Malibu Boats, Inc.

are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. Please be advised that any reproduction of this call, in whole or in part, is not permitted without written authorization of Malibu Boats. And as a reminder, today's call is being recorded. On the call today from management are Mr. Steve Minetto, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Michael Hooks, Executive Chair, Mr. Bruce Beckman, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Richie Anderson, President. I'll now turn the call over to Mr. Beckman to get us started. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. On the call, Michael will provide a brief update and introduce our new CEO, Steve Minetto. I will provide commentary on the business and discuss the fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 financials, and Steve will provide an update on the new model year and year-term growth priorities. We will then open the call for questions. A press release covering the company's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2024 results was issued today, and a copy of that press release can be found in the investor relations section of the company's website. I also want to remind everyone that management's remarks on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including predictions, expectations, estimates, and other information that might be considered forward-looking. and that actual results could differ materially from those projected on today's call. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to update them for any new information or future events. Factors that might affect future results are discussed in our filings with the SEC, and we encourage you to review our SEC filings for a more detailed description of these risk factors. Please also note that we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call, such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted fully distributed net income, and adjusted fully distributed net income per share. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Michael Hooks, Chair of Malibu Boats. Michael?

Thanks, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. I would like to start the call by welcoming Steve Mineto as our new CEO. As you know, the board conducted a comprehensive search process, and we are thrilled to have Steve at the helm. His depth of experience and track record of success makes him an excellent fit to lead Malibu Boats through the cycle and into its next phase of growth. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the entire NBI team for their passion and dedication, particularly during this transition period. Your hard work and commitment have been instrumental in navigating this change, and we are all grateful for your continued efforts. You will hear more from Steve in a few moments, but first let me turn it back over to Bruce to walk us through the fiscal year and quarterly results.

Thank you, Michael. As we close out fiscal 2024, we showcase the resilience of Malibu Boats and execute it on our strategic goals. Despite a challenging retail environment, as anticipated, our financial results during the quarter were impacted by the necessary steps we took to reduce channel inventories, including reducing production levels and increasing promotional support. As discussed on our prior call, this was our top priority during the quarter, and we made significant progress, with MDI dealer inventories now aligning with historical weeks on hand levels. Our dealer partners have executed well in a very competitive promotional environment, and we appreciate their support. The resilience of our business model was evident in our results. As we have discussed many times in the past, our cost structure is highly variable, and we demonstrated this throughout fiscal 2024. For the year, cost of sales decreased 34% while revenues declined 40%, demonstrating our operational excellence and highly variable cost structure. in line with our historical range of 80% to 90%. Our variable cost structure and focus on working capital enabled us to generate positive pre-cash flow during the fourth quarter, a remarkable accomplishment in a quarter where revenue was down over 50%. As a result, we were able to repay all remaining debt and repurchase $10 million of stock in the quarter. The ability for MDI to execute our capital allocation priorities in the face of industry headwind, only increases our confidence in our business model as the cycle normalizes. We continue to streamline our operation and made great strides ramping our Rome County facility in the quarter. In addition to producing cobalt small boats, we have integrated our Malibu Electronics wiring harness operation into the facility. As a result, we are able to consolidate our manufacturing footprint in Tennessee, as well as move from our Alabama facility, shortening our supply chain and increasing our operational efficiency. With the addition of the Rome County facility and continuous vertical integration efforts, we have enough capacity across all of our brands to support the next industry growth cycle and reduce our future capital expenditure level. I would like to provide a brief update on our dealer network and the significant progress made during this quarter. In 14 of the 15 markets formerly served by Tommy's Boat, our newly authorized dealers are up and running, selling boats, and providing great service to our customers. We devote a significant amount of time and resources to find, develop, and improve the performance of our dealer network and are pleased with our new dealer lineup. The feed at which we brought these dealers online showcases the strength of our premium brand and the dealers' confidence in Malibu to provide industry-leading innovation, quality, and performance. Finally, as it relates to Tommy's quotes, we have completed our repurchase obligation with a repurchase of 19 units, far fewer than originally estimated. Lastly, before diving into the results, I would like to give you an update on our market share performance. Cobalt, we have expanded our trailing 12-month market share lead in the stern drive segment by over 300 basis points on the strength of our industry-leading innovation. The market reaction to our model year 24 releases, the R33 Surf and the CS series, has been strong and is contributing to this year's share gain. We have been investing in Cobalt for since we acquired the brand in 2017. We have more exciting innovations coming in 2025. Pursuit is another brand that is gaining momentum. Since acquiring the Pursuit brand in 2018, we have expanded our market share by nearly 300 basis points. Our share of the 30-foot and above segment now exceeds 20%. We aim to build on our momentum in 2025 with two additional above 30-foot offerings. We are refreshing our Maverick Boat Group product line and have gained 100 basis points of market share since acquiring these brands in 2020. Our initial focus has been on refreshing the Pathfinder model lineup, and the results have been outstanding. Our trailing 12-month market share of the Bay Boat market segment has increased by over 500 basis points, making us the clear leader in this important segment. In 2025, we are turning our attention to the Copia line, and Steve will be sharing more details on this in a minute. In the important ski weight segment, there's no question our share in the markets formerly served by Tommy's Boat has been temporarily impacted while we've refreshed our dealer presence. However, it is worth noting our share in the remaining markets is holding strong at approximately 30%. We are excited about the new dealer lineup in the former Tommy's Market. Combine this with the extensive innovations we are launching, we have confidence in our ability to regain share in 2025. Now, turning to fourth quarter results. As we discussed on our last earnings call, the actions required to reduce dealer inventory levels would significantly impact our short-term results, and that is certainly the case. As expected, fiscal fourth quarter net sales decreased 57.4% to $158.7 million, and unit volume decreased 59% to 1,045 votes. The decrease in net sales was driven primarily by lower production and higher promotional spending in support of our initiatives to reduce dealer inventory levels. This includes the 19 boats we repurchased from Tommy's Boat. The Malibu and Axis brands represented approximately 30.5% of unit sales, Cobalt represented 35.4%, and Saltwater Fishing represented the remaining 34.1%. Consolidated net sales per unit increased driven primarily by favorable model mix and year-over-year price increases. Q4 gross profit decreased 87.8% to $12.5 million, and gross margin percentage was 7.9%. This compares to a gross margin percentage of 27.5% in the prior year period. This expected decline in gross margin was driven by increased promotional spending across all segments. less favorable mix, and fixed costly leveraging from lower production during the quarter. Q4 selling and marketing expenses decreased 10.6% to $4.9 million. As a percentage of sales, year-over-year selling and marketing expenses increased 150 basis points to 3.1%. Q4 general and administrative by 56.6% for $99.4 million. As a reminder, last year's Q4 included a $100 million legal settlement. Net loss for the quarter increased 8.6% to a loss of $19.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter decreased 104.5% to a loss of $4.1 million and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased to negative 2.6 from positive 24.2 percent. Non-GAAP adjusted fully distributed net income per share decreased 113.1 percent to a loss of 39 cents per share. This is calculated using a normalized C-Corp tax rate of 24.3 percent and a fully distributed weighted average share count of approximately 21 million shares. For a reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted fully distributed net income per share gap metric, please see the table in our earnings view. Turning our attention to cash flow, we generated $4.5 million of positive pre-cash flow in Q4. Capital expenditures were $11.9 million in the quarter, of which $3.9 million was associated with the Rome County facility, which is now complete. Now to recap our results for all of fiscal 2024. Net sales decreased 40.3% to $829.0 million, and unit volumes decreased 45.4% to 5,385 units. Consolidated net sales per unit increased 9.4% to $153,953 per unit, driven by favorable model mix and inflationary year-over-year price increases, partially offset by increased dealer flooring program costs and higher promotional spending. Gross profit decreased 58.1% to $147.1 million. Net income for the year decreased 152.3% to a net loss of $56.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA decreased 71.0% $82.2 million for the full year. For the year, non-GAAP adjusted fully distributed net earnings per share decreased 79.1% to $1.92 per share. For the year, our free cash flow included an approximately $55 million net cash outflow relating to last year's legal settlement. Excluding this one-time net outflow, our free cash flow for the of $76 million of CapEx, of which approximately $47 million was invested in our new Brown County facility. We executed our capital allocation priority by paying off our remaining debt and returning $29.8 million to shareholders who share repurchases. Heading into fiscal year 2025, while we expect near-term market conditions to remain challenging, we are optimistic about the long-term growth potential of MDI. Given the progress that we have made reducing our channel inventory levels, we have put ourselves in a position to realize a meaningful recovery as the market returns to growth. Despite our belief that we are positioned for growth, we will continue to take a prudent approach to ramping production levels and monitoring dealer inventory given the macro uncertainties and pressure on dealers caused by high flooring costs. We cannot predict exactly when the retail market will return to growth, but we remain confident in the fundamentals of our business and our ability to maintain our investment in industry-leading innovation while generating strong cash flow in almost all industry environments. With the Rome County facility completed, between $30 to $35 million in fiscal 2025. This will further improve cash generation, enabling us to execute on our capital allocation priorities while continuing to return $10 million of cash to shareholders each quarter through the end of fiscal 2025. Based on our current operating plan, our expectations for fiscal year 2025 are as follows. We anticipate a year-over-year net sales to increase at a low single-digit percentage point rate. For Q1, we expect net sales to be up sequentially, but down year-over-year mid- to high-30s percentage points, given a challenging year-over-year comparison. We also expect an increase in consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin, ranging from 10% to 12% for the fiscal year. For Q1, we expect adjustment even of margins of low single digits as we maintain low production levels with the sequential improvement coming from lower promotional spending. In summary, we overcame a volatile operating environment to generate sufficient cash to maintain our investments in our core business, pay off our debt, and return nearly $30 million to shareholders. We are positioned to capitalize when the market returns to growth. As we begin the fiscal year, we are managing the business prudently, keeping production low, and closely monitoring dealer inventory levels as we prepare for sequential improvement throughout the year. We stand ready to meet the needs of our customers and have the capacity to respond quickly and effectively when the market returns to growth. As we reflect on fiscal year 2024, our team's dedication and agility were key to navigating a tough market and maintaining our focus on execution. I'm excited to partner with our new CEO, Steve Minetto, whose leadership and vision will help drive us towards sustainable growth and value creation. Together, we will continue building on our competitive strengths, optimize our operations, and set MDI up for long-term profitable growth as we enter this next chapter with confidence and excitement. With that, I will turn it over to Steve.

Thank you, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. I'm very excited to step into the role of CEO at Malibu Boats and build on our growth trajectory in what is already a very strong foundation. Over the quarter, we achieved several milestones despite a challenging year impacted by retail uncertainty, which positions us well for the future success as cycles normalize. As Bruce mentioned earlier, we made strong progress reducing dealer inventories to historical healthy levels. we added new dealers to successfully serve our freshwater customers while maintaining our pace of innovation and our market-leading presence. Malibu has a stellar reputation for innovation, quality, and performance, and I'm honored to be part of its future. Before we jump into the new model year updates, I'll share my background, why I joined Malibu, and near-term actions of our team that our team is taking to position us for success. By way of introduction, I came to Malibu Boats after nearly three decades at Polaris. More recently, I had the privilege of leading the largest business, the off-road vehicle division, to significant revenue growth, nearly doubling its revenue to approximately $7 billion over the last five years. This included planning, developing, and building a global manufacturing footprint that supplies hundreds of thousands of vehicles worldwide. My journey also includes spearheaded the commercialization efforts on the on-road division, driving the launch and expansion of the Indian motorcycle business. Throughout my career, I have learned the importance of innovation, customer focus, and operational excellence, values that are deeply ingrained within the Malibu Boats culture today. My history of advancing high-impact opportunities meshes well with the values of Malibu Boats, and together I'm confident we can drive aggressive growth in this fast-paced, dynamic, consumer-facing industry. Now that I've been here for about a month, I'm incredibly impressed by the company's talent and resources. As we step into the new fiscal year, My immediate focus will be on leveraging the company's competitive strengths, particularly our leading market positions and robust dealer network. Our near-term strategy will be firmly rooted in our customer-centric approach, a value that I hold in high regard. We will maintain a key eye on the retail market, adapt swiftly to the challenging market conditions, and ensure our dealer partners have healthy inventory levels. Lastly, We will do all this while maintaining our industry-leading product design and innovation across our premium brands. Looking ahead to model year 25, we are excited to continue our strong commitment to new products and innovation across all brands. Our completed tooling development center at Pursuit is now producing tooling for each of our MBI brands, furthering our vertically integrated efforts and speed to market. This year, we will introduce more new models across all brands than ever before. We will continue to outpace the competition on investing in new products and innovation as we continue to push the limits to drive consumer demand and market share growth as the market rebounds. This is a true differentiator for us and solidifies our place in the market as the premier manufacturer of premium powerboats, delivering on our customers' unwavering desire for large feature-rich options across our portfolio. For Malibu, we are once again introducing four new models, far more than any other competitor. This includes the all-new 25 LSV, the best-selling 25-foot towboat on the market. Next, we are making a return to the 22-foot Pickle Fork segment with the all-new 22 MXC. We have not produced a boat in this segment since 2020, and look forward to reintroducing this experience for customers in this category. Next is the all-new 24MXE, the largest boat in the MXE series. We'll also be introducing another ultra-premium Malibu model in the second fiscal quarter. Last, but definitely not least, is the all-new Malibu Command Center, a testament to the industry-leading innovation that our customers come to expect across our Malibu lines. Malibu has again raised the bar for the next level of driver experience with the combination of our 15.8-inch and our 8-inch touchscreen and a new advanced operating system. It is by far the most intuitive system on the market, enabling a unique and premium sleek look and feel when you are in the cockpit. Turning to COBOL, we will be launching four new models later this model year, each designed to offer an unparalleled on-water experience. We are also excited about the upcoming debut of our latest twin engine models, which are set to redefine what boaters expect from Cobalt. These exciting new launches will have features such as full cockpit enclosures and standard side entry, enhancing cruising comfort and onboard accessibility. In addition, our engineers have integrated cutting-edge technology into the next generation of surf systems and hardtops. offering an unparalleled blend of functionality and style. These models are a true testament to our commitment to innovation and craftsmanship. At Pursuit, we introduced the reimagined OS325 Offshore, one of our most popular models. This redesign includes twin engines along with more ergonomic design with a split galley, larger cabin, and comfort controls. We will be announcing another all-new boat over 30 feet later this fiscal year. Together, these new models, along with new features and other options, further build upon our broad and innovative portfolio, creating enthusiasm across the product line for model year 25. For Maverick Boat Company, we're introducing four new models. The 265 Center Console, the 265 Center Console Open, the 285 Center Console, along with the 285 Center Console Open set to launch in October. These new models are reinvigorating the COBIA portfolio while providing the consumer with the high-quality and family-friendly fishing features that COBIA is known for as we continue to build on innovation and adding exciting new features. Lastly, I would like to touch on our growth outlook for fiscal year 2025. I am truly excited about the opportunities ahead as we navigate these short-term fluctuations within the market. As Bruce mentioned, we have positioned ourselves for a strong runway for growth ahead and remain committed to our capital allocation priorities, which are we're going to invest in high ROI internal initiatives, pursue accretive acquisitions, pay down debt and deleverage, and return capital to shareholders. We remain committed to regularly returning cash to our shareholders while expanding our M&A pipeline. With our strong cash flow and our debt-free balance sheet, we are well prepared to pursue beneficial acquisitions when they arise. In closing, I'm excited about the path forward and want to express our deep gratitude to our customers, employees, dealers, partners, and shareholders for your unwavering support. Now I will turn it over for Q&A.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star then 1 on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to withdraw your question, press star then 2. Please stand by while we complete the Q&A roster. And the first question comes from Craig Kennison with Baird.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question and good to talk to you, Steve, as well. Steve, I'm curious, as you've had conversations with dealers in this channel, how you would compare that dynamic with what you've experienced in power sports and what you can say to investors who are concerned that inventory bubbles tend to creep up in these industries and create a really difficult investment environment.

Yeah, Craig, Thanks for the question. Over the last month, I've been able to get out to a few dealers as well as attend the Pursuit dealer meeting. There's some similarities to both industries, and there's some other things that are not similar. Of course, the price points on the units here are a lot higher. The velocity is a little slower, so you have to really pay attention to get the inventories right. We've been focused on that, as Bruce alluded to, over the last quarter, and we'll continue to keep that in our sights as we continue to match the inventory to the retail the best we can.

Thanks. And I'm wondering, with respect to 2025, the fiscal guidance you offered, what's the retail assumption embedded in that, and where do you expect inventory to be at the end of fiscal 2025 relative to fiscal 2024.

Thanks, Greg. In terms of the market growth, we expect that the headwinds will continue for a while longer. We're expecting mid-single-digit down market in our guidance. We're also hearing from our dealers as well as our floor plan finance partners that dealers are going to want to take their dealer inventories below historical, you know, just because of the high floor costs that they're experiencing. So we're expecting dealer inventories to contract below historical 15% or come down by 15%.

Thanks, Ben. And then just, I guess, How do you reconcile that with guidance, you know, anticipating sales growth? Is that a mix or a price dynamic? It sounds like you would expect units to be down.

So we expect units will be, you know, flattish, I would say, and we're seeing, you know, we're expecting lower promotional spend next year. So we expect to get a little lift of that as well as from some product mix. And share. We're a multi-year trend of being share, and we expect to be market share.

Thanks, Bruce. And I'm sorry to keep monopolizing this. I didn't intend to do that, but I may be confused. If you're saying retail is going to be down and dealers are going to have less inventory, how do you ship more units?

Well, again, this year we had a huge destocking. This year our stocking, or our Wholesale shipments were far below our retail movement. Got it. So we were in the benefit of copying that.

That makes sense. Thank you, Bruce. Goodbye.

Thank you. The next question is from Joe Altovelo with Raymond James.

Thanks. Hey, guys. Good morning. Steve, congrats and welcome aboard. So I just wanted to follow up on Craig's question in terms of the guidance, maybe the cadence of Obviously, Q1 is going to be a bit of a challenge here, but it sounds like you expect a return to growth later in the year. Are you guys assuming that the demand environment does improve in the spring? Or is the growth really coming from just lapping easier compared as you progress throughout the year?

It's really that, Joe. We have our most difficult comp in Q1 versus last year. Last year, production was still elevated in Q1. And we've been conscious to keep our production level low here throughout the summer. We don't want to refill a channel that we just spent all that time and effort lowering. So we have the reactive capacity to support the market if it surprises us to the good. And so we're being cautious here as we start the year.

Got it. Okay, just to follow up on the acquisition strategy, obviously, given where your balance sheet is, as you mentioned, you've got plenty of dry powder here. You've talked about pontoons in the past. Is that still top of mind, or are there other categories you might be looking into at this point?

Yeah, Joe, we had previously mentioned that we've been interested in the pontoon sector, and then we're also looking at other ones that make sense to fit our portfolio. And as those arise, we'll entertain them. Understood. Okay. Thank you, guys.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Noah Zatkin with KeyBank Capital Markets.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. We've heard a lot from dealers, just concerns around affordability. So I was just wondering if you could kind of talk through kind of some of the new products that you mentioned rolling out for model year 25, and just any thoughts around addressing maybe some affordability concerns here. Thanks.

Well, yes, you know, affordability is certainly an issue based in the industry. You know, we have addressed that over the years by being, you know, trying to be more efficient and keep our pricing you know, lower than our competitors, and in particular, the sea weight segment, you know, our prices are generally $20,000 to $30,000 a unit lower than the competition. We also have been, you know, focused on driving efficiencies in our cost structure to minimize our pricing actions for 2025, and we've taken very modest pricing in aggregate, and in some some of our product lines, we've actually held up flat or taken them down slightly.

Got it. And just so I'm clear, for the model year 25, it's kind of a low to mid-single-digit price increase as typical, or how should we kind of think about that? I'd say lower than typical.

I'd say it's in the low single-digit.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Mike Albany with the Venture Art Company.

Great. Thank you for taking my question, Steve. Welcome and congratulations. You know, most of my questions answered at this point, but just a quick one as it relates to Tommy's, you know, I think you said you completed and I want to confirm. a repurchase of 19 units, which was far fewer than previous estimates. And can you just kind of refresh our memory here on what the original estimates were?

Yeah, so we issued an 8K back a few months back, saying the dollar amount of the repurchase would be $5.2 million. And the repurchase that we executed, I think, was around $2.5 million, so a little less than half, both in terms expecting at least initially. And I think, you know, they have moved through more units, you know, than we anticipated. And that's encouraging to us actually.

Got it. Awesome. Thank you. And that's it for me, guys.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Fred Whiteman with Wolf Research.

Hey, guys. Just to come back to the dealer inventories, I think last quarter you said you felt like they were four weeks too high. I'm wondering if you could just give us an update on maybe where that stands versus Target.

Yeah, so we said they were four to five weeks high coming into the quarter, and we exited the quarter in line with historical trends. We made up a lot of ground in the fourth quarter. What we said earlier, I'm not sure if you caught it, but, you know, we do expect that dealers will continue to be looking to take their inventories below historical and 25. So we're expecting them, you know, to take their dealer inventories down, you know, roughly 15, you know, kind of mid-teenish percent.

And that's implied in our guidance. Perfect. Thanks. And then just... On the 4Q results, the sales were sort of in line with implied guide, but it looks like EBITDA was maybe a little bit light on the margin side. Was the delta just more promo than you had sort of factored in or expected, or was it something else?

No, that's what it was. And, you know, yes, we were below our guidance range, but only slightly. It was, you know, our revenue came right in.

Fair enough. And then I guess just strategically, if we do start to see rate cuts, I know you guys mentioned that you're expecting the market challenges to persist near term, but how quickly do you think that consumers would start to respond to potential rate cuts? Is it immediately? Is it going to take a couple cuts in a couple quarters? How quickly do you think that will show up on the consumer side?

Brad, we were going to ask you that question. Seriously, we know it's going to be a positive for the long term, you know, deciphering the inflection point is going to be a challenge. And we're sitting here back in January talking with excitement about pending rate cuts, and here we are. So we're hopeful. We think they will be beneficial. The exact inflection point is pretty hard to call. You probably know better than we do.

Fair enough. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Jamie Katz with Morningstar.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess my first question is on this normalized industry environment slide. And while we have some time together, I think historically it's been such that even in a difficult environment, the EBITDA margins that would be generated are probably higher than what we're seeing in industry. fiscal 2025. So, you know, I guess what kind of macro fundamentals and maybe top line fundamentals do we need to get back to that sort of mid-teen EBITDA margin? And if you can walk us back how you got there, that would be really helpful.

Yes, fair question, Jamie. You know, in the past, when we talked about that, you know, 15% EBITDA, it's been off of a down 25 to down 30 revenue picture off of the fiscal year 23 base. So it gets you roughly in that billion dollar revenue range. And so the difference between our midpoint of our guidance and that dollar amount is the revenue amount is roughly $150 million. So the leverage

Okay, and then as we think about consumer behavior, has there been any different trend on cash versus finance purchases or anything like that that you guys have been seeing?

We haven't seen a change in that, no. And we're not surprised that we haven't, given that rates have yet to move. But we expect that to rebalance, you know, once the rates come down enough to bring those credit buyers back into the market.

And then lastly, I guess it would be interesting to hear since the rhetoric out of the Fed is that rate cuts are coming, has there been sort of an incremental pause as consumers wait for those to come in the last maybe month or two relative to what we saw before? I don't think so.

I mean, I think our retail activity is, you know, we've been fairly pleased with it here through the summer, so I don't see a pullback from that.

Thanks. Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions this time. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.