Brett McGill
Analyst · B. Riley FBR. Sir, your line is now live
Thank you, Mike and good morning everyone. I want to start by saying how proud I am of our team’s ability to evaluate the impact as quickly and implement changes and how we operate our business during this global pandemic. There are so many stories of how our team’s agility and grid to overcome the challenges we faced as the impact of the virus expanded across the country and world. It’s worth noting that we lost very few sales that we were contracted before the virus and continued to sell both after the virus set is. We had to think differently in developing a new approach to achieve these results. I am humbled and proud to be able to leave such an outstanding passionate and devoted team. We understand that we have a responsibility to both our local communities and the boating community at large, including the health and wellbeing of our team, their families, and our customers as well as the welfare of our local economy. While we are taking additional health and safety actions, we stand by our commitment to provide our customers and their family the best possible boating experience. In support of this, we are offering multiple approaches for our customers to continue to safely and comfortably enjoy their experience on the water. We have also clearly seen a very strong desire for those in warmer markets to get out on the water, enjoy time with their family safely and away from crowds. We saw very similar trends following the events of 9/11; however, that desire seems even stronger now. We believe this will be replicated in all parts of the country as warmer weather moves in. We think boating could be one of the beneficiaries from this changed new world, in which we now live. People will likely travel less than the near-term and instead stay close to home. Boating is a great way to escape the stresses of everyday life and strengthen the bonds of family and friends while avoiding crowds. Even with the impact of COVID-19, we still generated positive same-store sales in the March quarter. We experienced strong performance across all lines of business in January and February, while starting to feel the impact of the virus in March. As I sit here today, the majority of our 59 locations are partially or fully operational, where now offering private personal showings as well as virtual appointments. We’ve also increased the frequency of professional cleaning crews to provide further deep cleaning of our stores and inventory. Importantly, our digital platform is fully operational and available 24/7 with our full selection of boats and yachts as well as our expert team online to answer customer’s question and help them find a boat virtual. New tools are available to hold their dream boat, and complete the process from the comfort and safety of their home. In the quarter, we saw growth across many brands and segments, and we are proud to have driven same-store sales increase of 12% in the first six months of the year, on top of the 7% a year ago. It was strengthened just about all key categories. Let me give some additional color on our business in the quarter. Our strategy of investing in high margin businesses and best-in-class technology served us well. We once again, significantly expanded our gross margins for another quarter. This was due to the growth in our higher margin businesses. Our strength in higher margin businesses such as finance, insurance, brokerage, marina and service operations uniquely allows us to be incrementally more aggressive in boat margins as we were in March. The majority of our higher margin success is due to the combination of the Fraser acquisition in July of 2019, and our continued focus and training in these areas of our business. As a reminder, Fraser is a super yacht services company and a world leader in yacht brokerage, yacht charter, yacht management, crew placement and new build consultation operating all over the world. We also continue to benefit from our best-in-class fully-integrated CRM system and data analytics platform, creating a seamless experience for our customers. When the stay-at-home orders were mandated across the country, we were able to quickly migrate from a store-based retailer to a virtual retailer. thanks to these prior system investments. Our team continues to hone its skill set doing virtual demonstrations of boats and remote closings needed to purchase a boat. We even execute streaming virtual christenings when our customers take delivery. We’re also continuing our online boat shows as well as our digital events for customers. These investments position us well for the current environment and obviously, in the future. as optimizing cash flow remains a top priority, our team is focused on managing the control including inventory and expenses. As a reminder, we significantly improved our inventory in the December quarter, especially given the dollars, the number of units we deliver. with the onset of COVID-19, we reacted swiftly and proactively work with our manufacturing partners to further align future orders. As we head into the important June quarter, the age and mix of our inventory is in a good position. In this uncertain environment, we’re able to make further adjustments to ensure we are generating cash and moving inventory, but believe the environment overall is at a rationale point. as a result of the virus, we have also taken actions to reduce expenses including furloughing team members in areas, where dictated by local guidelines. As we closely monitor industry conditions in the coming months, we will continue to review our expense structure and make additional adjustments as needed. There is no question we are in uncertain times. However, our cycle tested management team has demonstrated through past challenge economic times that our business model and customers are resilient. Our balance sheet is stronger today with our significant unencumbered real estate holdings, flexible leases, cost reductions, and unleveraged inventory. We believe we can both overcome and potentially, capitalize on expanding share or other opportunities that may arise during the current situation. We are confident that COVID-19 recedes and demand stabilizes, our customers will value more now than ever time spent on the water with family and friends, and boating as an aspirational lifestyle will be in greater demand. And with that update, I’ll ask Mike to provide more detailed comments on the quarter. Mike?