Blue Bird - Earnings Call - Q2 2017

Transcript

Speaker 0

Greetings and welcome to the Blue Bird Corporation Fiscal twenty seventeen Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mark Benfield, Director of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Mr. Benfield. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Devin. Welcome to Blue Bird's fiscal second quarter twenty seventeen earnings conference call. The audio for today's call is webcast live on bluebird.com under the Investor Relations tab. You can access the supporting slides on our website by clicking on the Presentations box on the Investor Relations landing page. Our comments today include forward looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different.

Those risks include, among others, matters we have noted in our latest earnings release and filings with the SEC. Blue Bird disclaims any obligation to update the information in this call. This afternoon, you will hear from Blue Bird's President and CEO, Phil Horlock and CFO, Phil Tighe. Then we will take some questions. So let's get started.

Phil?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark. Well, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our fiscal twenty seventeen second quarter earnings call. We welcome this opportunity to share with you our latest quarter results. So let's start with an overview of our sales and financial performance on Slide four. As we've explained in prior calls, the school bus business is extremely seasonal and first half sales typically represent around 35 to 40% of the full year sales.

Well, despite the typically slow first half, we achieved strong sales results in the second quarter with almost 2,400 buses sold, which is 11% higher than last year's second quarter and importantly, a 59% increase over the first quarter. So for the first half of the year, our unit sales were up a strong 9%. At $2.00 $9,000,000 second quarter net sales were 9% higher than last year. So the net sales revenue growth was a little slower than the unit sales growth of 11%, which we expected as customer mix and timing of specific customer orders do change between quarters from year to year. Our alternative fuel powered school bus sales mix was strong at 22%, up from 13% mix of sales last year.

Now as a reminder, in alternative fuels, we count all of our propane, compressed natural gas and gasoline powered school buses as all of these are alternatives to diesel, which has been the stable fuel for years. For the last several years, we've been achieving significant growth in alternative fuel bus sales and we have not slowed down this year. As you'll hear later, we expect another great year for the industry's best selling alternative fuel school bus. Our adjusted EBITDA of $8,100,000 was down about $2,000,000 from last year. The profit decline from last year reflects the change in customer mix that I mentioned earlier and investments we are making to drive future growth.

This was a solid result and consistent with our full year plan. Both our cash and debt positions improved from last year with net debt about $38,000,000 lower than a year ago. On the production side, we have been running on two shifts all year and we ramped up from 59 buses a day in the first quarter to 65 buses a day in the second quarter. Now we progressively increased production until we hit seven units a day in support of the peak season demand. This ensures that we can meet customer delivery dates in time for school start.

That's very important in this business we operate in. This trough to peak increase in daily production rate of only 11 buses is manageable, resulting in less seasonal hires than prior years. That's better for training, better for quality and better for employee turnover. This contrasted last year's production rate when we had to increase production by 24 units a day through the year, which was far more challenging. So we're in a much better position and we look forward to finishing out the 2017 fiscal year.

And finally, both industry data registrations and actual orders received together with a higher quote activity that we are seeing support our position that new school bus industry should grow by 3% to 4% this year and reach around 33,500 to 34,000 new buses. So all in all, a solid second quarter for Blue Bird and in line with our expectations. Let me now review our second quarter key operating achievements on Slide five. We recorded a number of significant achievements and each one will make us more competitive and support our growth going forward. Through our dealer network, we've seen more than a 20% increase in units quoted over last year.

Now some of that is double counted because of our breadth of engine offerings where customers are quoted not only for diesel, but also propane and gasoline and compressed natural gas. But this is a really good indicator of the strength of the industry and in particular our customer invest in Blue Bird's unique and expansive product range. We are seeing that translate into orders as through Monday of this week, our fiscal year to date volume of buses already sold and delivered plus our backlog of firm orders is up 8% from the same time last year. I can tell you now that our third quarter production slots are completely filled and we are well on our way to filling our fourth quarter slots with firm non cancelable orders. As I mentioned in prior earnings calls, a cornerstone of our product strategy is to bring to market differentiated products and features that customers want and value.

While we have been working on making our class leading propane powered school bus even better, and we expect to receive certification any day now from the California Air Resource Board to the lowest level of emissions of any propane school bus manufacturer. In fact, on certification, our recognized NOx level, which is a barometer for emissions will be one quarter of that of our competitors' propane buses. That's another great environmental reason for choosing Blue Bird propane. Same with alternative fuels, as I mentioned earlier, we are seeing the biggest growth in orders in this segment of our business and that continues the trend we have seen these past few years. As a reminder, in the last year, we launched our latest generation propane powered bus.

We call it our Gen four, an all new and first to market gasoline powered bus and an all new Type C bus powered by compressed natural gas. These three products which are all exclusive to us through our contractual partnership with Ford Motor Company and Raj CleanTech together with our compressed natural gas type D bus powered by Cummins Westport engine represent a substantial 43% increase in orders compared with the same time last year. Importantly, just this year, two seventy five customers have placed their first ever orders for Blue Bird's alternative fuel powered buses and many of these are conquest accounts. We are very excited with the customer response to our new engines and our couple of alternative fuels more in a couple of slides. To showcase all of our products and features to our dealers and customers this year, we completed our sixth and our seventh Ride and Drive events this past quarter.

I can tell you feedback from dealers and customers to these product immersion tours or pit stops as we call them has been outstanding and more than six fifty customers and 170 dealer personnel have attended them. Meaning they can try our vehicles, test our vehicles and drive them personally. It's it's been very successful. We've also made several key leadership appointments to accelerate change and to focus on growth in the important areas of quality, dealer development, customer service and our commercial and international bus business. We believe the importance of investing in the right people and the right processes to drive growth.

And finally, we are reaffirming our full year guidance for our key financial metrics. So let's now take a closer look at our second quarter financial results on Slide six. Second quarter net sales of $208,700,000 were $17,400,000 or 9% higher than the same period last year. First half sales of $345,300,000 were up 7% from last year. This result was in line with our expectations.

Bus and parts sales grew by 94% respectively in the second quarter with both segments achieving a solid 7% sales growth through the first half of the year. At $8,100,000 adjusted EBITDA was down $2,000,000 from a year ago, which is explained by customer mix and retiming of orders between quarters and investment in resources to drive future growth. We deal with this quarterly lumpiness in the ordering pattern throughout the year, but we are well positioned to meet our full year objectives and we're on plan. Turning now to Slide seven, let's take a closer look at our alternative fuel bus sales performance. As of three days ago, we have almost 3,000 bookings and firm orders in hand for our combined propane, gasoline and CNG powered school buses, representing a substantial 43% increase compared with the same time last year.

That is a very strong customer endorsement of our new alternative fuel powered buses and we are particularly pleased with the continued growth in propane and the outstanding acceptance we received to our new gasoline engine. We continue to be the undisputed leader in this growing school bus segment with our market share running at around 80%. We're still only about 10% of school districts having purchased an alternative fuel powered bus. We are well positioned for future growth of this industry. Looking to the full year, based on orders in hand and our pipeline of potential orders yet to be placed, we project full year sales of alternative fuel powered buses to be over 3,500 units and it could represent more than 30% mix of our total full year sales.

Now that compares with a mix of 17% just two years ago. Now that's exciting growth by having class leading products. Now let me turn now to the Phil Tighe, who will take you through the financials and I'll be back later on to cover the fiscal twenty seventeen outlook and guidance. Over to you, Phil.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Phil. Good afternoon, everyone. The next few slides will be a brief summary of our financial performance for the second quarter. There are also slides in the appendix that I will point out that deal with reconciliations between GAAP and non GAAP measures mentioned in this review. Further detail and discussion will be available with our 10 Q filing, which I believe will be available to everyone later this afternoon.

The second quarter material we are discussing is based on the close of 04/02/2016 and 04/01/2017. And I'll remind you that the fiscal year for Blue Bird is from October through September. So this is the close of our second quarter. Furthermore, I'd point out for you that the risk factors are unchanged from our previously filed 10 Q, and I would also suggest you take note of the disclaimers at the end of this deck. Let's move to Slide nine, which is a summary of the second quarter results.

I won't go through much of the data that Phil's already covered. So if you look at volumes, I don't think I'll get into that, but I would like to point out that the second quarter volume for 2017 of 2,367 units is in fact our best result since fiscal year two thousand

Speaker 2

and

Speaker 3

eight and is also better than our internal plan. This volume is really driven by continued strong performance by our dealer network throughout The U. S. And Canada. If we look at net revenue, Phil already talked about the improvement in net revenue.

Total bus revenue was up about 9.5%, but as indicated on a per unit basis, it was down by a little over one point. Unit revenues were impacted by a few things, and I'll just briefly touch on these for your information. The first one was that our All American bus, which is the sort of flat nose bus, the very the biggest buses we make, the mix of that was down in the second quarter. These buses tend to have a much higher passenger capacity and features and therefore, higher revenue than our Vision bus, which is the bus with the nose. We don't this is not a long term issue.

We our orders in hand for the balance of the year, and these buses are going to be very strong in the second half, and we will be on plan with the mix of these buses, but it certainly did drive some reduction in average revenue in the second quarter. The success of our new lower priced gasoline bus is going to continue to have an impact on average revenues. The gasoline bus is a lower priced bus than than our typical diesel bus. We continue to think that, that we know that, that will continue to impact revenues somewhat in the second half because we have quite as Phil mentioned, we have a lot of orders built up for gasoline as well as propane. We also had strong sales of diesel and propane buses in a number of markets where Blue Bird has not traditionally been a major player.

This has resulted in some deterioration of average revenue, although we see it as a strong longer term contributor as we conquest volume in some of these markets where we've typically not been a strong player. The final thing I'll say about revenue, and it's not necessarily a year over year issue, but the mix of propane in the second quarter was lower than we expect for the full year. We have we will have a lot of orders bookings made for propane in the second half. But the fact that it was about equal to last year's mix results in lower than lower average revenue that we should see for the rest of the year. Parts revenue was up about 4%, and this builds on the improvement we saw in parts in the last period and is an endorsement to the work the parts team is doing to improve competitiveness and expand the range of products they sell.

So we're very hopeful that, that improving revenue in parts will continue through the rest of the year. Let's turn to gross margins for a minute. We were about 1.3 points below last year. This was obviously driven by the mix issues that we talked about in the revenue discussion, but also due to somewhat higher labor costs due to some product launch issues during the second quarter, which caused efficiency to reduce some higher overtime and economics as we gave our associates in the plant a wage increase. The more aggressive position that we're taking on parts sales is also somewhat of a deterioration in margin, although not substantive.

Net income and earnings per share, I'll point that out to you. Net income, we're pleased to announce was positive at $2,700,000 You might recall that in the first quarter, our net income was a loss of 8,500,000.0 and that was principally that was driven on driven by the extinguishment of costs related to our prior loan, which was 10,100,000.0 So we're pleased with the fact that we have a $2,700,000 net income in the second quarter and we expect that to improve substantially as we go through the rest of the year. Earnings per share for the second quarter were $0.07

Speaker 2

a share.

Speaker 3

We'll talk about adjusted EBITDA more on the next slide. I would just point out that debt and cash are substantially improved, both of them, versus prior year, and we'll see the results of net debt later in this section. If we turn to Slide 10, which is the bridge, you can see the adjusted EBITDA. Phil mentioned that it was $8,100,000 It's down about 2,000,000 You can see the drivers there. Bus gross margins, we've talked about and parts is up about a tenth.

The higher operating expenses again were due to supporting our product and the future. Part of it was due to the product immersion tools that Phil mentioned. This was extremely successful. We provided the opportunity for six fifty present and potential customers to drive the buses. Importantly, they got the opportunity to drive the new gas bus, the propane buses and the Vision CNG bus and they had the opportunity to have detailed conversations with our team about the benefit of each bus.

We are also starting to see orders come in from these customers for those units. We had somewhat Phil mentioned, we had strengthened the organization in some very key areas. So we're seeing some higher employment costs, and we also increased salaries for our staff to remain competitive in the Middle Georgia market, which seems to be getting more competitive as some new industries are moving in this area. Finally, also included in other was a retiming of some JV income of about 02% into the second half. That's purely a timing issue.

We'll get it back. So despite the second quarter being down versus last year, we are very comfortable that we're on track to achieve the previously communicated profit guidance for 2017. Some key issues there or key reasons for that. We have, as Phil mentioned, orders in hand for all of third quarter production, and we're rapidly filling the available production for fourth quarter. We also obviously have visibility to margins and mix of units for all of those orders in hand, so that gives us the ability to accurately forecast where we'll be going.

As discussed earlier, we've got a very strong mix of alternative fuel and All American buses in the second half, and this will contribute very handsomely to profits. Material costs appear to be in line or better than planned for the second half, so that's going to be positive for us. And Phil also mentioned the work we did and the costs we took on to have a more stable labor force through the first half, which is obviously going to support us very well in the peak season that we're in now and we will be in for a few months to come. And so and finally, in recognition of some of the margins that we've experienced in the first half, we have made some cost cutting to make sure that we absolutely meet our targets. I'll just go to Slide 11 really quickly.

This is the free cash flow. This slide shows the cash flow and adjusted free cash flow for fiscal year 'sixteen and for 'seventeen. The free cash flow was $20,700,000 or $5,200,000 lower than the same period last year. Key drivers are obviously lower EBITDA, as discussed, prepayments, and this is, I think, primarily GSA related where we had a prepayment from them and a small increase in cash taxes. We also the walk from free cash flow to adjusted cash flow is a onetime payment for services for an investment banking fee.

Lower and the other thing I will point out in there is you'll see that cash taxes paid for interest are improving. You'll recall that we refinanced our loan in the first quarter, and we're starting to experience the benefit of the lower interest rates from that refinancing. Finally, for me, I'll turn you to Page 12 on debt. You can see our debt was 155,000,000 and our cash was $38,000,000 so that's $116,500,000 of net debt. This compares to $143,700,000 at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 'sixteen sorry, 154,000,000 at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 'sixteen, and it also compares to $143,000,000 at the end of first quarter of fiscal year 'seventeen.

That's a tongue twister. Our net leverage ratio was about 1.71, substantially below the covenant of four. Liquidity stood at $108,000,000 and there were no drawings on the revolver. Liquidity at the same time last year was about $83,000,000 So that's a quick run through our financials. As I said, the more detailed filings should be available shortly after we finish this conference call.

And I'll now turn you back to Phil for a wrap up.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thanks, Phil. So let's now focus on the outlook for the year and our full year guidance. First, let's turn to Slide 14. As the headline says, we are focusing continued growth in the industry and for Blue Bird.

We are projecting new bus sales as measured by industry registrations compiled by RL Polk to grow 3% to 4% reaching up to 34,000 new buses. We are also forecasting Blue Bird unit sales growth for the full year of between 6% to 8%, outpacing the industry and supported in large part by the substantial year to date growth of 43% in alternative fuel powered bus orders that we have in hand. Our year to date total bookings and order backlog are strong at 8% above the same time last year and quote activity is higher too. And we are now filling production slots in the fourth quarter, again supporting our view of the 6% to 8% growth for the full year. So with the seasonality of our business, we project very strong growth in financial performance in the second half of the year, which we have done for the last several years with higher sales in support of school start.

That said, we are continuing to invest in the development of new and exciting products that will foster future growth and we are mindful of increasing commodity prices, which we are monitoring very closely, particularly steel. So let's now turn to fiscal twenty seventeen full year guidance on Slide 15, which reflects these factors. As we mentioned earlier on the call, we are reaffirming the full year guidance we provided on our last earnings call with growth projected in each of the three metrics. First, net sales of between $980,000,000 and $1,100,000,000 up 48,000,000 to $78,000,000 from fiscal twenty sixteen. Adjusted EBITDA of 72,000,000 to $76,000,000 which is flat to an increase of $4,000,000 from last year as we continue to invest in new products to drive future growth.

We believe it's important for our long term goals to grow the business obviously and to improve our profitability. Adjusted free cash flow continues to be a strong feature of our business model, representing over 50% of our adjusted EBITDA in typical years and we are reaffirming guidance of between 38,000,000 to $42,000,000 an increase of 5,000,000 to $9,000,000 over last year. So, in wrapping up, we had a solid second quarter and first half performance and importantly, we have sales momentum, particularly in alternative fuel powered buses. We look to continue the substantial growth in the 2017 as demand increases in line with the seatbelt of our business and our guidance supports this. We'll continue to update you on our progress each quarter.

So that concludes our formal presentation. I'm now going to pass it back to our moderator, Devin, to begin the Q and A session.

Speaker 0

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session.

Speaker 3

Session.

Speaker 0

Our first question comes from the line of Eric Stine with Craig Hallum. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 4

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker 3

You bet, Eric.

Speaker 4

Yes. So I'm very interested in the $2.75 new alt fuel customers. Just could you just give us a comparison, if you're able to, year over year? And then also just characterize the size of those orders, I mean a safe assumption that those are pretty small and that the next when those customers come back for that second round of orders you would expect that to expand potentially significantly?

Speaker 2

Yes, it's a great question. Obviously, new for us this year is gasoline. So that's a big piece for us. In gasoline, we've had really good acceptance. So we're selling just about in every state across the nation now.

So when you look at the $275,000,000 and you look at the fact that I mentioned there we have orders in hand there of just under $3,000 in alternative fuel powered buses, you're right, some of those orders are quite small. You get customers that are trying gasoline for the first time. Obviously, this is for the first time for many of these folks and they are in that $275,000,000 We still got customers who are trying propane for the first time, but the majority of that is really around our new gasoline customers coming to us looking at it. They love the simplicity of gasoline. They understand it and of course, as you know, it's a terrific acquisition price.

It's really nice price point for those customers. So as we've seen with propane and we've got several years of that, typically what happens is customers come in, they try these products, relatively low volume, like them, typically come in the following year with a higher level of business for us. So obviously, we're very excited to be welcoming two seventy five customers to the Blue Bird lineup.

Speaker 4

Yes, congratulations on that. Maybe I guess sticking with all the fuels especially well, and also gasoline, and at the product immersion tour event, got a little color on this. But just could you talk a little bit about the VW funding that is coming in some of the steps that you are taking in your dealer network, but also with your customers? I guess first so that propane and gasoline are part of the funding, but then also Blue Bird being positioned for them.

Speaker 2

Yes, I missed your question. Obviously, we're well aware of the VW opportunity, the funding availability of this company, which is going to be spread among a whole bunch of different sectors. Look, I don't want to get into exactly what our competitive practice are in this space. But needless to say, we look at our propane products, Eric, as you know, we believe and we've seen this time after time, it has the best total cost ownership value of any bus on the road, no matter what type of fuel it is. And I think it's proven in our performance in that.

So not surprisingly, when we look at our VW money, we look at our opportunities there with our propane product to really not only use that money, but provide the best value for our customers out there. Yes, there's going to be money available, but we want to make sure it's spent wisely. The wiser you spend it, the more buses you can buy and we think we're very well positioned for that with propane and with gasoline of course.

Speaker 4

Yes, okay. So maybe last one for me, just in terms of the large contractors. I know a few quarters ago I asked and you thought, hey, early in 2017 you'd have a better idea. I know 2016 was pretty quiet. I mean any indications that those large some large contractors are out there with some orders that could be had later in the year?

Speaker 2

We're still working with those large contractors. Obviously, we've been bidding regularly on that piece of business. Due It's to that nice technical term we use, it can be a lumpy business year to year. As you know, we don't have a long term contract firm relationship with either First Student or NEC, but we have been a great partner and we are very pleased with our relationship with STI and we continue do

Speaker 3

a nice business with them.

Speaker 2

But we have also sold some of our alternative fuel products to the other companies too because we are able to bring the best product to market. So it's really been our dealer channel quite frankly. There's been a great story for us this year. Dealers have done a terrific job embracing our products and are out there doing a terrific job looking directly with school districts. And that's that like it has been for us for many years is by far the vast majority of where our business comes from.

Speaker 4

Got it. Okay. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Eric.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Koranda with ROTH Capital. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Hey, guys. Good evening. Hi Matt. Just wanted to cover the gross margins during the quarter if we could with a little more granularity. I think you guys highlighted the mix part reasonably well in the prepared remarks, but can you just highlight or quantify if there was any raw material cost increase that fed into the gross margins during the quarter?

And then just could you provide a little more detail on what was the product launch that drove the labor inefficiencies?

Speaker 3

Matt, this is Phil. Material, we had a reasonably good story on in the first quarter first and second quarters. We have as you may know, we have long term contracts with the majority of our material buy, and we were able to take advantage of that. So we didn't see a great deal of pressure on material. We will probably see a little bit as steel continues to rise in the second half, but that's well within our planning base.

So all in all, material, I think, was good. I think the one place and I didn't mention it in the discussion on margins previously was we sold quite a lot of units in Canada, both in the first and second quarters. And obviously, the exchange rate over there has been hurting us a bit. We the Canadian schools pay in Canadian dollars, and so we can't just pass the large move that's happened in the exchange rate straight through to them. So we did take a hit to revenues by our sales in Canada, and we have been quite successful in Canada right across the country, to tell the truth.

We've done well in Quebec and Ontario and Alberta and even Saskatchewan. So we've been doing well in Canada. So that's something that we're hopeful that the exchange rates might flatten out a bit over there, but that's one that has pressed us a little bit on margins. The I'm sorry, Matt, I missed your final piece of that question. Could you repeat that?

Speaker 5

Yes, sure. I think you were talking about a program or a product launch during the quarter that had some labor inefficiencies that Yes, there

Speaker 3

was a relatively small change on the diesel engines and emissions move. And for some reason that I don't want to really go into, we had a few hiccups getting that engine into the bus, and that caused some labor inefficiencies during the second quarter. It's all ironed out and working very smoothly now, but we just had a few parts that we had to change around somewhat and do some do a little bit of rework. So but we're beyond that.

Speaker 5

Okay, got it. And was the Canada mix of unit sales for you guys like higher than normal this quarter or you're just referencing FX being a headwind?

Speaker 3

No, it was up and FX is an issue.

Speaker 5

Okay. And do you are you able to break out or quantify the Canada mix in unit sales for

Speaker 2

the quarter?

Speaker 3

No, I can't. Sorry.

Speaker 5

Okay. All right. Got it. One other thing I wanted to cover, I think on Slide seven, you guys are sort of implying roughly another 600 units in all fuels that you expect to book and deliver during fiscal 'seventeen. Can you just talk about sort of the visibility that you have into that number and what may swing it higher or lower for the year for

Speaker 2

you guys? Yes. This is Phil Horlach. The way we look at this obviously is when we talk about bookings and backlog, here we are on a call today, we're talking about the second quarter results. While we already have visibility many weeks into the several months, almost three months into the future, solid plans in place.

So here we are sitting in May, we're talking about many months we're already well into the fourth quarter. So we have a good sense of what we've already got in that order bank. We know the price of those units. We know the spec of those vehicles. We have a good sense of that.

We also operate what we call our own pipeline, like all the industry does. We know where there are quotes out there. We know when the school boards are meeting and we track on that and when decisions are going be made. So we use that pipeline of opportunity plus the orders we still have yet to build and that gives us the confidence of the 3,500 units we mentioned there. So we have good visibility at this point in time.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. And then any more color or breakdown that you may be able to provide on sort of gas versus propane in that? I know CNG is kind of nominal, but any directional commentary at least on gas? Everything?

Speaker 2

I would say this, propane continues to be our best selling alternative fuel powered school bus. It really is. But gasoline has done extremely well. And I wouldn't say it's overtaking it or anything, but I'd say it's doing very well. I mean, so propane is still one, gas is two and CNG is three, but we are delighted with our gasoline performance.

I just don't want to get into specifics, but we're very happy. I think the issue is the reason it's for us it's nice is that we've been out there now for several years with that Ford propane engine, which obviously is the basis for our gasoline engine and our customers understand that. So it's going really well and it's well accepted.

Speaker 5

Got it. Okay. Maybe one last one for me, guys, just kind of looking out over the next year or so. I know EBITDA margin this year had compressed a little bit in terms of the outlook just because the incremental SG and A that you had to spend for some growth programs. Could you just kind of I think you've quantified it before, but could you update us on sort of the latest on the spend, the incremental SG and A for the year for to support your growth programs?

And then when do those sort of taper down? Are we expecting sort of better EBITDA margins to shine through in fiscal 'eighteen? How do we think about that further out?

Speaker 2

Yes, I mean, just a little touch. Obviously, we are you're right, we put in some SG and A this year. We've also kept our engineering high. We believe in products. We believe in bringing products to market that we said that people want and value.

You saw the propane certification we're going for here on our NOx level. Again, that's another puts us right further in front than we've already been. So I think you're going to see us keep investing in products going forward. We're probably somewhat of a nominal sort of level now on that. On the SG and A side, those pit tours we put in place, we find them successful.

They work for us, those pits of product immersion tours. That was new spending for us this past year. You also heard me talk about quality and customer service and just doing a little work on dealer development too in terms of really ensuring our dealers are operating as the best they can with our assistance. So, we've put those processes in place this year. We've put the people in place this year.

So, I think this has been a year, I think, of really setting ourselves in place for future growth and we sort of like where we are right now, I guess, is what I'd say.

Speaker 5

Alright, guys. I'll jump back in queue. Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thanks.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. On the gasoline buses, just obviously, they're lower priced, they're doing extremely well. How can you tell if it's those are taking share from propane or other buses versus kind of incremental sales?

Speaker 2

Yes, good question, Chris. So what we do is, we obviously we mine data. I mean, we know when a customer comes to us, we know what buses whose buses they buy, whether they're ours, whether they're our competitors. We know whether they've been a diesel supporter before, a propane supporter before. And so we do characterize them in terms of what you can say is a genuine conquest being that we've they're new to the Blue Bird family and new to our team and new to our product.

And we also know whether they may have been a Blue Bird diesel customer previously or a propane or a CNG customer previously. So we know exactly what they were doing before. And I'll tell you, been it's really worked great for us. It's been a really nice conquest tool for us

Speaker 5

this year, bringing all the

Speaker 2

new customers into the Blue Bird family that we're excited about.

Speaker 6

Got you. Tayo, I think you mentioned the gross margins on the parts were down a little bit. Is that a kind of a conscious move or just was mix or how does that work?

Speaker 3

No, I think we talked about this before, Chris. It's we're trying to grow our parts business and one of the things we're doing is we're selectively getting more competitive in some areas and introducing some product lines that will probably have a lower margin because of the nature of those products. So the parts margins are going to stay very, very good, but I think they'll edge down a little bit versus where they've been historically, and we will see the benefit through increased sales and increased total profitability from parts. We're real upbeat on where our parts business is going. We've got a good management team over there, and they're really doing some innovative things to grow our business.

Speaker 6

Got you. Last question, the $3,000,000 one time investment banking fee, can you refresh me, what was that related to?

Speaker 2

Okay. Well, that was related to you might recall several months ago, our major shareholder, American Securities, made a move at trying to buy the remaining shares of the company. We formed a special committee and that we had special committee hired an investment banker and that was a fee to the investment banker. That's done behind us and all finished now.

Speaker 6

Got you. No, I just wasn't sure if there was some M and A on the horizon that I can read into on this.

Speaker 2

Not at this point, no.

Speaker 6

Okay, got it.

Speaker 4

Alright, appreciate it.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Mork with Mork Capital Management. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Hello. I've got a question just on the general deal, alternative fuel powered bus sales. If you were going to take an educated guess in five years, what would the industry mix be versus conventional diesel versus alternative fuel and what would your mix be?

Speaker 2

Well, first of I'm not going to take a wild guess. I'm just kidding, yes, sorry.

Speaker 7

Your guess will be better

Speaker 2

than mine, know that. Yes, yes. I look at it, like I said, we're at 30%. We think we could be in the order of 30% alternative fuel mix this year. I think going forward, we certainly see that will keep gaining traction.

So I tend to look at things like maybe 50% a few years from now. I'm not necessarily whether it's five years or three years, but we intend to keep giving customers what they want. I mean, we're going to keep improving those products and giving a better value proposition. And we love the fact they're exclusive to us and we love the fact we've been in the alternative fuel business for only about a ninety year now since we first launched our most recent generation of propane being which will be installed by an OEM. So I think when I look forward, yes, I think 50% is on the horizon.

When I reach 50%, we'll take a look at where that can take us. But I think that's probably three to five years out, something like that. Because the acceptance is just growing and the interest is growing and obviously there's more and more interest in clean emissions and the simplification is important and that's what they offer. That's what we can offer.

Speaker 7

And if you were at 50%, say in three to five years, what would the industry be like about 30% or so?

Speaker 2

Well, it depends on what our competitors do. Can't really comment on that. Just know we're just going to keep doing what we're doing. I mean, obviously, now, we're at 30% of our sales, let's say. That's where

Speaker 1

we think we're going to be.

Speaker 2

I don't think the competition it's obviously a long way off that number. So it's difficult to say where the industry will be, but we are confident we'll certainly continue to hold the vast majority of the share of that business. Okay. Well, thank you. You bet.

Thank you.

Speaker 0

Thank you. This concludes there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Horlach for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Well, you, Devin, and thanks to all of you for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your continued interest in Blue Bird. As you can see, we are focused on profitable growth, we intend to deliver on our commitments. And we're well positioned for growth today and into the future by the actions we're taking even today to build a better model for the future. So please don't hesitate to give our call to our Head of Investor Relations, Mark Benfield.

Should you have any follow-up questions, we're always happy to answer and help you where we can. So thanks again to all of us at Blue Bird and we wish you a good evening.

Speaker 0

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.