Bennett Morgan
Analyst · Sidoti & Company
Thanks Scott. Third quarter business performance remained excellent. North American retail sales increased over 10%, our 10th consecutive quarter of double digit retail growth. We gained market share in every business and we further extended our industry leading aggregate market share position in North American power sports. We are not resting on our walls. During the third quarter we successfully launched our Retail Flow Management our RFM System to our Victory dealer network. This innovative new lean pole program allows dealers to order daily instead of annually, creates segment stocking profiles for each dealer and is designed to ensure customer order fulfillment in 18 days or less. We expect that this will significantly reduce forecast errors, unproductive inventory and retail stock outs while accelerating retail sales and ultimately improving customer satisfaction. Early execution and dealer reaction to the RFM System has been very positive. We’ve also improved our industry leading ORV MVP program to a number of executional enhancements focused on delivering visibility, accuracy and responsiveness. Overall, North American dealer inventory rose 23% in the third quarter versus a year ago, but by nearly every metric we track the quality of our dealer inventory is excellent and improving. For example, dealer inventory productivity as a function of sales revenue generated has more than doubled since 2008, is up 50% versus September of 2010 and is 2% better than 2011. ORV inventory increased 18% as we delivered on our commitment to improve service levels and response times, the additional ORV unit inventory is in all the right places, and ORV dealer inventory days of supply rose only slightly. Side by side inventory has been thoughtfully increased versus 2011’s very low levels to support the increased retail sales velocity and additional stock to support four new incremental side by side market segments created over the past year. In addition we have improved on time dealer order fill rates to 99% and reduced average order lead time by 71% versus a year ago which has reduced dealer stock outs by 10%. ATV inventory is actually down slightly year-over-year. Motorcycle inventory is up 37% but the majority of the increase comes from supplying the 60 net new dealers that we’ve added while the balance has gone to fill open stock profiles. Dealer stock outs have already rent reduced in motorcycles by about 30% and our non-current inventory percent of total inventory is down significantly. Snowmobiles dealer inventory is currently 39% higher than 2011 due to the modestly higher season ending inventory levels and an accelerated bill schedule that impacted shipment timing. We expect snow dealer inventory to moderate notably as we move through the upcoming snow season. Our dealers, our internal metrics, and our financial results continue to confirm that dealer inventory quality and levels are in excellent shape and with the introduction of RFM and the enhancements to MVP we expect our inventory quality and velocity to further improve in the future. Let’s move on now to business unit performance. Off-road vehicles; the Polaris ORV business had another record quarter with third quarter revenue up 18% driven primarily by side by side growth. Year to date revenue was up 22%. Polaris continues to make growth happen in ORVs. Third quarter North American ATV retail sales for Polaris increased mid single digits while the industry decreased slightly. This mark the 16th consecutive quarter that Polaris has gained market share in ATVs and we achieve an all time high quarterly market share percentage. North American Polaris side by side retail continues to roll with the third quarter retail sales increased more than 15% over the last third quarter’s record retail in an industry we estimate grew low double digits. Third quarter became our largest side by side retail quarter ever driven by strength in both RZRs and Rangers. While still too new to have been materially contribute to the third quarter retail our newest Model Year ’13 products have been extremely well received by both dealers and consumers. Ranger 900XP, the Ranger 800 EFI mid-size, and Scrambler 850s all are currently oversold to dealers while the early Ranger 900XP shipments are retailing to customers as quickly as any product that we’ve ever launched. So we are encouraged that our expansive product line and new innovative ORV products will keep driving future retail and share growth. Bobcat retail increased over 20% in the third quarter and their key commercial account activity improved. But wholesale sales to Bobcat were down slightly. Bobcat dealer inventory is in balance and Polaris National Account activity to key commercial customers increased and more than offset our lower Bobcat wholesale sales in the quarter. We continue to make progress on the co-develop project with Bobcat that we expect to launch in calendar year ’13. While our military business saw Q3 revenue rise slightly, it was a challenging quarter as we missed our internal expectations. Many defense and government customers deferred spending and behaved very cautiously with potential defense budget reductions looming. Year-to-date sales are up versus 2011, however we now expect our 2012 annual defense sales to come in below our plan. Despite this lumpiness, we are bullish about our progress and our future prospects in defense. Next week at the Army Industry Show we will be introducing our exclusive advanced light weight vehicle armor technology and we continue to expand our unmanned vehicle business leveraging our light-weight, low-cost off-road vehicle capabilities. Snowmobiles, Polaris’ third quarter snowmobile revenue was up 21% while year-to-date revenue increased to 16%. As I indicated earlier in the inventory section, the year-to-date sales increase is strictly timing driven by an accelerated build schedule and I want you to trust that we’ve matched our build to dealer orders and expected consumer demand for the upcoming season. Early season to-date industry retail sales decreased about 20% versus 2011 due to the poor snow last season which resulted in lower preseason or snow check retail sales as we had expected. Polaris has outperformed the industry and gained market share season to-date with retail sales down just 10% and our non snow check retail sales right on plan. Only about 10% of the season’s retail has occurred. So as always the next 120 days will be critical for Polaris and the industry. Our product line up is strong. In fact our new Pro RMK 800 recently was made 2013 Snowmobile of the Year by SnowGoer Magazine. The early snowmobile consumer events have been well attended and we are prepared and excited for the riding season to begin in earnest. On-road vehicles and Victory motorcycles. Our on-road business in the third quarter revenue increased 78% driven by strong year-over-year growth in motorcycles and our GEM and Goupil units. Year-to-date on-road revenue was up 73%. North American third quarter Victory retail sales accelerated climbing over 25% driven by growth in all segments, cruisers, baggers and touring. Year-to-date Victory retail is now up over 20% and we continue to earn additional market share. The North American heavy weight 1400CC industry slowed in the third quarter with retail sales down single digits which we attribute more to competitive timing than industry weakness as year-to-date the heavy weight industry has grown in low single digits. With international Victory sales growth outpacing our excellent North American results and the advent of our new RFM program, we are confidently building on our number two position in heavy weight motorcycles. Third quarter and year-to-date 2012 Indian motorcycle retailing business performance is right on plan. More importantly, we are making outstanding progress on the product, brand and launch plan for Indian’s future. 2013 is going to be an on breaking year for our motorcycle business. GEM and Goupil revenue increased well over 100% versus a year ago and contributed about 20% of the 78% sales growth for on-road that we saw in the third quarter. Goupil was battling a tough French and European economy but still predicts strong double digit percent growth for the year. We are making great strides on the product cost down and manufacturing efficiencies. Our third quarter GEM unit performance was a bit more mixed. Orders were up 35% as new dealer’s impacted sales velocity but we saw weakness in the GSA and the international channels. Parts, garments and accessories. Our PG&A business delivered record sales in the third quarter and continues to accelerate, up 14% for the quarter and 11% year-to-date. We achieved growth in every geographic region, business unit and product category. We’ve had outstanding dealer response to the new apparel and integrated cab innovations for the Ranger 900XP introduced at the Dealer meeting and our momentum is excellent across the entire PG&A business. International, Scott has already covered the top line international numbers, so I’ll just cover some market specifics. ORV and motorcycle industry retail markets remain weak in Europe, both down about 10% for the third quarter and the year. Polaris again gained significant market share with ORB retail sales down just slightly and motorcycle retail up over 50%. Russian sales growth was big for both ORV and Snowmobiles while Indian and Brazil delivered nice year-over-year growth as we build our network, brand and capability within these key growth markets. We’re making very solid progress with Eicher on our new joint venture in India. Right now the focus is on product development, securing the factory location and hiring the leadership team. Despite the challenging short term global environment, we continue to strategically invest in our international infrastructure, better positioning Polaris for long term global growth. Operational excellence. Gross margins expanded a 120 basis points driven primarily by manufacturing productivity, realignment savings and cost and pricing improvements which more than offset reserves for a more aggressive promotion environment and product mix. Productivity improved by a healthy 11% in the third quarter and is now over 7% year-to-date and our plans and people are hummy including Monterrey where we recently began production on our third vehicle assembly line. We leased an additional 380,000 square foot facility in the Spirit Lake area to allow us to better meet rising demand and implement new manufacturing initiatives and opportunities. Production capacity is stretched and as a result we are strategically outsourcing to suppliers additional component manufacturing at a short term price premium. Inventory turns measured on a rolling 12 month perspective are flat, however factory inventory is up 21% versus a year ago to support our increased global sales velocity, new plans and businesses and commitment to support our customers with enhanced delivery. We do anticipate improvement in upcoming quarters as our LEAN projects on delivery transformation initiatives progress. Innovation remains the fuel for Polaris’ growth engine. Our new product vitality index which measures up percentage of sales derived from new products over the trailing three year period is over 80% and rising. Third quarter investment in R&D increased 26% as we aggressively pursued product development opportunities that will drive future growth at Polaris. In light of our dramatic growth in engineers and projects, we recently broke ground on a 144,000 square foot expansion to our worldwide Wyoming product development center, more than doubling the capacity of our existing footprint and greatly enabling the breadth, scale and capability of future innovation at Polaris. The expansion is expected to accommodate over 300 additional engineers during the next few years and is slated for completion in the third quarter of 2013. With that good news, I’ll turn it over to our CFO, Mike Malone.