Operator
Operator
All participants please standby. Your conference is ready to begin. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the BRP, Inc.’s FY ‘20 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Philippe Deschênes. Please go ahead, Mr. Deschênes. Philippe Deschênes: Thank you, Amo. Good morning and welcome to BRP conference call for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020. Joining me this morning are José Boisjoli, President and Chief Executive Officer and Sébastien Martel, Chief Financial Officer. Before we move to the prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that certain forward-looking statements will be made during the call that are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. I invite you to read BRP’s FY ‘20 earnings press release for a listing of these. Also during the call, reference will be made to supporting slides and you can find the presentation on our website at brp.com under the Investor Relations section. So with that, I will turn the call over to José. José Boisjoli: Thank you, Philippe. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. This morning, we will give you the Q4 and fiscal year ‘20 results. However, given how rapidly the situation with COVID-19 is evolving globally, it is difficult to predict its impact on our business. You will understand that we will continue to adjust our plans as things unfold. Let us start by reviewing the current situation. First, the employees of BRP are doing well. We have established clear policy on travel events and health and will continue to update them as government response evolves. We have also adopted work from home practice where applicable. Second, I would like to thank all our employees in particular, our manufacturing workforce who are taking extra care to apply special health protection measure. Third, we have had some challenges, but have not experienced any break in our supply chain to-date. Fourth, as of today, all our manufacturing sites are operational, but we anticipate there will be line speed reduction or temporary closure to adapt to the demand. Fifth, most of our dealers around the world, with a few exceptions are continuing their operation and dealers are Spain and France for the moment. Interesting to note, in China, 26 out of our 33 dealers have reopened for business and traffic is beginning to resume. As you can imagine, we are monitoring the situation closely and will continue to adapt. Before I move on to discuss fiscal year ‘20 results, I would like to remind everyone that our diversified manufacturing footprint, product portfolio and market presence provides us a solid base to work upon. Let’s start by looking at our financial results for the year on Slide 4. Our revenue were up 15% to reach $6.1 billion primarily driven by strong growth in Year-Round product. Our normalized EBITDA was up 22% to $804 million resulting in a normalized earnings per share that came in above our guidance range at $3.83 representing solid growth of 24% over last year. For the fourth straight year, we have been able to outpace the industry. Our North American powersports retail sales for the year were up 15% compared to an industry that was up mid single-digit. When excluding snowmobile or North American powersports retail, sales were up 17% in an industry that was up mid single-digits. This is a testament to our reputation for pushing technology and innovation to create market shaping product as well as our flawless execution and our strong dealer network. It’s difficult to celebrate in time like this, but we achieved our 2020 objective 1 year in advance by delivering over $6 billion in revenue and over $3.50 in normalized EPS. I am extremely proud of what BRP is becoming. I would like to thank all our employees [Technical Difficulty]. We have set a solid foundation together. Now, let’s move to our performance for the fourth quarter starting with the look at global retail on Slide 7. Our strong momentum continued into the fourth quarter as once again our powersports product lineup continued to drive strong consumer demand around the world. In North America, our retail was up 12% or 21% while excluding snowmobile. Latin America was up 19% driven by strong side-by-side and personal watercraft sales. We continued performing well in EMEA, with retail up 7% even though the industry was down low single-digit and in Asia-Pacific where our retail was up 9%, while the industry was up mid single-digit. Looking at North American retail by product line on Slide 8, again, this quarter, we have delivered solid growth across our powersports product portfolio. We continue to outperform the off-road industry with side-by-side retail growing above 30% for a second consecutive quarter and ETV retail being up about 10%. Early in the season, three-wheeled vehicle retail was up low single-digits continuing to grow despite lapping a very difficult comparable as our retail had tripled during last year fourth quarter. Personal watercraft performed well early in the season with retail up low-teen and we had the strong quarter for snowmobile with retail up mid single-digit in an industry that was down high single-digit. Now, let’s turn to Slide 9 for the Year-Round product highlight. Revenues were up 18% driven by higher volume of side-by-side store. On the retail side, 7 months into season 20 the side-by-side industry was up high single-digits. The demand for our Can-Am side-by-side was very strong and our retail was up low 30% season to-date. Can-Am side-by-side was also performing well in international market with retail for the quarter up over 30% in Latin America and up over 40% in EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Turning to ATV, the North American ATV industry was also 7 months into the season and retail overall was up low single-digits. For the same period, Can-Am ATV was up low-teen percent, notably gaining share in the mid CC segment. Can-Am ATV was also performing very well in Europe and in Asia-Pacific with retail up high single-digit and low-teen respectively. Now, looking at the three-wheeled vehicle, early in season 20, the North American three-wheeled motorcycle industry was up low single-digit and Can-Am three-wheeled vehicle retail was up low single-digit. We started shipping the new RT model in the last 2 weeks of the fourth quarter and it is very well received by dealer and consumer. Turning to seasonal product on Slide 10, seasonal product revenue were down 6% primarily driven by a lower volume of personal watercraft sold due to production timing. Looking at retail, starting with personal watercraft, we are currently at the end of the season and counter season market and Sea-Doo continued to experience solid growth notably in Brazil, where retail was up in the mid 20% for the quarter. In Australia and New Zealand, our retail was up low single-digit despite the negative impact from the wildfire problems. In North America, traction at the boat show was good and season-to-date retail was up low-teen percent both for the industry and for Sea-Doo. Turning to snowmobile, 10 months into the season, the North American snowmobile industry was about flat compared to last year. Our Ski-Doo lineup continued to drive strong consumer demand resulting in retail that was up about 10% and we remain number one in North America in all the segments in which we are competing and have globally the highest market share in our history. Also, we recently held our dealer event where we introduced our model year ‘21 Ski-Doo and Lynx lineup. The most important use for our model year ‘21 Ski-Doo lineup was the introduction of the world first factory-built two-stroke turbocharge engine that is available on the new Ski-Doo Summit 850. This is another great example of our ability to push technology and disrupt the industry. Considering with a look at powersports part, accessories and apparel and OEM engines, revenue were up 6% in the quarter driven by higher volume of Year-Round product parts and accessories. Fiscal year ‘20 was an excellent year for our accessories business as we have delivered double-digit accessories revenue growth with all our powersport product line. Now looking at the Marine category, revenues were up 19% in the quarter driven by the acquisition of Telwater and the higher volume of outboard engines sold. Looking at retail sales, 7 months into season ‘20, the North American outboard engine industry was about flat with Evinrude retail down high-teen percent. Both retail for Alumacraft, Manitou and Quintrex was generally in line with the industry. For the Marine business, we are following our buy, build, transform strategy and I would like to remind you again that this is a mid to long-term play. Overall, we had a very good result for fiscal year ‘20 and our momentum continued early into fiscal year ‘21. Exceptionally, this morning, we will share some color on our fiscal year ‘21 retail. Our retail from Feb 1 to last Friday on March 13 was up 11% and 24% excluding snowmobile for a good start of the year. However, in this current global uncertainty, we are proactively implementing measures to protect our financial flexibility and are monitoring closely the situation. In this context, we will not issue a full year guidance for fiscal year ‘21 at this time. We believe that BRP will be well-positioned when the economy bounce back. And with that, I will turn the call over to Sébastien and will return for closing remarks. Sébastien Martel: Thank you, José and good morning everyone. Before we jump into Q&A and discuss the current business environment, let me give you an overview of the Q4 results. We completed fiscal year ‘20 with results that came in slightly ahead of our expectations, driven by the continued strength of our ORV business. Our revenues for the last 3 months of the fiscal year grew 7% to read $1.6 billion primarily driven by higher wholesales of SSV due to the continued popularity of our lineup with consumers. Our gross profit margin ended at 23.7%, an increase of 150 basis points from last year’s fourth quarter as the net favorable impact coming from volume, pricing and sales programs and production and distribution costs were partly offset by unfavorable foreign exchange rate variation. Our normalized EBITDA was up 22% to $222 million and our normalized EPS was up 27% to reach $1.12. Looking at the full year, as José mentioned, we also delivered record results with revenues up 15% to reach $6.1 billion and normalized EPS up 24% to reach $3.83, both metrics ending slightly above the higher end of our guidance ranges primarily driven by stronger than anticipated results for our ORV business and favorable tax rates. Free cash flow ended at $225 million, including CapEx that ended below our guidance with investments of $331 million as certain projects were pushed to fiscal year ‘21. Also just after the end of the year, we extended the maturity on our long-term debt by 2 years to May 2027 and reduced pricing on a portion of it. As you know, proactively managing the maturity of our long-term debt and maintaining our covenant light structure is one of the ways we contribute to strengthening our balance sheet. Turning to Slide 15, our quarterly normalized net income was up $14 million compared to last year as it ended the quarter at $100 million. The growth was driven by a net favorable impact of $56 million coming from volume, mix, pricing and sales programs and a net favorable impact from production and distribution costs of $19 million, which were partly offset by higher operating expenses for $15 million to support continued product investments, higher net financing costs and normalized income tax expense for $17 million and an unfavorable foreign exchange rate impact for $29 million. Looking at network inventory on Slide 16, our network inventory was up 7% over the same period last year as we continue gaining market share. Remember that our retail for the quarter was up 12% or 21% when excluding snowmobile. So again, this quarter, the increase in network inventory continued to trend positively as it was lower than retail sales growth. Our network inventory is up for SSV as we continue to experience solid momentum with the second consecutive quarter of retail growth above 30% and three-wheeled primarily driven by Ryker, for which demand continued to be strong and we started shipping units for the upcoming season earlier than we did last year. We are comfortable with our network inventory level and quality as the number of days continued to trend in line with our targets and the quantity of aged inventory is low with less than 3% being more than 18 months old. Managing a healthy network is a key priority of ours and we will continue to diligently manage it to ensure that evolves in line with retail demand. And finally, turning to Slide 17 to talk about fiscal year ‘21, now with the recent developments related to COVID-19, our ability to forecast the year at this time is challenged. The potential impacts resulting from the pandemic remain unknown and difficult to predict and so far the direct impact on our business as José indicated have been limited. However, when we look at the containment measures that the various governments have implemented around the world, it is only a matter of time before we start feeling the impact on our business whether through supply chain or retail demand. Therefore, given the fluidity of the situation and the inherent challenges it creates in predicting how the next months will unfold, we will not be issuing guidance for fiscal year ‘21 today. Despite the limited visibility, like many companies, we have started scenario planning exercise that focus in part on volume reductions, cost control and cash flow. We are still in the beginning of this process and therefore it is too early to share the details of this with you today. However, proactively, in order to ensure that we have access to liquidity as needed, this past Wednesday, we have drawn the full amount on our $700 million revolver facility and with the Board we have decided to suspend the quarterly dividend. We expect to provide you with more information and details at the latest on our outlook for fiscal year ‘21 during our Q1 earnings call. As we look ahead, our focus remains on delivering on what we control, all the while, taking a prudent approach to the year, notably by implementing recommended actions by government officials to ensure the safety of our employees by working closely with our suppliers, by adjusting our production levels in line with retail trends to ensure that our dealer network inventory remains healthy, and lastly, in a balanced, proactive and prudent manner by implementing contingency measures as required to control cost, optimize cash flow and position us to continue our growth once this crisis is behind us. And with this, I will turn the call back to José. José Boisjoli: Thank you, Sébastien. Fiscal year ‘20 was an incredible year for us as we have delivered our 5-year plan Challenge 2020 1 year in advance by exceeding our $6 billion in revenue and $3.50 EPS target. As I said, I am extremely proud of what BRP has achieved as well as the strength and the resilience of our people. During this period of uncertainty, our first thoughts are with everyone affected by the situation, including our employees, dealers and business partners. As the situation evolves, we are ready to respond and to adjust our business plan as needed in order to protect our long-term growth. On that note, I will turn the call over to the operator for questions.