even using paste special) it still retains its previous format, and I still can't amend it

Any suggestions?

TIA