speaker
Operator
Conference 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 speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone, and then you will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. 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 Porter, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Bobby.

speaker
Bobby Porter
Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations

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 a 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 investor 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 this call over to Fred.

speaker
Fred Brightbill
Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

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 Matchcraft brand surpassed 4 million hours 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. but we now briefly review some of the latest developments across our brands. For 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, Seadeck flooring, along with exclusive underwater in-cockpit 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 weight 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. Prest 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 Aviera, net sales were $9.9 million for the quarter, down 23% compared to the prior year period. During the quarter, Aviera 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 stern drive, a twin outboard, and a single outboard. Javier began shipping this new model during the quarter, and we expect the AV28 production to continue to ramp up for the remainder of the year. Javier 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 will provide a more detailed discussion of our financial results. Tim?

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-

Investor presentation