Brunswick - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. Welcome to Brunswick Corporation's Q4 and Full-year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer period. Today's meeting will be recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Neha Clark, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Finance, Brunswick Corporation. Thank you. You may begin.

Neha Clark (SVP of Enterprise Finance)

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call this morning are Dave Foulkes, Brunswick CEO, and Ryan Gwillim, CFO. Before we begin with our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, our comments will include certain forward-looking statements about future results. Please keep in mind that our actual results could differ materially from these expectations. For details on these factors to consider, please refer to our recent SEC filings and today's press release. All of these documents are available on our website at brunswick.com. During our presentation, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are provided in the appendix to this presentation and the reconciliation sections of the unaudited consolidated financial statements accompanying today's results. I will now turn the call over to Dave.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Neha, and good morning, everyone. Brunswick delivered another successful year in which we achieved the second highest sales and adjusted earnings per share in company history, despite market headwinds. We also continued to gain market share, increase our operational efficiency, launch exceptional new products, actively control costs, and progress our strategic initiatives, including our ACES strategy. Our full-year net sales of $6.4 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $8.80 were slightly below our guidance range, as wholesale customer ordering patterns softened late in the year. However, our diligent focus on cash generation resulted in outstanding free cash flow of $473 million and full-year free cash flow conversion of 76%. In addition, we executed $275 million of share repurchases.

Mercury Marine has continued to capture solid market share, with full-year U.S. outboard retail share up 50 basis points versus prior year. 2023 U.S. new boat market unit retail sales are anticipated to finish in line with our estimates of down mid- to high-single digits, with Brunswick Brands outperforming the market in many segments. As we moved out of the core 2023 retail selling season, we worked closely with our marine channel partners to actively manage boat field inventory levels, and we closed the year with 36.7 weeks on hand in the U.S., which is in line with our target and with historical norms. I'll now turn to some of the segment highlights for the quarter and full year.

Our propulsion business finished its second-best year on record, leveraging more exciting new products, market share gains, and operational efficiencies to deliver consistent year-over-year operating margins, despite slightly lower sales and earnings versus the historical highs in 2022. For the full year, Mercury gained 150 basis points of overall U.S. retail share for outboard engines over 30 horsepower, which account for the majority of Mercury's investment in recent years. In addition, over 5,000 Avator electric outboards were produced following the launch of the first model in early 2023. Mercury saw a slowing of OEM off-season orders as the OEMs scaled back boat production to control field inventory going into the new year. We expect OEMs to remain cautious entering the Q1 of 2024 as they assess consumer sentiment at early season boat shows and monitor the macro environment.

Our engine parts and accessories business demonstrated steady performance in the quarter, reflecting a continued improving sequential trend. Sales in the products portion of the business were up versus prior year for the second consecutive quarter, and our distribution business was only down slightly, with sequential improvement from the previous quarter. Overall, segment sales were up 22% on a full year basis versus 2019. Navico Group had a solid finish to the year as an increased flow of new products and continued focus on cost control, business integration, and complexity reduction helped offset a softer marine OEM market in the quarter and a considerably slower RV manufacturing environment. Finally, our boat business delivered sales and earnings in the quarter consistent with expectations, while continuing to ensure healthy pipeline inventory levels entering 2024.

Strong demand for premium products, together with market share gains in many categories, is helping to provide a stable baseline for 2024. Freedom Boat Club continues to grow and now has more than 410 locations. Members completed approximately 600,000 trips in 2023, demonstrating the productivity of the model. Shifting to external factors now. U.S. employment remains at healthy levels, with inflation continuing to stabilize. The cadence of Fed and global central bank interest rate reductions will continue to be an important factor in the coming months. Overall, boat retail sales are trending slightly above 2023, but unit sales in the month of January are always a small contribution to the year. Global early season boat shows are generally encouraging, with good traffic, interested buyers and healthy lead generation.

Normalized inventory levels are allowing consumers to shop for the models of their choice, and incentives continue to be important in stimulating interest and assisting dealers in closing sales. Our boat engine and technology brands continue to perform well, with Mercury recording outboard share gains at the important Düsseldorf Boat Show, achieving overall share of 48%. Dealers entered 2024 with healthy inventory and are cautious in their ordering entering the new year, as they closely monitor boat shows and retail at the start of the season, as well as the economic trajectory. We are pleased with interest in the recently launched Brunswick Retail Finance Program, with more than 25% of Brunswick boat dealers having already enrolled. The program provides an additional way to stimulate demand and convert leads with an efficient online consumer finance approval process and the ability to introduce promotional financing.

In addition, our investments in digital platforms continue to drive benefits across our brands, with more than a third of Boat Group sales digitally assisted in 2023. As expected, boat OEMs are carefully controlling boat production rates to align with anticipated retail in 2024, resulting in lower order rates for Mercury engines and Navico Group OEM products. The softness continues to be more prevalent in value products and low to mid-horsepower outboard engines, with premium product production and demand remaining more solid. Shifting now to a global view of revenue in the quarter. Overall, we saw a 15% sales decline on a constant currency basis, excluding acquisitions. On a full year basis, the U.S. market declined mid-single digits versus 2022, roughly in line with Europe and Asia Pacific.

U.S. new boat industry retail was slightly down in the Q4 versus 2022, with preliminary full year retail in line with expectations of down approximately 6% versus 2022. Overall, for the full year, Brunswick performed slightly better than the industry, picking up share, particularly through strong performance by our pontoon, premium fiberglass and tow brands, supported by planned promotions and marketing on select product lines. Outboard engine industry retail units turned positive this period, with a Q4 up 1% versus prior year, bringing full year unit retail to down 2%. Mercury continues to outperform the industry, with Q4 share gains of 50 basis points in greater than 30 horsepower categories.

As we actively manage both pipelines, we ended with inventory in line with expectations and historical norms, with U.S. weeks on hand at 36.7 weeks and 14,000 units, versus 16,000 units in 2019. International boat pipelines are slightly higher, which is normally the case. I'll now turn the call over to Ryan to provide additional comments on our financial performance and outlook.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Brunswick delivered a solid Q4 despite softer wholesale demand across our businesses. When compared to an extremely strong Q4 of 2022, net sales in the quarter were down 14% and adjusted EPS of $1.45 decreased 27%. However, we delivered a record Q4 free cash flow of $242 million, a 25% increase over prior year as we continue to focus the enterprise on generating cash and minimizing working capital usage. Sales were below prior year as the impact of cautious wholesale ordering patterns by dealers, OEMs and retailers, coupled with higher discounts in select segments, was only partially offset by successful new product momentum, positive mix, and pricing implemented in previous quarters.

Operating earnings and margin declined versus a record Q4 2022, resulting from the impact of lower net sales and prudent spending on growth initiatives, partially offset by ongoing cost containment efforts. For the full year, we delivered the second highest sales and adjusted EPS in Brunswick's history, just behind our 2022 performance. Our strong free cash flow of $473 million resulted in second half free cash flow conversion of 143%, again, reflecting our continued focus on driving cash in this challenging market. Now we'll look at each reporting segment, starting with our propulsion business. Revenue was down 12% versus the Q4 of 2022, primarily due to cautious OEM ordering patterns, partially offset by continued market share gains in outboard engines and the acquisition of Fliteboard, completed earlier in the year.

Operating margins increased by 110 basis points versus Q4 2022, as the impact of the sales declines and higher labor inflation costs were more than offset by cost control and reduced material inflation. As Dave mentioned earlier, as we exit 2023 and enter 2024, we anticipate that we will continue to maintain our progressive market share gains, but that our propulsion business will be impacted by additional reductions in boat OEM production levels that may not abate until the start of the primary retail selling season in 2024. This will enable us to sell more engines into the dealer channel, but the overall impact will still be a decrease in overall market demand for engines. The engine parts and accessories business continued to improve sequentially throughout the year, with Q4 sales essentially flat versus 2022.

The high-margin products business grew sales by 3% versus prior year, while distribution sales were down 4% as trends have continued to improve in both businesses from early 2023. Segment operating earnings and margins decreased in the quarter, with the slight net sales decline and higher manufacturing costs more than offsetting the impact of pricing and lower operating expenses versus prior year. Navico Group reported a 17% decrease in sales as the business experienced softer marine OEM orders and the continued weak RV manufacturing environment in the quarter. Segment operating margins decreased in the quarter, primarily as a result of the net sales declines, which more than offset the benefit of lower operating expenses.

Despite an overall challenging 2023, Navico continues to make strides against its strategic priorities, including removing almost $20 million of structural costs while improving its product development process and continuing to invest in market-leading technologies and expand its customer base for integrated and connected solutions. Finally, our boat business delivered sales and earnings in the quarter consistent with expectations, while continuing to ensure healthy pipeline inventory levels as we enter 2024. Sales were down 22% versus Q4 of 2022, but sales in our more premium saltwater fish segment, which includes Boston Whaler, grew 5% year-over-year. Adjusted operating margins and earnings were down primarily due to the lower sales, partially offset by focused cost reduction activities.

Freedom Boat Club, which is included in business acceleration, had another solid quarter, contributing approximately 8% of the boat segment's revenue during the quarter, while seeing very steady membership levels despite the macroeconomic uncertainty. We successfully executed our capital strategy in 2023, ending the year with $480 million of cash, while funding strategic growth in our businesses and returning capital to shareholders. We deployed $289 million for capital expenditures on exciting new products and growth projects across our businesses, which we believe will drive future revenue and earnings growth. In addition, as Dave mentioned, we took advantage of market and Brunswick share value dislocation, repurchasing $275 million of our shares, representing approximately 3.5 million shares, or 5% of the company. We also increased our dividends for the 11th consecutive year.

Finally, our investment-grade credit rating remains strong, reflecting a healthy balance sheet and net leverage of 1.8 times. We will refinance our 2024 notes during the first half of this year, with our strong liquidity and cash flow generation capabilities continuing to provide investment and spending flexibility across the enterprise. 2024 has the potential to be a year of steadily easing financial conditions, and while we enter the year with a cautious outlook, particularly on the Q1, we remain extremely focused on driving earnings while delivering steady free cash flow and resilient EPS, which we believe will result in continued strong shareholder returns. Our disciplined pipeline management, strong operational performance, and continued investment in new product and growth, coupled with prudent cost containment actions and a thoughtful capital strategy, provide the necessary controllable levers in this uncertain consumer and business environment.

For fiscal 2024, we anticipate revenue of between $6 billion and $6.2 billion, adjusted operating margins of between 12% and 13%, and adjusted EPS in the range of $7 to $8. We continue to see positive free cash flow conversion and working capital trends and anticipate generating more than $350 million of free cash flow for the year. Please see the appendix for additional guidance regarding anticipated segment metrics. We thought it would also be useful to provide a short walk from our 2023 adjusted EPS to our 2024 guidance, along with providing more insight on our planned 2024 OpEx. The main driver of the 2024 EPS reduction is the absence of pipeline fill across our business units, as our channel inventory levels are fresh and at appropriate levels to start the season.

A little more than half of the impact relates to our propulsion business, as they continued to fill OEM and dealer pipelines well into 2023, with the remainder split evenly between our Boat Group and Navico. If retail demand exceeds our expectations, we anticipate that dealers and retailers will reorder product more consistent with historical patterns, which will provide a potential benefit later in 2024 or into 2025. We then have approximately $0.50 of impact from increased tariffs, interest expense, and a slightly higher tax rate. Although these three items are primarily uncontrollable, we will do our best to mitigate and minimize these expenses as we move throughout the year. Lastly, we will continue to take actions to rightsize our enterprise cost structure....

Although OpEx will increase slightly year-over-year, the increase is primarily related to the Fliteboard and Freedom Boat Club acquisitions from 2023, together with normal cost inflation and resetting variable compensation back to target levels. We are countering these items by planning to remove no less than $40 million of structural costs across the enterprise. Countering these headwinds are several tailwinds, mostly within our control. We anticipate continuing to take market share in outboard engines, especially in high horsepower categories, while also taking share in premium boat categories and certain marine electronic categories where new products will drive growth. We also plan to be aggressive with share repurchases, especially early in the year. I will wrap up the financial update by sharing some P&L, cash flow, and other capital strategy assumptions for the year.

First, we expect a modest working capital usage for the year, reflecting our continued enterprise goal of lowering inventory levels to match anticipated sales while generating cash. Our slightly higher depreciation versus prior year reflects the additional capital invested in our businesses in recent years, with acquisition amortization, which we exclude from our adjusted results being similar to prior year. It's been a few years since we've had to discuss tariffs, but despite a favorable exemption extension into the spring, we anticipate paying $15 million more tariffs versus 2023. These tariffs are primarily related to components sourced from China, used in our primary outboard manufacturing facility in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, along with the importation of 40-60 horsepower engines produced at our Suzhou, China, assembly plant.

Lastly, our tax department does an outstanding job of prudently and appropriately minimizing our tax footprint, and we anticipate a 23% effective tax rate on adjusted earnings for 2024, which is slightly higher than 2023. Finally, this page shows several capital strategy and other financial assumptions as we begin the year. On capital strategy, we anticipate being very active with share repurchases, as I just mentioned, and to support this effort, earlier this week, our board of directors approved a fresh share repurchase authorization of $500 million, which we plan to put to good use. We will have a higher net interest expense in 2024, resulting from the eventual refinancing of the 2024 notes, but are also planning $100 million of debt reduction to minimize the impact. We also anticipate increasing our dividend in February for the 12th straight year.

On FX, we currently think that rates will have a neutral to slightly negative impact on full year earnings, but this can obviously swing either way, predominantly on the strength of the U.S. dollar versus the euro and a few other currencies used by our global businesses. Finally, you'll notice a reduction in planned CapEx for the year. Although we plan to continue funding many projects and investments in products and technology for future growth, we are in harvest phase of many of our larger products from recent years and plan to be able to scale back spending slightly without sacrificing any future growth plans. I will now pass the call back over to Dave for concluding remarks.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Ryan. With field inventory at normalized levels and consumers having their choice of products, it is vital that Brunswick continues to differentiate through a rapid flow of exciting new products and technology. In just the first few weeks of 2024, Brunswick launched over 15 new products across its brands and businesses. In January, we again participated in the Consumer Electronics Show, where we launched two higher horsepower models in the Mercury Avator electric outboard lineup, which now contains five models in total. Demand for Avator remains solid, with nearly 60% of shipments in 2023 going to Europe. Sea Ray introduced the new SDX 270 and 270 Surf model with next generation features, styling and comfort.

The SDX Surf is the first model in the SDX line to feature the Mercury Bravo Four S forward-facing drive and an intuitive wake surfing control system designed jointly by Mercury Marine and Navico Group. Brunswick's Princecraft, Harris and Lowe brands also introduced multiple new products at early season shows, featuring Mercury Marine and Navico Group technology. We are also very excited about the new segment-leading Simrad NSX ULTRAWIDE, the industry's first full functionality, high-definition, multifunction display, which features a 16 by 9 screen aspect ratio and showcases the seamless interface of the latest Simrad Android operating system. And finally, Freedom Boat Club continues to grow organically and through acquisition, including through the acquisitions of its Savannah and Hilton Head franchise territories in late 2023 and two new franchise locations in Spain already announced in 2024.

Before we conclude, I'm thrilled to highlight the exceptional accomplishments of our teams from across the enterprise that were recognized with a record high number of awards in 2023, and continue to be recognized in early 2024. We wrapped 2023 with 115 major awards for our products, technology, people and culture. Just in early 2024, the new Harris 250 Crowne won the NMMA Innovation Award at the Minneapolis Boat Show.

...The new Sea Ray 260 SLX won European Powerboat of the Year, and the Sea Ray 260 SLX won Boating Magazine Boat of the Year in its category. In addition, Brunswick's products and teams are nominated for multiple awards at the upcoming Miami Boat Show. Thank you again to all our talented Brunswick employees who make these prestigious awards possible. Which leads me to remind you to join us at our investor and analyst event on February 15th, 2024, at the Miami International Boat Show, where we look forward to hosting you to see the latest products and technologies from across our brands and businesses, as well as meet with members of our management team. Thank you for joining the call. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue, and for a participant choosing speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please ask one question and one follow-up question. Our first question is from Matthew Boss with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.

Matthew Boss (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. So Dave, maybe could you help rank the top-line drivers by segment and just visibility today to improvement as the year progresses? If we could just bridge the delta between the more than 20% decline expected in the Q1 to the full year guide of down mid-single digits. That, I think that would be really helpful.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Hi, Matthew. Yeah, I think the fact is really similar across all of our businesses to some extent, and it's really the fact that we saw in, particularly the December of the Q4, reduced demand from marine OEMs, and more production shutdowns, which had an impact on our Mercury wholesale orders and Navico Group, Navico Group wholesale orders. As well as, of course, we reduced production to meet our year-end targets for boat inventory and get to that 37 weeks on hand. So the Q1, we anticipate continued cautious ordering across wholesale by Mercury's OEM customers, which is about kind of 80% of their sales, and Navico Group's OEM marine customers, which is about 30% of their sales.

We obviously will be continuing to be to meet our own boat production during that period. What we anticipate, based on early season retail, or confirmed, I think, by early season retail now, is that orders will begin to pick up to more normalized levels as we enter the main selling season. In Q1, as we get to the end of Q1, we're seeing new boat retail going to bump about 10% versus last year, which is an encouraging sign. I would say that the factors really affect all of our divisions somewhat similarly, and it is the production and wholesale ordering getting back to more normalized levels in Q2 forward.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Matthew, good morning, it's Ryan. Just a reminder, Q1 of 2023, we were very much still filling pipelines in just about all engine categories and even boats, if you remember. So it is a more challenging comparison, and I would, if you're modeling it out, the Q1 of 2024 should look relatively similar to the Q4 of 2023, as Dave mentioned.

Matthew Boss (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. And then maybe just to follow up, Ryan, as we consider the, I think it's roughly 12% operating margin at the lower end of this year's guide as maybe a potential floor, could you just elaborate on the, the $40 million structural cost savings that you cited in your remarks? Where in the organization that you found efficiencies, and are there further opportunities that you see for potentially additional savings?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah, Matthew, I mean, it, this is a cross-enterprise project that we're undertaking. And frankly, it's just to right-size the overall cost structure of the enterprise. If you think about where our strategic plan and our targets are, we're still very confident in those, but getting there to 2027 is going to take a little bit. The shape of that is kind of unfolding as we'd expect, which is 2024 being a little bit more muted and then picking back up in the out years. We just need to make sure that our cost structure matches that same shape.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Those actions are in-flight actions.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

If we need to find more, we always find a way.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

That's right.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from James Hardiman with Citi. Please proceed.

James Hardiman (Managing Director, Leisure and Travel Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. So, I wanted to talk about inventory. You guys have said that you feel pretty good about where you sit today. Seems like a lot of other players in the industry are speaking to inventories being too high. I guess, you know, what do you think the difference is there? Do you think you've controlled your own inventories better than maybe some other OEMs? And does it matter, if that's the case, if you're ultimately competing with those that haven't? And I guess, how do we think about inventory to finish 2024, whether in terms of units or weeks on hand?

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

... Yeah. Hi, James. Thank you for the question. Yeah, I-- you know, we, we did see a lot of commentary about, other, OEMs noting higher than desired inventory levels. We are very comfortable with our inventory levels. I think we, we, explained that we had, put a lot of effort into managing inventory in the back half of the year. We did see some relatively abrupt, changes in production patterns in December from some of Mercury's OEM customers. Our production did not change as abruptly because we began to, I think, meter it down somewhat earlier. And yeah, honestly, despite the, commentary, yeah, we feel extremely good about our, inventory levels. Does it matter, you know, what the industry does?

Well, it makes it more difficult for us to predict Mercury and Navico Group wholesale sales, because we tend to experience more kind of choppy ordering patterns in the back half of Q4, and we may be the same in the first half of Q1. But I feel like, based on our retail performance in January, which you know is a very small month, but still somewhat encouraging, I don't think we're suffering. I think we have the right level of retail incentives, dealer incentives to stimulate demand, and I think we have the right inventory levels, so I'm very comfortable where we are.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

And then the last part of your question was, how do you think you'll end 2024? The plan is to have inventory levels below 2023 end of year levels by the end of this year. Not dramatically, but down a handful of weeks on hand. If retail continues to be a little bit outpacing maybe our expectations, then, you know, we can maneuver that a little bit. But right now, the plan would be a few weeks of weeks on hand, lower at the end of 2024 than 2023.

James Hardiman (Managing Director, Leisure and Travel Analyst)

Got it. Really helpful. And then, you know, as, as we sort of contemplate this, this 2024 guidance, it sits somewhere between, you know, when you gave us the recession scenarios, sort of the modest and the, the, the severe recession, despite not being in a recession, and I don't point that out to, to sort of knock your, you know, projections two years ago. But I guess maybe speak to what the, the divergence is. I, I guess, as it occurs to me, back then, w-we weren't necessarily thinking that, that the macro weakness would be as interest rate driven as it appears to have been.

Maybe speak to that, and I guess what I'm really trying to figure out is, if rates, in fact, do come down starting this year, is there an opportunity for a snapback maybe more quickly than we would otherwise see in a, you know, in previous sort of post-recession scenario?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah, James, maybe I'll start with that, and then Dave can fill in. Yeah, the... It's always interesting when you come out with a downside scenario, you gotta live with it, kind of in perpetuity. But we knew that we would get this question, obviously, on the call this morning. You know, the difference really is kind of two things. One's the starting point. If you remember, this was a one-year scenario that we came out with in 2022, at a time where we were coming off a kind of a $10 EPS number, or had a $10 budget, excuse me, for 2022 EPS. And we are anticipating what would happen if the world dropped off in one year.

That year also had some pipeline fill in it, where Boat Group, although the retail sales would drop off, I think we said 30%-35% at retail, that the wholesale would actually hold in a little better. This, as we said today, the real difference is two: one, there is no pipeline refill remaining really in both boats or engines, but two, really, the P&A businesses as a whole, they haven't performed any different than we anticipated, but they have performed a little different from a starting point.

If you remember, really, peak P&A season was end of 2021 and into 2022, and despite still having a CAGR of kind of 8%-9% over the last five years, that business has come off a little bit from a high, really, those two years that we, that we gave the downside scenario. So if you take the midpoint of our range, kind of at $750, you probably got a little bit of good news on propulsion, a little trailing on P&A. Shares are obviously a good guy because we've been buying back a little more. And then the last thing I'd say is an investment, really in the ACES, in all of our ACES categories that has driven about, you know, maybe $0.40-$0.50 of cost, but we're obviously happy to do that.

So that's, that's really the difference.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Mike Swartz with Truist Securities. Please proceed.

Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)

Hey, guys. Just wanted to touch on the propulsion guidance and more specifically, just the margin assumptions. It looks like you're kind of embedding in that guidance about 16% margins, which is a step down of about 200 basis points. From the commentary you provided on the call, it sounds like, you know, mix, both product mix and channel mix should be positives. Just help us walk through how you get to that 200 basis point decline.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Hey, good morning, Mike. Yeah, then again, this was one that we kind of knew would get folks' attention. You know, it really starts with absorption, just due to lower volume. If you look on the EPS bridge, you noted the pipeline, the lack of pipeline fill being a big driver on EPS. And a chunk of that is obviously volume and sales related, but that also hurts absorption in the facility, certainly in the Fond du Lac facility, with lower volume. So absorption is certainly the number one. Tariffs is number two, about $15 million more of tariffs, and that just goes right to COGS. And, you know, we're doing our best to offset it by doing other things and where we do final assembly, but it's still, you know, $15 million is hard to cover.

And then we are in a position where input costs, material and labor are elevated a little bit over prior year. Not a terrible amount, but our ability to price over that, although positive, so price, PNOC, price over input cost is still positive. The spread there, the available price over input cost is not as large, so the goodness is not as large. Those three things are really the primary drivers, and they're really all in gross margin. I would note that as per usual, Mercury does a fantastic job of moderating their cost structure, and their OpEx is targeted to be relatively flat year over year, and that's inclusive of absorbing all the OpEx from Fliteboard, which is the October acquisition, obviously, and a resetting of CapEx to target levels.

Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, Ryan. And maybe just a second question. You know, as we think about the lower end of the earnings range and the higher end of the range, I mean, maybe walk us through the big four or five, you know, factors driving that. How do you get to the top end? How do you get to the bottom end?

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

I think, Mike, for the, oh, you know, just one addition to the previous, point is that the absorption issue really overindexes towards Q1, because we don't want to get rid of people, line operators in Q1 that we're going to need in Q2. So there's a kind of compounding effect in Q1 that will normalize through the other quarters in the year. In terms of, top and, bottom of the range, I think bottom of the range would have to be, further macro, weakness than we anticipate. If, if retail sales hang in at roughly flat to the, to last year, it's difficult to see the bottom of the... But we don't need a lot of, kind of market tailwind, to get above the midpoint, really.

I think our assumption of wholesale boat units, actually, production going down this year in terms of being about 1,000 units below retail is probably a bit on the pessimistic side. And then, especially with the cost reductions that we will implement in any market scenario that we've already described, I think that will help our leverage, particularly benefit EPS. So I would say downside would have to be additional macro risk of some kind. Upside is a bit better tailwind from the market.

Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Megan Alexander with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Megan Alexander (Executive Director)

Hi. Yeah, I don't want to belabor it, but just did have a follow-up on that propulsion margin answer, if I could. Everything you said makes sense, but if I sit here and take kind of that $15 million tariff out, just to kind of look apples to apples versus last year, I'm still getting, you know, somewhere in the range of 45%-ish decremental margins. I think you've historically kind of talked about volume deleverage in the 20%-30% range. So can you just maybe help us understand the discrepancy there? Because it just seems pretty large.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah, no, Megan, you're right. You know, there's the absorption hit is real. I mean, it's coming off of a first and Q2 where we were running about as hard as we could in that facility and really into the Q3. And then back to scaling back to kind of normal production levels for this year. I mean, we're taking call it a little bit more than 10% of production out of Fond du Lac here year-over-year. It's you know becomes a more material piece of the puzzle. And you know, as Dave said, don't sleep a little bit on the input costs.

And again, it's a good story that PNOC is positive, but in past years, that spread would have been, you know, could have been $50 million, $60 million, $70 million, and this year it's half of that. So the ability for us to price over some of the input cost inflation is a bit challenging. But and lastly, I would just tell you, you know, the guidance is, you know, we're some of these are estimates. Obviously, if the world looks a little better, I think we all know that Mercury can outperform that margin guidance. But as we said today, I think it's a kind of middle-of-the-road margin of where we think we can land the year.

Megan Alexander (Executive Director)

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And then maybe just another follow-up. Would you be able to quantify maybe what the pipeline fill was last year and more of what's just a hard compare in the Q1 versus what you've embedded in terms of what you're seeing as it relates to the cautious wholesale ordering patterns? Just particularly on propulsion, as we're trying to get a sense for how to think about the cadence of that segment, in particular, beyond the Q1.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah. So if you think that whole—that production levels at Fond du Lac will be down kind of 10-ish% year-over-year, a lot of that is going to be in the first and Q2 of the year, and most of that is kind of 75 to, you know, it's below 300 horsepower. There's really no shortage of 300 and above. So most of that 10% would be the Q1 and a little bit of the second.

Megan Alexander (Executive Director)

Okay, appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Craig Kennison with Baird. Please proceed.

Craig Kennison (Director of Research Operations and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. It's been a helpful call, as always. I guess I wanted to dig into Navico a bit. I think we're coming on the three-year anniversary this summer of that transaction. And I guess, Dave, I'd be curious to get your take on, you know, what has gone well and what has not gone so well.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Craig. Yes, coming up on the three-year anniversary. So I think what's gone well is, I continue to believe that Navico is absolutely the right asset for us to own. There was nothing like it in the marketplace, and there still isn't anything like it in the marketplace. It plays very strongly to our move really from a boat company to technology company. It really has some of the best technology assets in the business. And despite the fact that the financial performance is not what we'd originally anticipated at this time, I would say there are several factors in covering that that I'll talk about in a second. It is actually doing well, extremely well in a lot of those subsegments of electronics.

It continues to do well in producing unique solutions that nobody else can produce, like the Fathom system. We're beginning to see a flow of new products that reflect our directions, like the Ultrawide, which is, I mean, extraordinarily well-received, and other things that will be coming out late in the year. So I think the asset is the right asset for us. We just bought it ahead of a market downturn. One of the things I guess is, if you think about Navico's kind of mix, it's about kind of 30% marine OEM, 10%-12% RV and specialty vehicles, and a little bit less than 60% aftermarket.

I think what we did not foresee, a couple of things we didn't foresee really were the destocking that it's experienced over the past several years, that we think is essentially troughed now, and also the really severe decline in RV manufacturing that it continues to experience. So those are the things that we have had to combat. Now, I would tell you that, you know, Navico was about 10% up in March 2023. We expect that margin to expand in 2024 as a combination of new products takes hold and also as the full year effect of cost reductions take hold. So I would say positives are strategic benefit and new products coming out.

Some of the negatives are more associated with how the market has performed generally, including destocking in the past 2, 3 years.

Craig Kennison (Director of Research Operations and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Thank you, Dave. That's very helpful. And if I could just drill down, like with Mercury, we can very clearly see your share gains show up in the industry data, but it's less obvious for Navico, whether you are getting a larger share of wallet from your OEM customers as you sort of integrate all of those solutions along the lines of your ACES strategy. So I'm just curious, is there a way to frame, you know, your share of wallet across the Navico portfolio?

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, we have not broken that out, but since you asked the question, I think we can look into whether we do that on a more systematic basis going forward. I can tell you that the Simrad brand has gained market share last year and continues to do extremely well, and we imagine that only accelerating as the Ultrawide, which is unique in the marketplace, takes hold. Obviously, Craig, you'll be at Miami, and hopefully, you'll see a whole bunch of Fathom systems appearing. And you could call that market share gain if you think about it as the number of OEMs for which we perform fully integrated services. But it's a good question, and we will think about whether we can establish some KPIs that make it more easy to track.

Craig Kennison (Director of Research Operations and Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Hey, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Xian Siew with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Xian Siew (Senior Analyst, Leisure Equity Research)

Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. I wanted to ask about the Engine P&A guidance. Looks like revenues are kind of expected to be flattish, but EBIT margin is up, I think, 150 basis points. Could you maybe walk through some of the drivers there?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah, happy to. That is really a bit of a mixed story. We think that distribution will still be a little bit sluggish, certainly in the first part of the year, but that our products business, the higher margin products business, will be up, as it has been really the last handful of quarters. So that... remember, that's a business that generally takes a point or two of price, and generally, the market is, you know, another one or two points. We think that's gonna kind of play through on the product side, with distribution trailing a bit. The other item to remember is the Brownsburg transition in our facility, our new facility in Indianapolis, or just outside, continues to go well.

It's been a bit of a, you know, it's been a harder lift in 2023 than anticipated, but the comp should be a little better going into 2024 and beyond.

Xian Siew (Senior Analyst, Leisure Equity Research)

Okay. Got it. Thanks. And then maybe in the 2024 guidance bridge, which is helpful, you also have $0.30 from other as a benefit. What is that exactly?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

...A lot of that is gross margin factors, and there are, I mean, there's a, there's a kind of a laundry list of them that we, we didn't want to make the slide any more busy than it was. But you can, you know, think of various COGS and other initiatives that we're doing above the OpEx line that will help to offset some of the sales softness, certainly in the first half of the year.

Xian Siew (Senior Analyst, Leisure Equity Research)

Got it. So it's like a gross margin. Okay.

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Yeah, it's mostly all. It's a litany of gross margin goodness. A lot of them are programs that each of our divisions are doing to take costs out at the COGS level, instead, and also at the same time working on their OpEx.

Xian Siew (Senior Analyst, Leisure Equity Research)

Okay. Thank you, guys. Good luck.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Fred Wightman with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Fred Wightman (Director and Analyst)

Hey, guys. I wanted to come back to the engine repower comments. I'm a little bit surprised that you're talking about not having as much of a pipeline opportunity there, just given some of the OEM backlog comments that you guys have made historically. I know that you sort of stopped giving the OEMs who wanted to transition to Mercury power, but are you still seeing conversion for that backlog? Is that conversion more muted, just given what's going on with retail and wholesale? How does that sort of share opportunity stand on, like, a backlog go-forward basis?

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. So maybe I'll start and Ryan could pick up. We did note share gain as—and clearly, part of that share gain is Mercury getting into more OEMs and getting more share of existing OEMs. There are a couple of notables coming across the line. I think you might see a few in Miami already. So we're continuing to convert. I think, though, if you look at the overall market, obviously the way the market is behaving is affecting every OEM, and that is somewhat reflected in the $1.50 that Ryan included in the at the start of the bridge. But the additional OEMs that we're bringing on board, and we do continue to do that, and increase mix in others is reflected in that $0.50 of share opportunity.

Fred Wightman (Director and Analyst)

Okay. And if we could shift to the boat business. I mean, you guys just posted almost a 6% operating margin in a quarter where you were down over 20% in sales. And if we look historically, I think you guys would be really, really happy with the 6% margin, agnostic of sales for up, down, or sideways. So can you just sort of help us, you know, maybe give a state of the union for the downside margin performance of that? I mean, you've talked about getting back to double digits historically, understanding that it's a tough wholesale environment today, but, you know, is that 6% a pretty good floor going forward?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Hey, Fred, I'll take this, and Dave can fill in. Yeah, we are pretty happy. I mean, given that volume is down almost 20%, as you said, off of a Q4 2022, where we did hit that 10% operating margin, which I believe was the fourth out of five quarters we did it in a row. Yeah, we're pretty happy with that Q4 performance, and that's in an environment where we have a little bit extra discounting to spur retail, certainly in the start of the season. But it also reflects some really nice operational improvements, really across all of our brands. You know, the Boat Group's done a great job of taking OpEx out and keeping it out.

And so, yeah, I would say 6% is a, is a pretty nice floor for a quarter where volume is, is where it was. I think, you know, you've seen the guidance for the full year, and in a year where we're still going to produce a little bit lower than we did in 2023, holding margins into that kind of 6%-8% for the full year number is something that, you know, a handful of years ago would have been pretty darn impossible. So it's a testament to the operating chops at all the businesses, but certainly the focus on taking OpEx out and keeping it out.

Fred Wightman (Director and Analyst)

Perfect. Thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from Scott Stember with Roth MKM. Please proceed.

Scott Stember (Executive Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions as well.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Scott.

Scott Stember (Executive Director, Senior Research Analyst)

It sounds like you guys are looking for a flattish, boat market this year. What are your assumptions, as far as getting some help from interest rate reductions from the Fed?

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I think the interest rate reductions from the Fed and also other global central banks, given our presence in Europe particularly, but also in other markets, has two effects. One is directly impacts financing costs, and the other is frees up kind of family budgets, discretionary spending more broadly. And maybe a tertiary effect is just consumer confidence. So there are a number of kind of tailwinds that hopefully when that cycle begins, will be introduced. I would say that the there is a lot of promotional financing around at the moment, including from us. But you will—if you go to boat shows or if you look online, you will see many companies offering promotional rates. So I would, I would say that a lot of people are not paying...

Unless that credit rating is not high, they're probably not paying the nominal rate, which at the moment has dropped about 50 basis points to about kind of 8.5%. I think probably more people are seeing 5.99%, 6.99% rates. One of the things we are seeing, though, is we continue to see a lot more cash buyers. And even though the promotional interest rates pull people in, a lot of cases, the deal closes with people taking the cash and paying cash. So I think the primary effect will be there, but the secondary and tertiary effects of more discretionary income and consumer confidence are at least equally as important.

Scott Stember (Executive Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. And then, last question on the engine side, repower. I guess one of the theories is, as you guys have more production capabilities and as the OEM side is falling back a little bit in a tougher economy, that boat owners would repower their boats with some of your newer products. A, are you starting to see that yet? And B, could you just remind us of the margin delta on an engine between repower and OEM?

Ryan Gwillim (EVP, CFO and Strategy Officer)

Thanks, Scott. Yeah, I mean, repower actually had a really nice second half and probably will have a pretty good first half. We actually gained, you know, 500 basis points of repower share in the year, which is pretty, pretty big. But still, our repower share trails our overall U.S. share, so there's still room to run there. You know, we don't talk exacts on margins, but the, you know, the retail dealer margin certainly is stronger than OEM, just based on volume. So that is definitely a positive on the operating margin side, but we don't comment on exactly how much that is. But yeah, very good repower, not only in the U.S., but internationally as well.

Scott Stember (Executive Director, Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's all for me. Thank you.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

At this time, we would like to turn the call back over to Dave for some concluding remarks.

David Foulkes (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you. Well, thank you all for joining us again, and for the great questions. We really appreciate them. Despite the challenges, we again delivered a very strong year, the second best ever. Please forget that, but we're trying to make sure you don't. Which I think continues to demonstrate the resilience of our portfolio. Free Cash Flow generation was a particular highlight, I think, in the second half of the year, and gives us additional flexibility as we go into 2024. As we noted a couple of times, OEM and dealer customers will likely continue to be cautious in their ordering through a portion of the Q1. But, we think we've equipped ourselves very well for the start of 2024. Pipelines are at appropriate levels. We have a wealth of new products. We have great digital properties.

We have a well thought out mix of incentives. We're also, as Ryan mentioned a couple of times, continuing to control costs. I would say that we prefer this year of increasing guidance. So, you know, we're looking—it's exciting, I think, that we're off to a good start with retail. Boat show, we didn't talk much about, but boat show sales are maybe single digits down versus last year, but improving as we go through the year. Mix is significantly up into kind of 15% to 20%, kind of mix up versus last year, which is very encouraging.

So, we could talk about all of those things and introduce you to our new products at our investor and analyst event in Miami on February 14. We look forward to seeing you all there. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.