Dustan E. McCoy
Analyst · Longbow Research
Thanks, Bill. Our operating plans and assumptions for the full year remain fairly consistent with those we communicated on our first quarter call, after we adjust for the bowling divestitures. We continue to target 2014 to be another year of strong earnings growth with outstanding cash flow generation. Our plan reflects 5% to 6% sales growth, which is supported by our increased investment in new products and by the continuation of the growth demonstrated in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2014, and growth in certain international markets. We continue to anticipate a solid improvement in gross margin levels. As a result of ongoing growth investments, full year operating expenses, adjusted for the divestitures, will increase but, as a percentage of sales, are expected to be lower than 2013 levels, approximately in the range of 17.6% to 17.7%. As a result, our pretax earnings should continue to demonstrate strong growth of 24% to 30%. On our last earnings call, we established our 2014 EPS as adjusted guidance of $2.40 to $2.55. With the announced divestitures of our bowling business and the corresponding discontinued operations accounting, our guidance was affected -- effectively reduced by $0.20 to $2.20 to $2.35. Today, we'll change our guidance to a range of $2.25 to $2.35. Regarding our outlook for the second half, we're anticipating strong top line growth in our Marine segments, as well as our in Fitness segment. On a consolidated basis, we're planning for approximately 10% to 12% sales growth in the second half. Some of the key drivers of the second half growth include new products being introduced at Mercury, which I will elaborate more on the next slide. The Boat group has several new products mainly introduced or better reaching full production rates, including Sea Ray 650, 470, 510 and 350 SLX. Bayliner's new development Excel will also contribute to second half growth. And Life Fitness will also have a strong lineup of new product hitting the marketplace in the third and fourth quarters, including its Insignia strength, PowerMill, SYNRGY BlueSky and FlexStrider equipment. Additionally, we expect the improvement in gross margin this second half to be slightly higher than the first half. And our planned second half operating expenses, as a percent of sales, will be lower than prior year with the third quarter year-over-year growth rate comparable to the second quarter's rate. As a result, our plan continues to reflect strong improvement in adjusted pretax earnings. Over the past several quarters, we've highlighted some of the new products that we have been introducing to the marketplace. For this call, I'd like to focus a minute on some of Mercury's new product offerings. Mercury Marine, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, and was named Wisconsin's Manufacturer of the Year earlier this year, has once again launched a strong lineup of new innovative products. Mercury recently launched its new 75/90/115 horsepower FourStroke engines. These new engines followed the excess of the 115-horsepower, which was introduced over 18 months ago. Reviews of these engines have been positive. Also, the white Verado has been a huge hit with OEMs and consumers. The continued success of the rod-only [ph] engines, combined with a new FourStroke platform, well as the progress reignite with the docking technology, has contributed to the growth currently being achieved in freshwater, saltwater and repower segments. As we look at the saltwater market, we believe these products' successes will enable Mercury to gain share in this sector over the next 3 years, from high teens percentage to a target in the mid-20s. Mercury's new high horsepower purpose built V6 250 horsepower sterndrive engine is also scheduled to start production in the second half of this year. The full year financial targets in our 3 operating segments remain largely unchanged. Our overall plan reflects continued revenue and operating earnings growth in our Marine Engine segment. Specifically, we are planning for our full year revenue growth in the mid-single digit range with a solid improvement in operating margins. We will continue to make significant investments at Mercury, such as the one I've just discussed. As we look at our Boat segment, our plan continues to assume a successful execution of our large fiberglass boat strategy, which will help to accelerate growth in the second half of the year as an increasing number of new products are shipped into the market. As a result, we'll start to see the benefit from a more favorable sales mix and higher average sale prices. Continued solid performance in outboard boats and contributions from our Brazil operations shall also benefit the segment's growth in the back half. Year-over-year growth anticipates new product introductions, improved market share gains and global industry growth. As a result, we're targeting 2014 annual revenue growth in a high-single digit range with a solid improvement in operating earnings. Further, we anticipate significant year-over-year operating earnings improvement in the second half. This segment however, is expected to have a modest seasonal operating loss in both the third and fourth quarter. In our Life Fitness segment, our plan is based on continued revenue growth and maintaining strong operating margins. Our 2014 and 3-year plans are both targeting revenue growth in mid-single to high-single digit range. We'll continue to make significant investments at Life Fitness, aggressively, leveraging innovation in order to achieve competitive differentiation in its products and services, which should continue to enable market share growth and create business opportunities beyond the core business model. And although Life Fitness' margins could decline slightly in 2014 as a result of these investments, our plan continues to reflect very healthy margins in this business. As we look at the third quarter, we expect the lower operating margin compared to the third quarter of 2013 as benefits from sales growth are more than offset by investment spending increases related to new products and business opportunities. And with that, that concludes the prepared portion of our remarks. And at this time, operator, we'll be happy to take questions.