MasterCraft Boat Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:MCFT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript November 8, 2023
MasterCraft Boat Holdings, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.47, expectations were $0.4.
Operator: Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fiscal First Quarter 2024 MasterCraft Boat Holdings Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Bobby Potter, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Bobby.
Bobby Potter: Thank you, operator, and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss MasterCraft’s first quarter performance for fiscal 2024. As a reminder, today’s call is being webcast live and will also be archived on our website for future listening. With me on this morning’s call are Fred Brightbill, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; and Tim Oxley, Chief Financial Officer. Fred will begin with a review of our operational highlights from the first quarter. Tim will then discuss our financial performance for the quarter. Then Fred will provide some closing remarks, before we open the call for Q&A. Before we begin, we would like to remind participants that the information contained in this call is current only as of today November 8, 2023.
The company assumes no obligation to update any statements including forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements and subject to the safe harbor disclaimer in today’s press release. Additionally, on this conference call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures that include or exclude special or items not indicative of our ongoing operations. For each non-GAAP measure, we also provide the most directly comparable GAAP measure in today’s press release, which includes a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to our GAAP results. There is also a slide deck summarizing our financial results in the Investors section of our website. As a reminder, unless otherwise noted, the following commentary is made on a continuing operations basis.
With that, I will turn the call over to Fred.
Fred Brightbill: Thank you, Bobby and good morning everyone. Our business performed well during the first quarter, as we delivered better-than-expected results, despite continuing macroeconomic and demand uncertainty. With the summer selling season now complete, we’re focused on rebalancing dealer inventories with anticipated retail demand to ensure the health of our dealer network. We are maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation, as we prioritize balance sheet resilience and the return of cash to shareholders through our share repurchase program. Macroeconomic factors including interest rates which could remain elevated for some time are adversely impacting the demand for recreational boats and other luxury consumer goods.
The potential for a broader economic downturn during fiscal 2024 could worsen this headwind for the industry. In addition, political and geopolitical risks are creating uncertainties that weigh on consumer confidence. Given the dynamic macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop, which is limiting retail demand visibility, we are prepared to respond to a range of potential retail demand scenarios. Our dealer inventory levels declined modestly during the quarter. Dealers are cautious to add inventory, as they focus on destocking prior year models ahead of the 2024 boat show and summer selling seasons. Because of the uncertainty and the impact of elevated interest rates on consumer demand and floor plan financing costs, this disciplined approach to inventory management will benefit the long-term health of our dealer partners and our business.
While dealer inventories are currently higher than we consider optimal, we expect levels to improve by the end of the fiscal year. Moving on to supply chain. We do not expect inventory availability to be a constraint on our fiscal year 2024 production. Our experienced supply chain team worked diligently with supplier partners to alleviate constraints and support production, and are now focused on cost reduction. Given the uncertain environment, our strong balance sheet is a significant advantage which provides us with abundant financial flexibility. Despite the cyclical headwinds facing the industry, we are well positioned to pursue our capital allocation priorities, including investment in long-term growth. We continue to prudently invest in targeted initiatives that will take advantage of the industry’s positive underlying secular trends.
These investments will support long-term growth and value creation through product line expansion, relentless innovation and an unyielding focus on the consumer. With our financial position secure and our current strategic growth initiatives fully funded, we expect to continue to allocate most of our free cash flow for the year to our EPS accretive share repurchase program. We recently published our second annual sustainability report, which highlighted our progress on promoting social and environmental responsibility. During fiscal 2023, we expanded our waste recycling program by nearly doubling the amount of reported waste recycled or reused. The MasterCraft brand surpassed $4 million without a lost time incident and we implemented employee engagement initiatives to reinforce our commitment to human capital.
Our company’s success is due to the dedication of our employees and the loyalty of our customers, and we know we must continue to deliver superior value to ensure our long-term success. We look forward to making boating better and maintaining our company’s position at the forefront of the marine industry. In addition, we recently partnered with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on the Surf to Safe Lives campaign. Our goal through this partnership is to make a meaningful difference in the lives of families across the country. We are proud to announce that the campaign was very successful, and in addition to individual employee contributions the company donated $75,000 to St. Jude. We look forward to continuing to support their mission to understand treat and defeat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases.
Let me now briefly review some of the latest developments across our brands. At our MasterCraft brand net sales were $75.8 million for the quarter down 33% from the record prior year period. The decrease in net sales, was in line with our expectations given the planned production decrease to rebalance dealer inventories to lower retail demand. MasterCraft recently announced, the Icon package an all-new package for our entry-level NXT series. The aggressive features of the Icon package broaden the NXT’s consumer base by appealing to those seeking to make a bolder statement. Features include all-black Z6 tower SeaDek flooring along with exclusive underwater impact pit and tower-mounted lighting. The Icon package complements MasterCraft’s extensive model year 2024 lineup which includes the most models available from any brand in the ski/wake category.
In addition, MasterCraft continues to set the pace by offering the most wave adjustability exceptional handcrafted quality and unmatched comfort. At Crest net sales were $18.5 million for the quarter down 58% from the prior year period as expected. Elevated interest rates have severely impacted the pontoon category in the near term although we remain optimistic about the long-term secular growth trends. Crest will soon be announcing an all-new line of products to expand its addressable market. We look forward to providing more information on this exciting initiative later this year. At Aviara net sales were $9.9 million for the quarter down 23% compared to the prior year period. During the quarter, Aviara was focused on the introduction of the all-new AV28 which has been incredibly well received by our dealer partners.
More than just a single model the AV28 platform consists of four distinct model variants an impressive Surf variant a sterndrive a twin outboard and a single outboard. Aviara began shipping this model during the quarter and we expect the AV28 production to continue to ramp up for the remainder of the year. Aviara also expanded its distribution network by adding five new domestic and international points of distribution during the quarter. I will now turn the call over to Tim, who’ll provide a more detailed discussion of our financial results. Tim?
Tim Oxley: Thanks, Fred. Focusing on the topline net sales for the quarter were $104.2 million a decrease of $65.3 million or 39% from the record prior year period. This decrease was primarily due to lower unit volumes and increased dealer incentives partially offset by increased prices. Dealer incentives include higher or plan financing costs as a result of increased dealer inventories and interest rates and other retail incentives due to the extremely competitive environment. For the quarter, our gross margin was 21% a decrease of 610 basis points when compared to the prior year period. Lower margins were mainly due to deleveraging on lower production volumes increased dealer incentives and higher input costs partially offset by price increases.
Operating expenses were $13.3 million for the quarter down, nearly $500000 from the prior year. Turning to the bottom line. Adjusted net income for the year decreased to $8.1 million or $0.47 per diluted share computed using a revised lower estimated annual effective tax rate of 22% due to continuing investments that yield R&D tax credits. This compares to adjusted net income of $25.7 million or $1.43 for the prior year period computed using a tax rate of 23%. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to $12.2 million for the quarter compared to $35.9 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.7%, down 950 basis points from 21.2% in the prior year period. Our balance sheet remains incredibly strong, as we ended the year with nearly $190 million of total liquidity, including $90 million of cash and short-term investments and $100 million of availability under our revolving credit facility.
We ended the quarter with no net debt as cash and short-term investments exceeded our outstanding debt balance. Our balance sheet positions us exceptionally well and provides us with ample financial flexibility to ensure sound operations through the business cycle and the ability to fund strategic growth initiatives. During the quarter, we spent nearly $6 million to repurchase 241,000 shares of our common stock. Since initiating our share repurchase program in June of 2021, we have spent nearly $54 million to repurchase nearly 2.1 million shares. These cumulative repurchases provided a 12% benefit to our fiscal first quarter adjusted net income per share. We expect to continue to return cash to shareholders, while prioritizing financial flexibility and high return investments in a business that generate growth and long-term shareholder value.
Given the continued economic uncertainty, our outlook for full year fiscal 2024 remains unchanged. As a reminder, consolidated net sales is expected to be between $390 million and $420 million with adjusted EBITDA between $42 million and $52 million and adjusted earnings per share between $1.46 per share and $1.88. We continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately $22 million for the full year. For the second quarter of fiscal 2024 consolidated net sales is expected to be approximately $96 million with adjusted EBITDA of approximately $7 million and adjusted earnings per share were approximately $0.22. Although our guidance reflects a significant decline in earnings from fiscal 2023, we expect to generate positive free cash flow which is a testament to our flexible highly variable cost structure and proactive cost control efforts.
I’ll now turn the call back to Fred for his closing remarks.
Fred Brightbill: Thank you, Tim. As we focus on rebalancing dealer inventories, our business performed well during the first quarter by delivering better-than-expected results. A strong balance sheet provides us with the financial flexibility and affords us the opportunity to pursue our strategic growth initiatives. We continue to exercise a disciplined capital allocation. Over the past 24 months, we’ve returned more than $54 million of excess cash to our shareholders through our share repurchase program. As we move beyond inventory rebalancing, we are confident in our ability to leverage our portfolio of strong brands, deliver on our commitments, pursue long-term growth opportunities and generate exceptional shareholder returns. Operator, you may now open the line for questions.
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