Sarah Nielson
Analyst · Thompson Research Group. Please proceed
Thank you, Randy. During the fiscal 2015 second quarter, consolidated net revenues grew 2.5% in large part due to an increase in motorized unit shipments. Our Towables Group also contributed to the overall increase in sales with unit and ASP growth. When looking at our second quarter motorized ASPs, we saw increases in the average selling price of every single product segment due to product mix and pricing as compared to last year. Specifically, Class A gas was up nearly 4% to $97,525, Class C diesel was up nearly 18% to $206,343, Class C was up almost 10% to $78,112 and Class B was up nearly 12% to $76,868. In summary, however, total motorized ASPs was $100,213 essentially flat to the prior year due to a higher concentration of Class B and C products that both had ASPs of under $80,000. Moving over to our Towable product, Travel trailer ASP was $21,002 up over 8% primarily attributable to the introduction of the Spyder, our Toy Hauler product which carries an ASP that’s higher. Our fifth wheel ASP was $50,600, an increase of nearly 19% primarily due to more sales of higher end options models. In aggregate, Towable ASP was $25,748 and up almost 8% over the prior year. In the second quarter, our dealer inventory increased 22% compared to last year and stood at 4,778 units as of February 28, 2015. On a sequential basis, dealer inventory increased 14% when compared to the end of the first quarter. Compared to both periods, higher dealer inventory reflects in part the strong demand for our new product offerings as many of our dealers continue to increase their stock of these products. Specifically, increased stock of Winnebago’s new products accounted for 6 percentage points of the year-over-year dealer inventory increase. Notably, dealer inventory of our Class B motorhomes has increased significantly in the past year due to the strong retail demand of our product which was up over 100% on a trailing 12 month basis. Given the solid consumer demand for these products, we anticipate that they will continue to generate increased retail demand. Also, as we’ve mentioned before, higher dealer inventory levels are attributable to our efforts to ensure that all of our product offerings are well represented across our dealer network. To that end, over the past 12 months, we have expanded our product line points of distribution and the physical dealer locations by 4% and 7.5% respectively. Thus our dealers are stocked with fresh inventory for the upcoming spring retail selling season. We believe all of these factors point to a positive outlook by dealers who have grown in confidence towards the industry and the consumer. Moving to backlog, motorized bookings grew nearly 59% compared to the year ago quarter. This was the second consecutive sequential increase in our motorized backlog which totaled $2,275, a 7% from the level reported at the end of the first quarter. Backlog decreased on a year-over-year basis largely due to our increased production rates over the past year which have allowed us to satisfy demand particularly for some of our newer products. Further, Class A gas backlog was elevated in the fiscal 2014 second quarter due to an inadequate supply of chassis from Ford. Over the past four quarters, we have had an adequate supply of chassis which has allowed us to fulfill our backlog on a timelier basis. Year-over-year, fiscal 2015 second quarter gross margin improved 30 basis points despite labor-related constraints and the associated expenses that persisted during the second quarter. As we noted in our earnings release, the increase primarily reflects improved product mix, higher absorption of fixed costs and the absence of the weather-related expenses experienced in the last year’s second quarter. We believe margins will continue to improve as we resolve our remaining labor-related constraints and their associated expenses. Also, we are pleased to announce that we have substantially completed the upgrade to our new $7 million electro-deposition or e-coat paint system. This system is unique to Winnebago providing us a competitive quality advantage with protection from corrosion which extends the life of our motorhomes. We expect to benefit from this new process as we continue to ramp the new system in coming months. Compared to last year, operating expenses increased in the fiscal 2015 second quarter mainly attributable to higher G&A expenses of $2.5 million, a majority of which are associated with the two important strategic initiatives that commenced during the quarter and that we discussed on our December conference call. The first strategic initiative relates to the execution of an ERP system implementation, which will replace our in-house developed financial and operation legacy systems and provide better support for our changing business needs and plans for future growth. We believe that this project will deliver long-term cost savings through supply chain management optimization and operational improvements once completed in addition to a reduction in system maintenance, internal development and support cost. Notably it is our view that the cost to support our legacy systems would greatly increase in future years due to the outdated programming language used if we did not migrate to a new system. Our current estimate for completion of this project is $12 million to $16 million over a three year time frame which includes software, external implementation of systems and increased internal staffing directly related to this initiative. We currently estimate that approximately 40% of the total cost will be immediately expensed over the life of the project and 60% will be capitalized. As a result, we expect up to $3 million of incremental G&A expense in fiscal 2015, of which $652,000 was incurred in our second fiscal quarter. The second initiative is a strategic sourcing project with the objective of obtaining long-term material cost savings through standardizing our purchasing processes, optimizing our supplier relationships and improving our current sourcing methodology. We have engaged external support with deep domain expertise to help us conduct this project and as a result we expect to incur up to $2.8 million in G&A expense for this assistance of which $827,000 was incurred in the second quarter. We expect to incur approximately $700,000 of incremental G&A expense for the remainder of fiscal 2015 and the balance in fiscal 2016. The project is planned to be completed in June of 2016 based on current internal staffing support. Once fully implemented, we anticipate this investment will provide gross margin expansion of 30 to 50 basis points. Rounding out higher G&A expenses for the quarter were increased legal cost of approximately $500,000 most of which related to protecting the company’s brand name in Australia as well as higher equipment maintenance cost. Looking forward, we expect to incur more normalized levels of legal and equipment maintenance cost. Operating cash flow in the second quarter was affected by higher receivables of approximately $13 million. At the end of the second quarter, we also had elevated inventory levels partly the result of the rental build season. In the second half of fiscal 2015, we expect to generate positive cash flow through the continued strength of our operating results, as well as favorable changes in working capital. Moving to rentals, I’ll briefly follow up on last year’s Apollo transaction which is a win-win for both us and Apollo. In the second quarter, our investments in operating leases and their operating leased repurchase obligation both decreased to zero reflecting the sale of units by Apollo directly into the used market and the resulting release of us from our obligation for the repurchase. Based on the success of this rental transaction, we received an order of similar size from Apollo for the rental season and we are currently working on production for their units in the 2015 fleet. On the Towables front, we are extremely encouraged with the group’s strong performance and are pleased to announce our decision to purchase the currently leased Towables assembly facilities in Middlebury, Indiana for approximately $5.4 million. As Randy pointed out, the purchase demonstrates our commitment to growing Winnebago’s market share within Towables while also providing us with reduced facility operating cost as the projected annual depreciation expenses are less than the annual cost to lease the facility. This purchase is included in our planned capital expenditures of $15 million to $20 million for fiscal 2015. Finally, I like to reiterate that we are very positive on the long-term outlook for our motorized and total businesses and believe our company has opportunities for future growth which combined with our strategic initiatives underway should help us improve our margins and profitability. With that, please open the line for questions.