Terry McNew
Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is now open
Thanks, Tim. I would also like to thank everyone for joining us today. As you saw from today’s press release, during our fiscal second quarter, we continued our track record of delivering record-setting levels of net sales, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income, reflecting the successful execution of our growth strategy. For the quarter, net sales increased 55% to $121.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased 35.6% to $18.6 million and fully diluted adjusted net income per share grew 45.5% to $0.64 per share. We couldn’t be more pleased with the performance of our employees during the quarter across all of our brands, and we’d like to especially welcome and congratulate the Crest employees, whose performance during the quarter exceeded our already lofty expectations for the brand in their first quarter under our ownership. At MasterCraft, we continue to see strong momentum in the performance of sport boat segment from a retail perspective, with internal registration up significantly year-over-year, which is driving our wholesale demand. Our dealer inventory turns are at optimal level of entering the boat show season, and we’re already seeing growth in orders from some of the early shows. While still early, we are encouraged by what we are seeing on the retail front at MasterCraft heading into the heavy selling season. We attribute this strong retail performance to our best-in-class product development, expanding dealer network and continued U.S. economic growth. From a new model perspective, the introductions of our X24 and X22 have been extremely well received. Launched in September of 2018, the X22 uses the industry’s most advanced wake-making technology to surf up perfect, customizable waves for everyone on the boat. Launched in June of 2018, the X24 utilizes a new surf-specific haul design, and when equipped with up to 4,300 pounds of ballast, and the Gen 2 Surf System, creates the industry’s largest wake that is perfectly sculpted and customized through MasterCraft technology. Through our industry-leading product design and engineering, we will continue to push the bounds of what performance sport boats can accomplish on the water. Looking at margins, we have seen some margin degradation year-over-year at MasterCraft, given the timing impact of the new revenue recognition standard as well as our strategic decision to offset a portion of the retaliatory import tariffs impacting our Canadian and European dealers. We believe our strategic decision to support these dealers provides us with a competitive advantage compared to other boat companies not offering support, as we’re providing tariff-free inventory for dealers to sell consumers heading into the boat show season and heavy retail selling season. We believe this investment in our dealers is paying off, and we’re seeing strong wholesale and retail orders from Canada year-to-date. As we have said all along, we do not anticipate these import tariffs becoming permanent, but as long as they persist, they will remain a headwind. As we move forward throughout the balance of fiscal 2019, we expect the future financial impact of this import tariff support be significantly lower over the second half of fiscal 2019 as our strategy of having tariff-free boats on dealers showroom floors during boat show season has been successful. Additionally, should the Canadian government decide to retroactively reimburse dealers for those import tariffs when they are removed, this would result in favorable adjustment to MasterCraft. At NauticStar, we continue to implement significant product development and manufacturing initiatives. And we are pleased with the results to date. As we discussed last quarter, fiscal 2019 is an investment year for the NauticStar brand, both in new product and from an operational perspective. Over the past 6 months, NauticStar has introduced 3 new models, the 195 Bay, the 251 Hybrid and the 32 XS Offshore, the largest model ever produced by the brand. The market for center console boats larger than 25 feet is growing. And with NauticStar’s new 251 Hybrid and new 32 XS Offshore, NauticStar will have 5 models to attack this growing segment, with future larger models in development. With these 3 new model introductions, we have effectively tripled the normal product development cycle for NauticStar, and now have the designers, engineers and processes in house to continue to carry innovation and product development into the future. Similar to what we see at MasterCraft, we believe innovation is a key driver of retail demand in the outboard fiberglass segment. And we’re excited about what these new and future models will do for the brand heading forward. In order to facilitate this new product development cadence, and especially the larger models, it was critical to undertake a major restructuring of NauticStar’s manufacturing facility. In our fiscal first quarter, we significantly pulled back production to lay out the facility in a way that was more efficient and would allow for the production of larger models. Given this production pullback, we saw a decline in NauticStar’s gross margins, principally attributable to reduced overhead absorption. Our planned contemplated gradual gross margin increases throughout the remainder of fiscal 2019 as we ramped production back up and realize the benefits of our improved operating efficiencies as well as higher ASPs and higher margins from these larger boats. We are pleased with the progress NauticStar made in fiscal second quarter, with gross margins 460 basis points greater than in our first fiscal quarter. We will continue to execute on our growth strategy at NauticStar, which we believe puts us on a path to achieve consistent gross margins in the low 20% range in the future. Regarding Crest, as I mentioned in my opening comments, we have been extremely pleased with the results from the brand in its first quarter under our ownership. Crest contributed $25.9 million of net sales or 33% of the growth over the prior year period. Crest continues to take market share in the pontoon segment, and early results from both shows reflect retail orders that are up year-over-year. Crest has exceeded our expectations, but we’re most excited about the operational and product development initiatives we are working on, that we believe will drive sustainable, profitable market share growth in the large and growing pontoon segment over the long term. Lastly, we are excited to share more details on our new luxury day boat brand, Aviara. As you may have seen in our press release a couple of days ago, we will officially debut Aviara at the Miami Boat Show next week with our first model, the AV32. Aviara is the culmination of years of consumer and industry research, aimed at bringing to market a new and exciting brand that fills the product light space in our portfolio, the growing luxury day boat segment. With Aviara, we are adding a complementary premium-focused brand that will keep existing MasterCraft Boat Holdings owners in the family even if their boating preferences evolve over time. Built in our award-winning MasterCraft facility, Aviara owners can expect the same innovation, quality, performance and customer service that defines the MasterCraft brand. Importantly, we’ve been able to launch completely new brand in a completely new segment for the company with a relatively minimal amount of capital. All in, our investment in Aviara from ideas conceptions to start of production will be around $10 million. While we do not plan to provide additional financial guidance on Aviara until a later time, we believe the incremental benefit we received from Aviara will result in a best-in-class return on investment and lead to strong shareholder returns. As previously shared, Aviara is not a performance sport boat, and therefore, Aviara will be distributed through a separate distribution network from our core MasterCraft product. Today, we are excited to share we have partnered with MarineMax, the nation’s largest recreational boat and yacht retailer to help maximize the success of this new brand. We believe this partnership will be successful for both parties, as MarineMax’ industry leadership and reputation as a world-class retailer will be instrumental in ensuring Aviara’s success from day 1, while Aviara will serve to fill a void in MarineMax’ product portfolio. The AV32 will be available for MarineMax’ retailers later this year with 2 Aviara models available, an outboard and a sterndrive, 2 AV32s will be on display at the Miami Boat Show next week located on Pier 8, slips 828 and 830. For those of you attending the show, we invite you to join us on Thursday, February 14, at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time in the Aviara booth for brand launching ceremony. You’ll experience, first hand, this exciting new luxury brand. Now I would like to turn the call back over to Tim, to go over our financials.