Mike Speetzen
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open
Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. I am going to spend some time walking through Q4 and full year 2017 performance in more detail, and then cover our 2018 guidance. Fourth quarter sales were up 18% on a GAAP basis and up 17% on an adjusted basis versus the prior year. Transamerican Auto Parts added $83 million of sales during the quarter, which more than offset the $25 million of lost revenue from the wind down of the Victory business. Organic sales, which adjust for TAP and Victory represented the majority of the growth for the quarter, including strong sales growth in ORV Wholegoods, Indian Motorcycles, Global Adjacent Markets, PG&A and International. Additionally, the company’s average selling prices increase for the quarter driven primarily by lower promotional costs incurred during the quarter as planned. Fourth quarter earnings per share on a GAAP basis was $0.49. Adjusted earnings per share was the $1.47 when adjusted for the wind down of Victory, TAP integration, restructuring and realignment costs and the write-down of deferred tax assets due to the passage of Tax Reform in December. Adjusted earnings per share was up 25% driven by increased volume, lower promotional spend and operating expense leverage. These items outweighed negative product mix, higher incentive compensation expense and increased commodity costs. For the full year 2017, sales were up 20% on a GAAP and adjusted basis versus the prior year. Transamerican Auto Parts added $685 million of sales for the full year 2017, which more than offset the $164 million of lost revenue from the wind down of Victory Motorcycles. Organic sales which adjust for TAP and Victory represented just under half of the growth for the year. All segments and regions delivered solid growth for the year on an adjusted basis and when excluding Victory from 2016. The company’s average selling prices contributed about 3% to the organic sales growth, with the remainder of the growth coming from volume. Full year earnings per share on a GAAP basis was $2.69. Adjusted earnings per share was $4.85, which was in line with expectations, a 39% increase in earnings per share was driven by a combination of increased volume, a meaningful improvement in gross margins and a lower tax rate, I would note that our tax rate for the full year was approximately 30%. These items more than offset increased investment, research and development, higher incentive compensation expenses and higher interest expenses primarily related to the acquisition of Transamerican Auto Parts. On a GAAP basis gross margins decline 10 basis points to 24.4% for the full year 2017, which includes $58 million of Victory wind down costs and $26 million related to inventory step up, restructuring and realignment, and supply chain transformation costs. On an adjusted basis gross margin increased 120 basis points to 25.9% for the full year 2017, reflecting lower warranty expense, cost savings and positive product mix, somewhat offset by higher promotional costs and added cost from combination of supply chain, commodity and natural disaster headwinds. Now let me give some brief comments around each segment beginning with ORV/Snow. My comments will be referencing adjusted numbers unless otherwise indicated. ORV/Snowmobile segment sales were up 13% in Q4. All categories were up during the quarter, despite continued competitive pressure in the power sports market. While promotional spending was down during the fourth quarter, full year promotional spending was up on a year-over-year basis as we continue to protect our brands through competitive and promotional 2017. Average selling price was up 4%, but it’s important to note that although our average selling price increase our product mix put downward pressure on our gross margins and ORV. As Scott noted earlier, our retail unit sales of Off-Road Vehicles were down just under 1% and our retail sales of Snowmobiles were down low-double digits. Given retail sales are a measurement of North America only, exclude PG&A in our unit count basis the impact of higher International sales, higher PG&A sales and higher average selling prices are key drivers of the differences between retail sales and company sales. I would also add that we accelerated shipments in Q4 to address shortages and demand requirements based on strong Q3 retail and continued strong dealer demand. Lastly, for the full year, ORV/Snowmobile segment sales were up 9%, driven by all categories of the business. Motorcycle sales decreased 4% on a GAAP basis, but were up 26%, excluding Victory sales in Q4 of 2016. Both Indian and Slingshot sales were strong during the fourth quarter. Indian sales mirrored strong retail in Q4, while Slingshot sales improved against easier comparables as a recall related stock ship limited Q4 2016 shipments. Q4 Motorcycle sales increased at a slightly higher rate than retail sales driven by higher average selling prices and timing of dealer inventory requirements and orders. Lastly, adjusted full year Motorcycle sales declined 18%, driven by the wind down of Victory Motorcycles. Full year adjusted sales grew 7% when Victory sales are excluded from 2016. Global Adjacent Markets sales increased 19% in the fourth quarter, driven by strong growth in Aixam and Goupil, as well as continued strong sales growth in our Government and Defense business during the quarter. The mix of products sold in Q4 was positive to sales with the average selling price for Adjacent Markets increasing 14% for the quarter. For the full year Global Adjacent Markets sales increased 16% with all business lines growing. Aftermarket sales were up significantly as expected, primarily due to the addition of $83 million of TAP sales in Q4. Pro forma organic revenue for the Aftermarket business was up approximately 3% in Q4, TAP results were in line with expectations and integration of the business is proceeding as planned. Full year Aftermarket sales were up significantly, given the acquisition of TAP. Sales on a pro forma basis were up approximately 6% versus 2016. Now let me turn to our 2018 guidance. We expect total company sales to be up in the range of 3% to 5% from the full year 2018 -- for the full year 2018 on an adjusted base. 2018 sales growth includes the following assumptions. The overall power sports market is expected to be flat to up slightly with Off-Road Vehicles up, Motorcycles flat to down and Snow down for the year. We expect Indian Motorcycles to grow faster than the market and continue to gain share in 2018, and ORV market share is projected to be stable in the market that remain highly competitive. We expect RANGER and GENERAL momentum to continue into 2018 and I think it goes without saying that we are not satisfied with flat share in Off-Road Vehicles and have strict plans to be better than last. Adjusted earnings per share for 2018 are expected to be in a range of $6 to $6.20, up 24% to 28% compared to the full year 2017 adjusted EPS of $4.85. Adjusted net income is expected to grow 27% to 31%, with adjusted earnings before tax growing 15% to 19%. We intend to report on an adjusted basis in 2018, given we will continue to have minor Victory wind down costs, TAP integration costs, as well as one-time costs associated with the supply chain transformation projects Scott referenced earlier. Our 2018 earnings per share guidance assumes the following, we anticipate that adjusted gross margins will continue to improve, increasing 40 basis points to 60 basis points to approximate 26.3% to 26.5%. I will provide more detail around gross margins in a later slide. Adjusted operating expenses are expected to be up slightly in 2018 but down 40 basis points to 60 basis points as a percent of sales. It is important to note that our operating expense guidance includes a roughly 10% increase in engineering investment to support innovation and new product development. 2018 operating expense guidance reflects our efforts to better leverage our general and administrative costs as we grow the business. Income from financial services is expected to be flat to down slightly, primarily driven by the mix of income between Polaris acceptance, retail credit and our growing extended service contract business. The income tax rate is now expected to be approximately 23% for the full year 2018, due to the impact of the recently passed U.S. Tax Reform bill. The income tax rate reduction versus the 2017 rate of 30% represents a 7-point drop building approximately $35 million a tax expense benefit and $0.55 of earnings per share benefit to 2018. Although, the stated corporate federal income tax rate is 21%, we have to adjust for state taxes, higher international taxes, the negative impact of the loss 162(m) deduction and a favorable impact of R&D tax credits. These net to a 2-point increase to the stated rate. Our team continues to work through the details as we fully implement the various provisions of the new legislation. Share count is expected to increase approximately 2%. Although, share count is increasing slightly, we anticipate repurchasing approximately 2 million shares to partially offset additional dilution given our higher stock price and option exercises. We have approximately 6.4 million shares remaining under the Boards’ current authorization. Lastly, foreign exchange impacts are currently expected to be minimal in 2018 to both sales and earnings. We have plan 2018 using the average rates realized during 2017. We plan 2018 assuming that euro to U.S. dollar at a $1.13 and the Canadian dollars to U.S. dollar at $0.77. I would also point out that from a transactional perspective we have hedged approximately 60 plus percent of our exposure to Canada, Mexico and Australia. As with the case in 2017, our 2018 guidance assumes that our earnings growth is more heavily weighted toward the second half of 2018, as the increase in R&D spend, which is anticipated to be spread equally over the four quarters have a disproportionately negative impact on the first quarter, given Q1 is historically our small sales and earnings quarter of the year. Q1 EPS growth will be about half of the expected annual EPS growth of 24% to 20%. Sales expectations for our segments are as follows, ORV/Snowmobile sales are expected to be up low to mid-single digits with Snow about flat and ORV and PG&A sales up. Motorcycles sales are anticipated to be up high-single digits percent with both Indian and Slingshot growing in 2018. Global Adjacent Markets sales are expected to be up mid single-digit percent with growth expected in all businesses. And the Aftermarket segment sales are expected to be up high single-digit percent. As a reminder, we anniversary the TAP acquisition in November of 2017, therefore we will have comparable quarterly and year-over-year Aftermarket segment sales as we report for 2018. Lastly, both International and total PG&A sales which are included in the respective segments are expected to increase in the mid single-digit percent range for 2018. Adjusted gross margins are expected to continue to show improvement over 2017, increasing in the 40 basis point to 60 basis point range. The improvement is driven by a further reduction and warranty costs, along with ongoing VIP savings similar to levels achieved in 2017. We have made considerable investment in safety and quality, and as a result we anticipate our warranty costs to be down as a percent of sales versus 2017. Although, we continue to make good progress on driving productivity, we do anticipate a couple of headwinds in 2018. We experience rising commodity prices in the fourth quarter of 2017 and expect those commodity pressures to continue into 2018. Product mix is expected to put pressure on gross margins in 2018, as we realize faster growth in some of our lower margin businesses. Aggregate and per unit promotional costs are expected to be down year-over-year, somewhat offsetting these lower promotional costs are the ORV pricing adjustments highlighted last year. Taken together pricing and promotional costs are anticipated to be about neutral to adjusted gross margins in 2018. On a segment reporting basis, 2018 gross margins are expected to perform as follows, ORV/Snow segments’ gross margins are expected to be similar to 2017 levels, driven by negative mix and commodity impacts, offset by cost reduction and lower warranty. Motorcycle, Adjacent Markets and Aftermarket gross margins are expected to increase year-over-year given improve volume and cost sections. Our operating cash flow performance was up 1% for the full year 2017 finishing at $580 million. We anticipate 2018 operating cash flow to be down approximately 10% from 2017, due to higher incentive compensation payments and higher working capital to support the growth in the business. I would note that while working capital is increasing, we continue to push efficiency as evidenced by improved factory inventory turns in 2017 that we project will continue into 2018. Capital expenditures are expected to grow significantly in 2018 versus 2017, driven by additional tooling required to support new product development, as well as other critical infrastructure investments in our business such as a new multi-brand distribution center to support our growing PG&A and Aftermarket businesses, as well as critical system investments. We ended 2017 with the debt-to-capital ratio of 49%, reflecting substantial debt reduction. We aggressively deleverage in 2017 and anticipate continued progress in this area into 2018. Our capital deployment framework remains consistent, having a lower tax rate enables a larger pool of capital deploy within this framework. Important to note that our ROI see on an adjusted basis continues to improve and we anticipate improvement into the high-teens in 2018, driven by culmination of productivity and improved asset efficiency. With that, I will now turn it back over to Scott for some final thoughts.