Operator
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to BRP Inc.’s FY 2022 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. For participants who use the telephone line, it is recommended to turn off the sound on your device. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Philippe Deschênes. Please go ahead, Mr. Deschênes. Philippe Deschênes: Thank you, Julie, and good morning and welcome to BRP’s conference call for its fourth quarter and year-end results for fiscal ‘22. 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 and that the actual results could differ from those implied in these statements. The forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions and is subject to risks and uncertainties, and I invite you to consult BRP’s MD&A for a complete list 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’ll turn the call over to José. José Boisjoli: Thank you, Philippe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Please turn to Slide 4. I’m very pleased with our fourth quarter performance, which concluded an exceptional year, with delivered record annual financial results reaching the highest revenue and profitability in our history. Our team continue to gain market share in our product line in the powersports industry, while managing to supply chain pressure, demonstrating solid execution once again. In fact, our manufacturing and GDP allow us to better serve our dealer and customers alike. Moreover, during the year, we’ve delivered capacity expansion project on time and on budget. Our new Juarez 3 facility added about 50% of side-by-side capacity, and our Querétaro expansion added about 30% of personal watercraft capacity. In addition, we strengthened our industry-leading product portfolio. We introduced several new market shaping products in our product line. And the highlight of the year was the introduction of the Sea-Doo Switch, which extended our addressable market, positioning us well to continue to grow in the coming years. In short, we’ve delivered an exceptional year, despite the turbulence caused by supply chain disruption. Now let’s turn to Slide 5 for the key financial highlights of the year. We delivered record financial results on both our top line and bottom line, hitting historic high on several financial metric. Our revenue ended the year at $7.6 billion, up 28% over fiscal year 2021. This growth was driven by higher volume across all our product lines as favorable pricing. Likewise, our profitability reached new height. Our normalized EBITDA was up 46% to $1.4 billion, representing a margin of 19.1%. And our diluted normalized earnings per share grew 84% to reach $9.92, and being above our guidance range of between $9 and $9.75. Turning to Slide 6 for a look at our North American Powersports retail performance and market share for the year. As you know, fiscal year 2022 was marked by continued consumer demand for our product. However, our low level of network inventory, coupled with the ongoing supply chain constraint, limited our ability to fully meet demand. To fill in this context, our team allow us to outpace the industry. Our retail was down 6% for the year, compared to the industry which was down mid-teen. As a result, we ended the year with about 30% market share, gaining about 3 percentage point over fiscal year 2021 and about 10 percentage point over the past six year. The solid performance is a testimony of our continued agility to meet customer demand. Now turning to Slide 7 for a brief look at our Q4 retail performance. Our retail sales continue to be constrained by product availability in the fourth quarter. Still, we were able to outpace the industry in North America, representing over 70% of our revenue. We’re also able to outpace the industry and gain market share in snowmobiles as we prioritize the utilization of available components for that segment in Q4, its peak retail season. Let me elaborate further on this on Slide 8. Our modular design approach, combined with our diversified product portfolio, allow us to leverage the comments component across our different product line and according to seasonality. We have illustrated this on the slide. As you can observe, we have three model of gauge that come back the mid range and the high end, which are utilized across our different product lines. In collaboration with our supplier, we can prioritize the type of gauge we needed and our team can then decide on which product line it will be installed depending on seasonality. This modular approach is a competitive advantage. It provides additional flexibility to navigate to supply chain constraints, especially with the current limited availability of semiconductors. In Q4, we prioritized our snowmobile and this allow us to outpace the industry in terms of total retail performance. Turning to consumer demand on Slide 9. Consumer interest for powersports is not slowing down. The momentum with preseason customer deposits for personal watercraft and snowmobile is continuing and reaching record level. As of March 13, in North America, personal watercraft customers certificate for season 22 are up over 25% and snowmobiles spring unit booking for season 23 are up over 100%. In addition, there are many signs pointing to sustain strong level of consumer interests in powersport. There is a continued influx of new entrants, website traffic remain elevated and Sea-Doo Switch and Can-Am off-road vehicle are also seeing strong momentum with customer preorders. So all in all, we are well positioned to capitalize on continued interest in powersports. Now let’s turn to Slide 10 for a year-round product. Revenue were up 12% to $853 million in the fourth quarter. Let me provide a brief overview of our North American retail performance. Our retail slightly lag the industry in Q4 for all of our product lines, including side-by-side ATV and Three-wheel vehicles as it was limited by supply chain disruption and our decision to prioritize snowmobile production. However, season to date side-by-side and ATV outpace the industry. While it is still early in the season, Three-wheel vehicle lagged the industry also due to a change in production schedule covering snowmobiles. All in all, we are pleased with the momentum we are seeing in our product line and are well positioned to continue to gain market share, driven by our strong lineups. A quick update on capacity expansion project in side-by-side vehicle. We have completed the ramp-up of Juarez 3, which provides us with 50% more capacity compared to fiscal year 2021. In addition, remember that last quarter, we announced the start of the Phase two expansion of Juarez 3, which plans to effectively double production capacity at that facility. The production ramp up is forecast to start in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024. With this additional production capacity, we are in a solid position to gain from the strong side-by-side demand. Turning to seasonal products on Slide 11. Seasonal products revenue were up 56% in Q4 to $1 billion. Let’s start by looking at snowmobile. 11 months into it’s Season 2022, the North American snowmobile industry is down in the low-teen percent, while our snowmobile retail is up low single-digit percent, significantly outpacing the industry. We reached a record high market share in North America in Q4 and this momentum continued in February. We are experiencing similar success in Europe, where we also reached record high market share in Scandinavia season to date. Turning to our model year 2023 lineup. To sustain our momentum, we continued the pace of innovation and introduced and now new rev Gen 5 platform available in trail and deep snow segment as well as new models significantly designed for new entrants and younger riders. Early trend in spring unit booking are very strong, which is positioning us well for success in season 2023. Turning to personal watercraft. While still very early in the season, the North American industry retail is down about 20%. While our Sea-Doo retail is down low-60% due to a lack of inventory in the network and our decision to prioritize snowmobile production. However, we have good traction in counter seasonal market. Sea-Doo is performing very well with over 10% page point of market share gain in Australia and New Zealand so far this season, and retail up over 20% for the fourth quarter in Brazil. Many signs are pointing to positive momentum for personal watercraft business. The track in counter seasonal market and the continued very strong level of customer preseason certificate in North America. Continuing on Slide 12 with a look at Powersports part, accessories and apparel and OEM engine. The segment experienced a similar trend as vehicle revenue are up 21% in Q4 and surpassed a $1 billion mark for the first time. This growth was driven by higher replacement parts revenue due to increased product usage, combined with strong unit retail, which generates an increase accessory sales. As you can see, our proprietary link ecosystem continued to be popper. Now turning to marine. Revenue were up 6% to $135 million in Q4. Looking at retail scale. Telwater is in the core of its retail season in Australia, and is performing very well, with retailer up mid-teen percent for the quarter and about 10% year-to-date. In North America, we are offseason, but our booking for season 2022 are complete. In a sense, we will be running at maximum production capacity all year. We are pleased with the performance of our bold brand. But the next big leap will happen this summer when we introduce new model year 2023 boats with the Project Ghost engine technology. With that, I will turn the call over to Sébastien. Sébastien Martel: Thank you, José, and good morning, everyone. We’ve completed fiscal 2022 with record results for our fourth quarter as we continue to experience solid customer demand for products and demonstrated strong execution in delivering on our production plan. And also we optimized the utilization of available components to maximize the final assembly of substantially completed units. With this, our revenues exceeded the $2 billion mark for the first time in a quarter as they reach $2.3 billion, up 29% over last year. Our gross profit margin ended at 26%, a slight decline from last year’s level due to higher logistics, commodities and labor costs related to supply chain disruptions. We generated $416 million of normalized EBITDA, up 33% from last year, and our normalized net income came in at $251 million, up $89 million from Q4 last year, driven by higher volume of unit deliveries and favorable pricing, which were partly offset by higher production and logistics costs and higher operating expenses. This resulted in a record normalized diluted earnings per share of $3 coming in ahead of expectations and resulting in a full year normalized diluted EPS that came in above our guidance range. With the strong results and a solid free cash flow generation for the quarter of $376 million, we ended the year with a robust balance sheet, notably with $266 million of cash and a no net leverage ratio of 1.2 times. Moreover, following the end of the quarter, we seize the opportunity to increase our revolver capacity by $300 million to bring the total available capacity to $1.1 billion, further improving the strength of our balance sheet and our financial flexibility. Moving to our network inventory situation on Slide 15. Year-over-year, our network inventory is up 21%, driven by strong shipments of missing components to dealer late in the quarter. Our strategy or retrofitting units at the dealership is bearing fruit as these elevated shipments of components to well towards the tail end of Q4 allowed us to deliver a strongest February in terms of retail. Still network inventory remains very low from a historical perspective being down 60% in comparison to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. Looking ahead, given the continued strong demand for products and the ongoing supply chain disruptions, we do not expect any meaningful inventory replenishment to happen until late in fiscal 2023 or even in the start of fiscal 2024. Now moving on to the guidance slide on Page 16. As we continue to experience very good consumer interests for our products, and it means we operate with low network inventory, we are well positioned to continue delivering growth in fiscal 2023, notably with total company revenues that are expected to increase 24% to 29%. Looking at the different product categories, year-round products are expected to grow between 30% and 35%, primarily driven by side-by-side with a continued robust demand for lineup the new product introductions and supported by additional production capacity for Juarez 3. Three-wheel and ATV are also expected to contribute to our growth. Seasonal products are expected to grow between 22% and 27%, driven by the introduction of the Sea-Doo Switch and by strong momentum with both PWC and snowmobiles as you saw with the high level of preseason orders we have for both of these product lines. Powersports PA&A and OEM Engines revenue are expected to increase between 17% and 22%, driven by the increase in use of vehicles, resulting in higher replacement parts sales and by the growing interest in our accessories lineup. And marine revenues are expected to grow between 12% and 17%, notably driven by the plant introduction of new boats in each of our boat brands with Project Ghost in the second half of the year. On the profitability side, our normalized EBITDA is expected to increase between 12% and 15%. Finally, we expect our normalized EPS to end the year between $10.75 and $11.10, representing a growth of 8% to 12%. Note that the share count does not account for any potential future share repurchases. Zooming in on profitability, our guidance calls for a slight contraction of normalized EBITDA margin, as illustrated on Slide 17. In fact, over the last few years, our normalized EBITDA margin has improved by almost 600 basis points, driven by strong volume growth and favorable product mix, a low level of sales program, the leveraging of our efficient manufacturing footprint in Mexico as most of our growth has been produced in these factories, and our ability to gain leverage on operating expenses. These elements were only partially offset by the inefficiencies and additional costs resulting from ongoing supply chain disruptions, which were mostly felt starting in the second half of fiscal 2022. While we have proceeded with price increases and surcharges to offset such additional costs, it remained a headwind to our margin percentage as the price increases do not cover potential margin on these additional costs. Looking ahead to fiscal 2023 and beyond, we expect to continue benefiting from positive volume and mix impact and the leverage of our manufacturing footprint. However, we do cautiously assume that we will see a return to some sales program activity at a certain point as OEMs start rebuilding inventory. Moreover, we expect that ongoing inflationary pressure and supply chain disruptions will weigh more on fiscal 2023 as we expect these elements to impact us for the full year. We do plan to continue utilizing our strategy of building substantially completed units and retrofitting them when components are received. While this strategy is accretive from a revenue and profitability standpoint, it is less efficient from a margin perspective. With this, our guidance calls for a normalized EBITDA margin about 17% in fiscal 2023, a level that we believe is sustainable longer-term for our business. Now turning to Slide 18 for a look at the expected normalized EBITDA split between the first half and the second half of the year. We expect fiscal 2023 to be more similar to fiscal 2021 with over 60% of our normalized EBITDA being generated in the second half of the year. In terms of year-over-year growth, we expect our first quarter normalized EBITDA to be down in the 40% to 50% range, as we operate through supply chain and inflationary pressures, notably resulting from Omicron-related disruptions of the start of the year, and as we lap a very strong first quarter last year where such pressures were limited. We’re also planning – we’re also expecting our product mix to be negatively impact in Q1 as we are planning to ship higher end SSVs and PWCs in Q2. While these supply chain challenges and their impacts are difficult to predict, based on the information we have today, we are comfortable with our plan and expect to return to strong roles starting in Q2, as the Omicron-related issues subside, and we start lapping a more comparable environment. Finally, looking at our return of capital to shareholders on Slide 19. As you know, our business generates significant free cash flow and we have always been diligent in managing our capital allocation decisions, prioritizing organic investments in the business and returning excess capital to shareholders. And as the business grew rapidly in recent years, we have returned over $2.3 billion of capital to our shareholders over the last seven years, and notably returned over $700 million in fiscal 2022 in the form of dividends and buybacks as we repurchased over 6.7 million shares. We believe these actions are a strong way to enhance the return we provide to our shareholders. And given our solid outlook on the business and the strength of our balance sheet, we are well positioned to continue applying the same capital allocation recipe in fiscal 2023. This is why we announced this morning a 23% increase of our dividend per share and the launch of a $250 million substantial issuer bid. We will not be taking these actions if we did not believe in our ability to continue growing the business in the coming years, and we look forward to providing you with updated M25 financial targets as we are planning an in-person Investor Day in June. On that, I will turn the call over to José. José Boisjoli: Thank you, Sébastien. Please turn to Slide 21. Before I conclude, I want to highlight the exciting announcement we made this morning regarding Can-Am, which has been highly anticipated and expected from our customers and dealer network. With the motorcycle industry shifting to electric, we saw an opportunity to reclaim our motorcycle every day, and we enter the market with an electric offering. I’m thrilled to confirm we are launching a family of electric two wheel motorcycle under the iconic Can-Am brands. Our new product are being developed with many different riders in mind. We expect these models to be available to the market in mid-2024. With the two-wheeled motorcycle, we are entering a new global market. This first family of products will address about 40% of the North American and European industry, representing an estimated 600,000 units per year. We firmly intend to grow in this market like we have done so many times in the past with new product introduction. We are known for generating growth by leveraging our technology called know-how, our strong brand and our manufacturing footprint, and we are confident we’ll do it again. What’s more with this new product line, we are further solidifying our dealer value proposition and expanding our addressable market. To conclude, we have an exceptional fiscal year 2022 We’re able to achieve these results. Thanks to robust demand for our product and our team ability to successfully manage to supply chain disruption. We expect to build on this momentum and deliver another record year for fiscal year 2023. Our guidance calls for solid growth ranging between 8% and 12% in diluted normalized EPS. However, the first half of the year would prove to be more challenging, as the Omicron variant impacted several of our supplier in the early part of the year, creating increased lifetime in the supply chain already under pressure. That said, we are confident we can achieve this guidance based on sustained consumer interest in powersports and marine, our strong product portfolio, including recent product introduction, additional production capacity from Juarez 3 and Querétaro and the upcoming significant inventory replenishment cycle, which is now expected to start in the back half of fiscal year 2023 at the Juarez and will last for about 12 to 18 months. We are well positioned to outpace the industry, given our strong brands, manufacturing agility and the benefit from additional production capacity. In addition, we have multiple levers to suspend growth in fiscal year 2024 and beyond. We look forward to sharing more detail with you in June. Finally, I would like to thank all our employees for their relentless effort during this challenging period, our suppliers and dealers for their collaboration and resilience and our customers for their loyalty. On that note, I will turn the call over to the operator for question.