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Winnebago Industries, Inc. (WGO)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 18, 2023

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Q4 Fiscal 2023 Winnebago Industries’ Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ray Posadas, Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Intelligence. You may begin.

Ray Posadas

Analyst

Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss our fiscal 2023 fourth quarter earnings results. I am joined on the call today by Michael Happe, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Bryan Hughes, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This call is being broadcast live on our website at investor.wgo.net and a replay of the call will be available on our website later today. The news release with our fourth quarter results was issued and posted to our website earlier this morning. Before we start, I’d like to remind you that certain statements made during today’s conference call regarding Winnebago Industries and its operations maybe considered forward-looking statements under securities laws. The company cautions you that forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and are inherently uncertain and a number of factors, many of which are beyond the company’s control, could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These factors are identified in our SEC filings, which I encourage you to read. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Michael Happe. Mike?

Michael Happe

Analyst

Thanks, Ray. Good morning and as always, thanks for your interest in Winnebago Industries and for taking the time to discuss our fiscal 2023 full year and fourth quarter results. I will provide an overview of performance during the quarter and the full year, then pass the call to Bryan Hughes to cover our financial results in more detail. Following Bryan’s comments, I will return and offer some closing thoughts before the Q&A portion of the call. The tumultuous consumer outdoor market, which characterized fiscal year 2023 for our company, continued as expected into the fourth quarter as lower dealer deliveries and modest retail demand persisted across the RV and marine industries. Our dealer networks continue to demonstrate discipline as it relates to inventory levels given the current demand environment and an industry-wide focus on selling down prior year model product. Despite these challenges, our teams have remained intently focused on rationalizing our own and channel inventory levels, optimizing our supply chain network and appropriately managing capacity, output and cost in a strategic manner, sometimes at the expense of short-term market share. Those efforts, combined with a disciplined approach to capital allocation, have enabled us to drive meaningful profitability in our consolidated results, particularly in our Towable and Marine segments supported by our diverse portfolio of premium brands and have allowed us to continue investing in our growth initiatives while creating meaningful value for our shareholders. Overall, for our fiscal fourth quarter, we achieved $771 million in net revenues, consolidated gross margin of 16.5% and adjusted earnings per diluted share of $1.59. Our results reflect a resilient profitability of our diversified business model in a challenging demand environment. Despite a softening in unit sales, the Towable RV and Marine segments, in particular, continued their track record of profitability and margin…

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Thanks, Mike and good morning everyone. Fourth quarter consolidated revenues were $771 million, 34.6% lower than the $1.2 billion recorded during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, driven by lower unit sales related to current market conditions, dealer efforts to reduce inventories with a focus on prior year model product and higher discounts and allowances compared to prior year, partially offset by carryover price increases. As we navigate a challenging environment, we continue to demonstrate resilient profitability and strong margins in the Towable RV and Marine segments. Gross profit was $127.5 million, a decrease of 39.4% compared to $210.4 million for the fiscal 2022 period. Gross profit margin decreased 130 basis points in the quarter to 16.5%. These declines were driven by volume deleverage and higher discounts and allowances compared to prior year. Fourth quarter operating income was $57.5 million, a decrease of 53.4% compared to $123.6 million for the fourth quarter of last year. Fourth quarter net income was $43.8 million compared to $82.6 million in the prior year quarter. Reported earnings per diluted share, was $1.28 compared to reported earnings per diluted share of $2.61 in the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per diluted share, was $1.59 compared to adjusted earnings per diluted share of $3.02 in the same period last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $72.9 million for the quarter compared to $139.2 million last year. Turning now to the fiscal 2023 annual results. Fiscal 2023 revenues were $3.5 billion, gross profit margin was 16.8%, and adjusted earnings per diluted share, was $7.67. Adjusted EBITDA was $355 million or 10.2% of sales. Free cash flow was $211 million. I will now cover our performance by segment. Revenues for the Towable RV segment were $341.4 million for the quarter, down 30.9% compared to the fourth quarter of…

Michael Happe

Analyst

Thanks, Bryan. And now a few final comments before we get to the Q&A session. I am proud of and grateful for the Winnebago Industries’ team as we continue to navigate dynamic market conditions, while maintaining our focus on quality, innovation and service. In addition to doing well, we continue to invest in our high-performing culture and focus on doing good in the communities where our customers and teammates live, work and play. During our fiscal year 2023, we gave away a record-breaking $2 million plus financially from the Winnebago Industries Foundation focusing on community, outdoors and access. This is on top of countless hours of physical volunteerism from our team members. Our organization continues to make meaningful progress on all areas of corporate responsibility, and we look forward to releasing later this calendar year. Our next-generation corporate responsibility report, outlining our specific progress in inclusion, sustainability, giving employee safety and other dimensions. Today also marks another milestone in our company’s history as we are excited to announce the forthcoming launch of a Grand Design branded motorhome lineup, scheduled for release late in our fiscal year 2024. These new models will represent the inaugural foray into the motorhome market under one of the most successful RV brands created and will be a differentiated and complementary offering to our current Winnebago and Newmar brand motorized businesses. Leveraging Grand Design’s inherent strength and unwavering appeal, along with its dedicated and loyal consumer base, we are poised to make a bold entry into this segment. The Grand Design team is working diligently to bring this exciting launch to life, and we anticipate showcasing prototype models to select dealers in early calendar 2024 with shipments beginning late in our fiscal 2024 year. As we are currently active in product development, standing up the manufacturing…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from James Hardiman with Citi. Your line is open.

James Hardiman

Analyst

Hey, good morning. And thanks for taking – I have two questions here. I guess I’ll start with the Grand Design news. I guess, first, congratulations on getting that news out there. Maybe quantify what that does or that means to margins in 2024? I’m assuming that’s going to be coming out of the motorized segment EBITDA. But then earlier in the prepared remarks, I think you talked about high single-digit motorized EBITDA margin in the near-term. Is that inclusive of the dilution from the Grand Design start-up costs? And I’m assuming that dilution will intensify as we make our way through the year?

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Hey, good morning, James, this is Bryan. I’ll take that one. Our investment in total is dilutive to pretax income by $10 million to $15 million in fiscal 2024. It ramps up from $1 million to $2 million in Q1 to $4 million to $5 million by Q4. We expect that investment to be accretive, of course, to our fiscal 2025. This will initially be a corporate investment, James, that is reported in corporate other and will, therefore, not be dilutive to our Motorhome RV segment until such time as we become operational. We will keep you all posted in the forthcoming quarters as to which segment that investment is reported. But that’s our intent sitting here today.

James Hardiman

Analyst

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. And then maybe we could just dig in. There is a lot of questions around ASPs. Your biggest competitor talked about a high single-digit decline or I guess call it, a 10% decline in towables, a little bit less in motorized. How would you – obviously, you guys don’t give guidance, but how do you characterize the ASP outlook? How should we think about phasing? And then maybe you could speak to affordability for the consumer, right? I mean there is pricing into the channel and then there is pricing out of the channel. There is a decent amount of discounting last year. But if we think about the next 12 months, it seems like pricing is probably going to be coming down. Interest rates, at least in the first half of the year are up. Net-net, how is the consumer going to interpret all of this. And do you think that some of the actions being taken by you guys and the rest of the industry will help spur demand?

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

James, I’ll start with that, and then I’ll turn it to Mike for some commentary as well because there is a lot there in your question, starting with ASP specifically in the discounting and allowance that we’re witnessing in the marketplace today. In Q4, we talked about elevated discounts and allowances. That was against, as you know, a prior year where it was a pretty robust market still. So while we talk about elevated discounts and allowances, I’d say that they are not out of line with where they have been historically, thinking of it as a percent to grow sales, okay? So they have – I’d say they have normalized. I wouldn’t say that they have – or characterized them as having spiked relative to prior years, okay? So, having said that, ASPs are also certainly a function not just of the competitive marketplace, but also of the inflationary environment. For the motor home space, I’ll go segment by segment here just briefly. The motorhome space, we continue to see price pressure specifically on our motorhome chassis. And because of that, we expect modest ASP increases still absent mix impacts, okay? But on a unit-by-unit basis, modest ASP increase in the low single to mid-single-digit range. That’s what we’re currently expecting now. We will see what happens to the ongoing pressures we see on the motorized chassis. On the towable space, we are, in fact, seeing some deflationary impacts across the components, the commodity inputs I would, sitting here today, expect deflationary impacts in the mid to high single-digit range on ASPs as we seek to pass along some of those deflationary impacts to our dealers and our end consumers. Marine is more in the neighborhood of motorized RV in that we’re still seeing some price pressure, inflationary pressures from the propulsion or the motors within marine. I’d say everything else is pretty stable. I’d characterize it as stable, but the motors and the marine cause us to see some mild increases to ASP as we sit here today looking forward into our fiscal 2024. So that’s how I’d characterize some of the ASP moves, the discounting allowances. You have some other questions. I’ll ask Mike to take it from here and to add any other color that he sees as it relates to your question.

Michael Happe

Analyst

Good morning, James. Say, I’ll address the affordability question in this way. We have decided to attack affordability through the introduction of new models that get our brands to potentially new and different price points or fill some gaps in our product lineups that we think are important from an affordability standpoint. And I’ll point to four quick examples. In fiscal ‘23, in the pontoon market under the Barletta brand, we introduced the Aria product, which expanded our total addressable market price point-wise from 40% to 70% of the market. So the Aria is the opening price point brand for the Barletta business. We showed at Open House the Winnebago branded access which is that particular brand’s entrance into the conventional travel trailer market with MSRP targets at $30,000 or below. And then the Grand Design business has introduced two new brands, the influence, which is an affordable Fifth Wheel between our Reflection and Solitude models. And we’ve also introduced the Reflection 100, which is affordably priced below the traditional reflection Fifth Wheel line. And so as opposed to decontenting and dropping margin on existing SKUs, we’ve really chosen to go after affordability with our business through the introduction of new products. And we anticipate that we will be successful here as we go through our fiscal ‘24 year.

James Hardiman

Analyst

That is extremely helpful. I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I just wanted to clarify, Brian, it seems like the way that you’re talking about cost pressures and what that’s ultimately going to do to ASP. It seems like the goal through all of this is to ultimately hold margin as I think about the year rather than sort of giving up a little margin in an effort to spur demand? Is that accurate?

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Yes, I think that’s fair to characterize our efforts around profitability and margin are certainly in focus we will continue to react as we always do in-line with what Mike just said as well as it relates to that balance between margin profitability, performance and market share. And so that’s – that would be our intent and how I’d like to characterize it, James.

James Hardiman

Analyst

Got it. Appreciate it guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Stember with ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Scott Stember

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. And thanks for taking my questions.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Good morning, Scott.

Scott Stember

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

In talking about the reluctance of dealers to take inventory outside of price, are there any other economic factors that the dealers are facing like floor plan costs, which are keeping them from ordering? Are they asking you guys to participate in some of that during the slower months?

Michael Happe

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Scott, good morning. This is Mike. I think the dimension you touched on is probably one of the bigger elements as I think most of us in the industry know the dealers are facing higher floor plan costs due to higher interest rates, and that is certainly factoring into their attention to aging models, but also certainly the total amount of product that they are willing to carry. I do want to state, though, that on the RV side of our business, specifically, where we see this element most in play. We are pleased with where we stand with our inventory position as of today. And in fact, since the end of our fourth quarter, our RV field inventory is down probably another 1,500 units in gross between the end of August and this call this morning. And so we believe our inventory is fresh as fresh as it can be. We believe that the inventory volume in total is appropriate. And we will continue to partner with our dealers to make sure that they are comfortable with the inventory they are carrying. But we anticipate any further destocking on our brands of RVs to be lightly incremental going forward. We don’t anticipate any significant further drops. And retail volume and optimism will really be, we think, the determining factor for dealers to begin taking more inventory onto their lots in the months to come

Scott Stember

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Got it. And then last question. Looking at Motorized, your backlog was down a bunch but dealer inventories were up. How much of that was related to the ERP issue? And I remember at your open house meeting, Mike, you did talk about maybe on the Class Bs that some of the inventory was getting a little bit rich. Is it a combination of both of those items?

Michael Happe

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Our Class B inventory in the field is probably in the neighborhood of 15% to 20% lower today than it was a year ago. So any previous comments about tightness probably were specific to potentially certain SKUs. Again, we’re – the motorized business has been a little bit different from the towables business in terms of inventory comps year-over-year. The towables business was probably the part of the industry that a year or so ago was more rich in terms of the volume of inventory, but also probably more challenged in terms of the mix with prior model years and lower-tier brands whereas the Motorized segment fell to low levels in those – that 2021 and the beginning of calendar 2022 period, but because of supply chain challenges around chassis, we really haven’t had the need to correct field inventory levels in the motorized segment to the degree that we’ve had to on the towable side. So again, I am comfortable with where our motorized field inventory stands today. I’m comfortable with where our towables field inventory stands today. And again, we look forward to earning the business of the dealers going forward to increase lot share. We have run some selective promotions around floor plan inventory rate support here as we ran into Open House. But we don’t anticipate having the need to do that extensively throughout the ‘24 year.

Scott Stember

Analyst · ROTH MKM. Your line is open.

Got it. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Craig Kennison with Baird. Your line is open. Craig Kennison, your line is open.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open. Craig Kennison, your line is open.

So, let’s come back to Craig. Let’s move to the next one. We will come back to Craig later on in the call.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

Thanks guys. Good morning. I guess first question on the lending side. Are you seeing or hearing of any lenders becoming more cautious from a retail perspective?

Michael Happe

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

Joe, good morning, this is Mike. We are not hearing material weakening of retail financing in our business at this time. I would say the headwind that probably is most prevalent at retail for our dealers, especially with existing customers is some of the challenges around what to do with that existing unit that an existing customer has that they would like to trade in. In some cases, depending on when they bought it, they are in a negative equity situation and may have to write a sizable check to get out of that current product and upgrade or get into a new product. And so I would say the trade-in headwind is probably a much bigger factor than any retail financing challenges that we are seeing at the present time.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

And the availability is there, just to echo what Mike said. The availability is there, but the cost is certainly up, as you can imagine, right, Joe. So, we are seeing retail lending rates now with eight, nine handles and even some with lower credit ratings getting into double digits. So, that higher cost is certainly a factor.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

You read my mind with respect to my next question. So, with a follow-up to that, maybe some thoughts on the relationship that you have got now with Camping World and perhaps opening additional stores like the new Grand Design stores that you have now in Green Bay.

Michael Happe

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

Yes. Let me start with more of the historical relationship with Camping World that we have had in our Winnebago-branded business. We have done business with Camping World through the Winnebago brand for many years. Mostly on the motorized side, but off and on, on Winnebago Towables as well. And we continue to do business on the Winnebago side in dozens of different locations and have a healthy relationship with Camping World there. Not all of those locations are full-line locations. They carry select models of the Winnebago Motorized line. And we have had some productive conversations with Camping World around the Winnebago Towables line as of recently at the Open House event in Indiana a few weeks ago. You did reference the Grand Design Camping World store. We recently co-opened an exclusive Grand Design store with Camping World in the Green Bay, Wisconsin market, looks fantastic. I think the grand opening was this past weekend, and that is an opportunity for us to influence more of the customer experience in an exclusive store format working with the Camping World team. Admittedly, this is Grand Design’s first location with Camping World since the inception of that brand. And we are having some discussions about possible other markets. But we will be very selective in our conversations with Camping World and really kind of take it in a crawl-before-we-walk style to make sure that this is a productive relationship. Just so you know, but also any stakeholders listening to this call know, our relationships with our dealers are not focused solely on sales. They are also focused on the complete experience for our customers and especially how our customers are cared for in the aftermarket. So, any expansion with any dealer includes a conversation on the service side as well, where we need to get comfortable with both the OEM and the dealer taking care of the customer at a high level. And so that conversation is definitely a part of any Grand Design expansion discussions with any of their retailers, including Camping World.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open.

Got it. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Tristan Thomas-Martin with BMO. Your line is open.

Tristan Thomas-Martin

Analyst

Hi. You gave us some kind of guidance for motorhome EBITDA margin short-term. How should we think about towable margins and then kind of by extension of that, the ASP decline down mid to high-single digits? Could you quantify what type of headwind that is on your margin profile?

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Yes. We think we will be able to – even with that kind of a reduction to ASP, Tristan. It’s really tied to, in many regards our ability to manage the cost equation as well, including the cost inputs or the deflation. So, I don’t want to convey that we are anticipating giving up margin as we ease some of those ASPs. I think with the initiatives we have in place, including the product initiatives that Mike already alluded to that we are introducing great new products and continue to expect those to be differentiated versus competition as well as the other cost initiatives that we have on an ongoing basis that we will be able to continue to see towables margins in the range that we saw here for Q4, plus or minus a reasonable amount here, you keep them in double-digit as we look forward, both in the near-term and long-term as well as the volume starts to recover and the leverage impact of higher volume should provide that tailwind as well that will help us continue to generate really strong margins in the towables business.

Tristan Thomas-Martin

Analyst

Okay. Got it. And then are you – what are you getting – are you seeing anything in terms of supply or support as you are trying to address affordability and bring down pricing?

Michael Happe

Analyst

Tristan, we are having productive conversations with most of our key suppliers about the need for them to pass on the reductions they are seeing in cost on their raw materials or from their suppliers to us. And in many cases, that is happening. In some situations, we have an index-based relationship with certain suppliers that just follows the curve of those indexes. But we are having good productive conversations with our larger suppliers on cost management. I would say where those discussions are the most challenging and where we continue to see headwinds concerning cost is in the motorized chassis category. Those suppliers are a little less agile in changing cost and in some cases, are still experiencing some cost increases that they are needing to pass on to OEMs like us. So net, we are getting good responses from our suppliers on continuing to manage, in some cases, lower the cost of our bill of materials.

Tristan Thomas-Martin

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Fred Wightman with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Hey guys. Good morning. I wanted to come back to the Grand Design Motorized launch. I mean if we just go back to when you guys acquired that brand back in 2016, you have seen a meaningful increase in sort of the consolidated market share stats for the company. And you have also talked about getting to something over 20% longer term. So, can you just frame sort of what you think the aspiration or contribution from that could be from a market share perspective or how you are sizing the potential contribution down the road?

Michael Happe

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Fred, today, between our two existing brands, Winnebago and Newmar, we run somewhere between, and it varies by quarter and by year, but we have run somewhere between 18% to 20% total market share in the Motorized segment between those two brands. We absolutely believe that the addition of Grand Design Motorized into our business strategy will be net incremental to that market share. I am not going to share a specific target at this time. But we would not be funding from a capital standpoint, the investment in this business strategy if it didn’t, a, have a standalone ROI that was projected to be positive. But b, it was meaningfully accretive to our overall share. We have been very intentional with internal conversations about minimizing cannibalization of our existing motorized revenue and share to the best of our ability as the Grand Design team rolls out this lineup over the course of the next several years. And this will be a graduated rollout of product over probably the next 2 years to 3 years beginning in probably our fourth quarter of fiscal ‘24. So, we anticipate that this will be – that, that target will be 20% plus. And I guess as we are ready to unveil some further details, we can potentially get more specific on what those aspirations are. But just know that for us, it has to be and will be incremental. And that will mean that the product will be important from a differentiation standpoint. But the way we attack the market from a dealer standpoint will also be important. We will be crafting a new Grand Design Motorhome dealer network that will consist of some of our existing Grand Design Towables dealers, but it will potentially consist of some dealers who do not carry the Grand Design Towables line today. And some of these dealers may or may not carry some of our existing motorized brands, Winnebago or Newmar. So, more details to come.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

That’s helpful. And then, Mike, in the past you have given some high-level commentary on industry retail and sort of the wholesale outlook. So, I didn’t hear that in your prepared remarks today. Is there anything that you could sort of share there or maybe why you decided to stop commenting on that, if that’s the case?

Michael Happe

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Fred, thanks for the question. We really didn’t plan to not comment. We just did not include that topic specifically in our script. Our position really hasn’t probably materially changed since our last earnings call, and I will explain what I mean by that. As we look at calendar 2024, there are many retail estimates out in the marketplace. Our latest on record comment was around 350,000 units of retail in calendar 2024, which would be roughly flat to where we think calendar 2023 will end. And so we continue to believe that, that is an appropriate target for calendar 2024. We do believe in calendar 2024, that by the end of that period, that wholesale shipments could approach a one-to-one total with that retail number. And so wholesale shipments could also equal 350,000 in calendar 2024, sands any unexpected macroeconomic developments or other issues. And so that’s our current position, which I don’t believe is meaningfully changed from the prior quarter. That’s where we stand.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Bret Jordan

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning guys. In total ASP expectations for mid-single digit to high-single digit decrease, could you talk about what you see being mix, the opening price point offerings that you are rolling out versus deflation just passing through lower same SKU prices?

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Yes. We introduced the – as you know, Bret, I think from our Open House, we introduced the Winnebago Access, which might have some mix impacts to a much smaller part of our portfolio in the Winnebago brand versus the larger portfolio of Grand Design. The intended message there of to 8%, say, down is more on a mix neutral basis. But I don’t – sitting here today, I don’t expect mix to play a really significant role in that ASP calculation. That might change as time progresses through calendar ‘24, but that’s how we see it sitting here today.

Bret Jordan

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Okay. Great. And then a question on the sort of the dealer sentiment at the Open House and the timing of the backlog expectation, I mean you guys were sort of talking about the first half of the fiscal year being a challenge. But are you expecting that they sit on those orders and hope for delivery after the Tampa show? I mean how do we think about the rest of calendar ‘23 from a sort of dealer sentiment production schedule?

Michael Happe

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Bret, this is Mike. Good morning, let me comment on that. First, let me talk about what we experienced at Open House with our business. So, at Open House, we had each of our three brands displaying. The Winnebago brand essentially has two sub businesses under it, motorhome and towables. Each of our four businesses at Open House, Newmar, Grand Design, Winnebago Motorized, Winnebago Towables experienced an order increase at Open House 2023 versus the open house in 2022 during that Open House week. So, we were really pleased coming out of Open House 2023 in spite of a very tepid dealer ordering environment to see that increase. And some of that is due to the new products that we have referenced here today. And even some we haven’t mentioned like the echo on a Mercedes Benz chassis underneath the Winnebago Motorhome business. That also drew a nice amount of orders in Elkhart. We have seen backlog sequentially improve in our largest segment, towables from June through September, which is a nice development. And I think I may have mentioned that in the script comments, but we are seeing that backlog beginning to grow again on the towables side. From a timing standpoint, we think that this will be contingent a bit on the retail pace, obviously, that dealers are experiencing. As I mentioned, minutes ago, we like our inventory position in the field at this time, meaning that we do not believe it’s excessive or old at all. And so our sales personnel are working with the dealers to have them take product as they are comfortable. We will not share production schedule information this morning in terms of this fall. But we are continuing to turn the dial on production rates based on that short-term backlog that we have. We did mention that the first two quarters of our fiscal 2024 year could be challenging primarily because, again, we think dealers are just going to be very disciplined about when they take the product as it is tied to retail results happening at their locations and/or any optimism they see about the market in the future. So again, we are pleased with our order position and some of the recent trends we have seen coming out of Open House.

Bret Jordan

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brandon Rolle with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Brandon Rolle, your line is open.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Brandon Rolle, your line is open.

Michelle, go ahead and move on to the next.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Noah Zatzkin with KeyBanc. Your line is open.

Noah Zatzkin

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Hoping you could compare and contrast a bit what you are seeing on the marine side in terms of retail demand, dealer inventory and dealer appetite relative to the RV side and just how you are thinking about the evolution of channel dynamics there moving through fiscal ‘24? Thanks.

Michael Happe

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open.

Yes. Good morning Noah, this is Mike. What’s interesting with our marine business and just a reminder that, obviously, we have a fast-growing pontoon brand in Barletta in a major segment of the market. And then we have a luxury brand in Chris-Craft in the very high end of the market. I will speak to the Pontoon segment specifically. We are seeing certainly dealers continuing to destock inventory in the Pontoon segment and work on aging aspects of that inventory mix. But what’s been positive about the pontoon category has been that the retail activity around that segment has been relatively stable especially as compared to some of the retail trends we saw in the RV segment over the last year. In fact, our Barletta retail fiscal year ‘24 to-date, the first six weeks or seven weeks is up meaningfully. We are up meaningfully at retail on Barletta through the first six weeks or so of our fiscal ‘24 year. But we are seeing the dealers continue to use that to normalize their inventories, but also they are disciplined taking in a product is also contributing to their destocking. So again, similar to my comments about our first and second quarters being challenged on the RV side, we think you will see that on the marine side as well as dealers continue to try to get their inventory in better position before some of the winter and spring marine shows once calendar year 2024 begins. But what I am most pleased about on the pontoon side is that we continue to see good retail for our brand, and we continue to take some share. We are around 7%, 7.1% of aluminum pontoons now with the Barletta brand and continue to be very pleased with that business’ future runway.

Noah Zatzkin

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open.

Thank you. Maybe just one quick housekeeping question. Did you mention which class the Grand Design Motorized launch will be focused on?

Michael Happe

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open.

We did not mention because we are not sharing specific details at this time. What we wanted to share with you all this morning was that the business strategy is happening and is being developed and worked on. The Grand Design team will choose the time in the future that they are comfortable sharing specific specs publicly about their new lineup that they are working on. And you can probably anticipate hearing or seeing something to that and probably in the early part of calendar year 2024. But again, more details to come in the future to that end.

Noah Zatzkin

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next [Technical Difficulty]

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Michelle, are you there?

Michael Happe

Analyst

Operator.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Those on the call just give us one minute, while we explore our connection there.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brandon Rolle with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst · D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Please check back with Craig Kennison as well, operator. Operator, please check back with Craig Kennison as well.

Operator

Operator

Brandon Rolle, your line is open.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Michelle, there seems to be some issues there with Brandon’s line. Can you check with Craig really quick? And if there is no further questions, then we will conclude the call.

Operator

Operator

Craig Kennison, your line is open. Craig has left the queue. I am not showing any further questions.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Yes. No further questions, then we can conclude the call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your participation. This does conclude the program and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Bryan Hughes

Analyst

Thank you for joining us everyone, please enjoy the rest of your day.