Fox Factory - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Fox Factory Holding Corp's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Toby Merchant, Chief Legal Officer at Fox Factory Holding Corp. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Toby Merchant (Chief Legal Officer)

Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to Fox Factory's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Mike Dennison, Chief Executive Officer, and Dennis Schemm, Chief Financial Officer and President of the Aftermarket Applications Group. First, Mike will provide business updates, and then Dennis will review the quarterly results and outlook. Mike will then provide some closing remarks before we open up the call for your questions. By now, everyone should have access to the earnings release, which went out earlier this afternoon. If you have not had a chance to review the release, it's available on the investor relations portion of our website at investor.wrightfox.com. Please note that throughout this call, we will refer to Fox Factory as Fox or the Company.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that the prepared remarks contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws, and management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Such statements involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside the company's control and can cause future results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from the results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Important factors and risks that could cause or contribute to such differences are detailed in the company's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and in the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K, each filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investors should not place undue reliance on the company's forward-looking statements, and except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking or other statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. In addition, where appropriate in today's prepared remarks and within our earnings release, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures to evaluate our business, including adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross margin, adjusted operating expenses, adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per diluted share, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin, as we believe these are useful metrics that allow investors to better understand and evaluate the company's core operating performance and trends. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in today's earnings release, which has also been posted to our website.

With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to our CEO, Mike Dennison. Thank you.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Thanks, Toby, and thanks to everyone for joining today's call. I'm pleased to report that we delivered a solid start to 2025, with first quarter sales coming in above expectations at $355 million, representing growth of 6.5% over the prior year, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.23, which was in line with our expectations. Importantly, our plan called for meaningful sequential improvements across our businesses, particularly in gross margin. To that end, I'm pleased that we delivered a 200 basis point sequential increase in gross margin to 30.9%. The operational improvements and strategic cost management initiatives we outlined during the fourth quarter are well underway, with many of the actions completed and starting to deliver results across all three businesses, which was illustrated by continued strong sequential adjusted EBITDA margin improvements in both our PVG and AAG segments.

This progress, combined with revenue growth on a year-over-year basis across the segments, underscores the balance between cost management and our relentless focus on new product development. While external market conditions remain uneven across many of our product lines, we're meeting our financial commitments through disciplined execution on the factors within our control. This has become all the more important in the current environment overshadowed by tariffs. Our cost optimization strategy, which began last fall, is helping us be more nimble in addressing near-term challenges and positioning us for sustained margin improvement and enhanced free cash flow generation as we progress through the year. While our near-term focus is on financial performance improvement, we remain committed to investing in innovation, which underpins everything we do here at Fox and is the basis by which we are creating meaningful customer engagements with our performance-defining race-winning products.

Building on the momentum from last quarter, we're making significant strides in the four key initiatives we have discussed in prior calls, which are driving tangible sequential improvements across our businesses. First, simplifying and consolidating our footprint. We've now completed the closure of one of our three Taiwan facilities, with cost benefits expected to materialize beginning in Q2. This strategic move temporarily impacted overhead absorption in SSG in the first quarter but sets the stage for improved margins going forward without materially compromising our capacity for growth as the cycle advances. Our teams continue to make progress, optimizing our global manufacturing presence with additional footprint consolidation efforts underway. Second, portfolio optimization. We're making targeted improvements to our product mix, focusing resources on our highest-performing items and strategic growth categories.

This disciplined approach contributed to our overall gross margin improvement and is helping us allocate capital more efficiently while maintaining our innovation edge. We continue to launch new products at record levels across our businesses, which is not only supporting near-term revenue stabilization but also setting us up for long-term growth and expansion. Third, working capital management. We have continued to work on improving our supply chain practices, both in terms of ensuring proper inventory of high-demand products as well as our broader sourcing strategies in light of the current tariff dynamics at play. Fourth, our cost reduction program.

While the full impact of these actions will progressively build throughout 2025 toward our goal of realizing $25 million of cost savings across G&A and cost of goods within 2025, the actions taken today give us confidence that more substantial benefits will materialize beginning in the second quarter and carry through the balance of the year. Importantly, these actions represent more than just cost cutting. They're about strategically repositioning our business to operate more efficiently and offset temporary pressures from market conditions and tariffs. Combined with our strategic approach to diversify our business across segments, products, channels, and geographies, we're creating a resilient organization that can win even while extraneous market dynamics remain challenging. Now turning to our segment performance. In our powered vehicles group, first quarter net sales were $122.1 million, representing an increase of 3.4% over the prior year quarter.

This growth was primarily due to the expansion of our motorcycle business, which offset lower industry demand in our traditional power sports product lines. We were pleased to see our segment-adjusted EBITDA margin improve sequentially by 50 basis points to 11.8%, given strong cost controls and cost-improvement actions. In the automotive sector, we're seeing signs of stabilization as premium truck OEMs work through model year changeovers. Our premium truck category continues to demonstrate resilience even as the broader market remains cautious. Tariff impacts on future demand are yet to be known. However, we believe the premium vehicle category is more insulated than the broader market. Our return to motorcycles was long overdue and particularly exciting for our team, given this is where it all started 50 years ago with Bob Fox in his garage.

We already have a great roster of marquee customers with expansion to new customers planned for the future. These new motorcycle relationships are helping offset softness in other areas of power sports and demonstrate the enduring value of the Fox brand as the standard across any performance category. In our aftermarket applications group, we delivered both top-line growth and significant margin expansion with net sales increasing 9.9% to $111.9 million from $101.9 million in a prior year period. The growth was driven by higher outfitting sales and increased demand for aftermarket products. Like PVG, AAG has also improved adjusted EBITDA margin, delivering 15.2%, which represents a sequential step-up of 330 basis points and a cumulative improvement of 590 basis points since Q3 of 2024.

The progress on margin improvement reflects the hard work of the entire AAG team to stay focused on executing the strategy while delivering improved profitability on our journey to return to best-in-class profitability. The improvements we are seeing in AAG reflect a more targeted approach with our dealers and improved vehicle mix, which is better aligned to customer demand. While high interest rates and elevated inventory levels continue to pose challenges to the broader market, our ability to drive revenue and margin expansion in this environment speaks to our strategic focus and improved execution. Our aftermarket components business continues to show strong performance with sustained growth in wheels and lift kits, reflecting the strength of our product pipeline and the ongoing work in our sales and marketing programs.

Importantly, the one plus one equals three strategy continues to enable AAG to deliver best-in-class product solutions to our enthusiast customers across all types of powered vehicle platforms, creating sustainable value that builds on the intrinsic strength of our brand portfolio. In our Specialty Sports Group, we delivered a top-line growth with net sales increasing 6.6% to $121 million from $113.5 million in the prior year period. Growth was strong across our bike business, especially as we were seeing early signs of normalizing inventory levels across the categories that we lead. Our Marucci business was stronger than forecasted as well, lifted by early success with new product launches and increased demand for our torpedo bats. SSG segment-adjusted EBITDA margins decreased to 19.3%, which represents a temporary sequential decline from the fourth quarter of 320 basis points.

This EBITDA margin compression was anticipated in our outlook and primarily reflects seasonality, lower overhead absorption, and investments in product engineering. During the quarter, we completed the consolidation of one of our three facilities in Taiwan to improve our utilization and drive lower overhead costs going forward. We expect to begin realizing the financial benefits of this consolidation in Q2. The year-over-year growth in SSG illustrates the success of our innovation strategy in both bike and baseball, where new products and category expansion are increasing our addressable market by bringing our performance-defining technology to more enthusiasts, both seasoned veterans and new entrants. In Marucci, we're making excellent progress as MLB's official bat partner. We're seeing tremendous market interest in products, including the recent fervor over the torpedo bat.

All of this is in large part because of our relationship with MLB, who has expanded our outreach capabilities to spread the word on Marucci Invictus and our ability to innovate in diamond sports. The torpedo bat serves as an example of a halo product that creates enhanced consumer awareness for baseball and our brands collectively. People who did not follow baseball are now talking about baseball, and players at all levels want to use what their heroes use, creating a powerful connection between our brand and our customers. While the first quarter did not enjoy the benefit of a bat launch such as CADX last year, we continue to build momentum through strategic investments in both baseball and our rapidly emerging softball business. Recently, we launched Azura, a new fast-pitched softball bat, which is taking the market by storm and causing us to be sold out temporarily across numerous models.

The softball market offers a large new opportunity, and we're in the very early innings of creating meaningful market share. By leveraging our combined Fox and Marucci engineering expertise, we're accelerating product innovations across premium performance brands, creating a stronger, more resilient group of businesses that can capture additional growth over the long term. Finally, I'll share some high-level comments on our outlook, which Dennis will review in more detail. Based on our first quarter performance, second quarter-to-date trending results, our latest forecast from our partners across all segments, and the current view of tariff implications on our supply chains, we are reaffirming our full year 2025 guidance.

While we anticipate continued challenges in the broader market environment, our expectation still provides top and bottom-line improvement year-on-year as we progress through the balance of 2025, with the benefits of our cost optimization initiatives becoming more tangible in the second quarter and building strength in the second half. On tariffs, our teams are continuously analyzing the latest developments closely, and we're implementing mitigation strategies across, including cost reductions, commodity index-based adjustments, and price increases where appropriate. While our manufacturing footprint is well-positioned relative to these policy shifts, we recognize the potential for broader industry impacts and are working hard to be able to adapt accordingly.

It is worth mentioning that what may be obvious to many already, we cannot control or predict consumer confidence in general, and our guidance does not contemplate any potential significant recessionary impacts associated with a longer-term tariff headwind nor potential long-term disruption of other companies' supply chains as they attempt to adjust their strategies to mitigate these issues. As we look ahead, we remain focused on what we can control: operational efficiency, innovation, and strategic growth initiatives that will drive long-term value for our shareholders. Our team continues to demonstrate resilience and adaptability, and I am confident in our ability to build on sequential improvements we have delivered this quarter, positioning us to restore our best-in-class adjusted EBITDA margin profile. With that, I will turn the call over to Dennis.

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone.

I'll begin by discussing our first quarter financial results and then move to our discussion on the balance sheet, cash flow, and capital allocation strategy before concluding with a review of our guidance. Q1 results. Total consolidated net sales in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 were $355 million, an increase of 6.5% versus sales of $333.5 million in the same quarter last year, primarily reflecting growth across all segments. Our gross margin was 30.9% in the first quarter of 2025, consistent with the same quarter last year. Adjusted gross margin, which excludes the effects of amortization of acquired inventory valuation markup, was 30.9% compared to 32.3% in the prior year quarter, primarily because of the significant mix shift to power sports and away from automotive OE, offset by our cost reduction initiatives.

Our sequential gross margin and adjusted gross margin increased 200 basis points and 170 basis points, respectively, supported by realization of our cost reduction initiatives. Total operating expenses were $360 million, primarily impacted by a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $262 million. The impairment was triggered by the decline in our stock price. Excluding this impact, our adjusted operating expenses as a percentage of net sales decreased approximately 30 basis points to 23.8% in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 24.1% in the same period last year. The company's tax benefit was $3.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to a tax benefit of $1.3 million in the same period last year.

Net loss in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 was $259.7 million, or negative $6.23 per diluted share, compared to negative $3.5 million, or minus $0.08 per diluted share in the same period last year, primarily due to the goodwill impairment. Our adjusted net income was $9.8 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, compared to $11.9 million, or $0.29 per diluted share in the first quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $39.6 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2025, compared to $40.4 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.2% in the first quarter of 2025, compared to 12.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. The decrease in the adjusted EBITDA margin was primarily driven by the mix shift in PVG from automotive OE to power sports, offset by our continuous improvement efforts. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows.

For the first quarter ended April 4, 2025, inventory rose by $4.1 million, or 1% compared to fiscal 2024 year-end, driven by purposeful increases to strengthen stocking positions in our aftermarket businesses within AAG to support demand and to build inventory in advance of the tariff impact. While we have driven down our prepaids and other current assets by over $26 million from Q4, largely due to the benefit of our AAG chassis inventory optimization plans, overall working capital increased compared to the prior quarter due to the typical season builds from Q4 to Q1. I'd like to stress that working capital will continue to be an area of focus for us as we continue to focus on improving cash flow. Our revolver balance as of April 4, 2025, was $163 million versus $153 million as of January 3, 2025.

Our term loan balance was $547 million versus $552 million on January 3, 2025, net of loan fees. As we have mentioned during the past few calls, optimizing our capital allocation strategy with a focus on paying down debt is our number one priority for capital allocation. We continue to see a clear path to reducing our net leverage to approximately three times by year-end. Now moving to the outlook for the second quarter and the full year 2025. We are reaffirming our guidance for the full fiscal year 2025, which reflects sales in the range of $1.385 billion-$1.485 billion, adjusted earnings per diluted share in the range of $1.60-$2.60, and a full year adjusted effective tax rate in the range of 15%-18%.

Underpinning our full year guidance are several key assumptions that remain unchanged, including continued growth in AAG, a gradually stabilizing environment in PVG and bike, with performance consistent with 2024 levels in terms of absolute dollars, continued momentum in Marucci benefiting from our new MLB partnership taking effect, and our upcoming schedule of exciting new bat launches both in softball and in baseball. Revenue and margin improvement weighted toward the second half of 2025 as OE customers normalize channel inventory and production schedules, and we have progressively realized benefits from our $25 million cost-out reduction plan. We continue to expect 30%-35% of the savings to impact our first-half earnings weighted towards the second quarter and the remainder coming in the second half.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2025, we expect sales in the range of $340 million-$360 million, and adjusted earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.32-$0.62. Importantly, our guidance includes consideration for the direct effects of net cost impacts from the ongoing tariff developments, though the impact of tariff policies on consumer demand remains uncertain. Overall, new and expanded tariffs will continue to pose significant challenges for our industries. We have quantified the potential gross impact of tariffs to be in the range of $50 million on a full year basis, which is approximately 5% of our cost of goods sold. So we clearly have exposure to tariffs, but I would add that our exposure is relatively better positioned compared to others in our industry.

Our team has been working hard to identify and action mitigation strategies, many of which, including supply chain mitigation and targeted pricing actions, are already underway. As you consider our guidance reiteration today, I'd mention that we came into 2025 with a plan that was conservative given the broader macro uncertainty. While tariffs were not explicitly included in that build, given the uncertainty at the time, the wide range in EPS we provided, particularly at the lower end, incorporated enough flexibility to accommodate various scenarios, including these tariff effects. Our prudent planning approach, combined with our mitigation strategies and cost reduction initiatives, gives us confidence in reiterating our full year guidance despite these headwinds. While we remain cautious about the near-term market environment given ongoing industry headwinds and tariffs, we are encouraged by the sequential margin improvements we've seen in both our AAG and PVG segments.

These improvements, coupled with top-line growth across all three segments and the conviction in our new product launches in Marucci and Victus, give us confidence in our ability to execute our operating plan and deliver on our financial commitments for the year. Our strategic focus remains on improving margins and enhancing free cash flow generation through our comprehensive cost optimization and operational excellence initiatives. These initiatives, along with our commitment to working capital efficiency, position us well to strengthen our balance sheet and create long-term value for our shareholders. Mike, back to you for closing remarks.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Thanks, Dennis. Our first quarter results demonstrate the early benefits of our strategic initiatives across all segments. As Dennis noted, the sequential margin improvements in PVG and AAG, coupled with strong SSG growth, validate our operational focus and execution. Our diversified portfolio provides multiple growth avenues despite uneven market conditions.

The cost optimization actions we've taken are already delivering results and will continue building momentum through 2025. We remain focused on the core of our business, delivering premium, performance-defining products that resonate with enthusiasts while creating sustainable value for our shareholders. In closing, I am incredibly proud of the Fox team. Our people have shown dedication, focus, creativity, and endless amounts of energy to continue to deliver on our objectives. With as much market volatility, customer chaos, and growing unease as exists today, it would be easy for the teams to lose focus, patience, and commitment. In a time when it is incredibly difficult to predict next year, let alone next quarter, we continue to remain resilient and optimistic about our ability to win. I couldn't ask for anything more as their leader. With that, I'll please open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. We'll go first to Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Thank you. Hi, guys. Very nice conversation against a really wild backdrop here. I have two questions for you on the demand front and then a balance sheet question. Starting on the demand side, Mike, can you maybe speak to an update of what you're hearing from your bicycle OEM partners with respect to expectations for tariff influence on their business, any sort of pricing actions they might take, and what they're hearing from their dealership partners?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, Jim, good question.

It's a spectrum right across our OEM customers and bike, from the small folks to the much bigger folks. It's also a spectrum from American-based companies, Asian-based companies, and European-based companies. We're seeing a pretty wide degree of response to all the macro inventory levels as well as tariffs. It's different levels of confidence. In general, we haven't seen any of the bike companies take down demand as a function of tariffs or as a function of a lessening consumer appetite for bikes. The positive is we haven't seen anything to the negative. We do see some companies faring slightly better in the environment, as you would. Of course, in Europe, Europe is a whole different answer or discussion than the U.S. is. On the whole, we're very confident or very positive on what we've seen so far.

I think it's still early days. I mean, let's get into Q3 and Q4 to see how the back half of the year looks. We are benefiting from some great product launches and from some pretty enthusiastic customers right now, and we're kind of riding that wave.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Great. I appreciate that perspective. I wanted to ask on the upcoming business, very encouraging to see growth there. Can you call out some of the key drivers and give us an update on what you're seeing with dealer relationships and how you're thinking about prospects for that upcoming business in coming quarters?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, a lot of that is execution and starts at the product level, so getting the right products in the market.

There is consumer demand, but you've got, and Jim, I've said this before to you, you've got to make sure you're delivering the right products at the right price point in our upfit business. The teams have done a great job making sure that we're delivering those products. The dealer count and adding new dealers has also helped us. We've got a few factors kind of working in our favor as we enter this year. We've gotten a better mix of Shelbys, I'd say, as well, with better Lariats out of Ford. All in all, between product mix, better execution, better sales strategy, and better dealer development, we're seeing that in the numbers.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Great to see, and kudos to the team for that. Dennis, just one for you. I think both you and I are watching the balance sheet closely.

You made great progress on the prepaids. I'm hoping you can speak in more detail to the quality of your inventory. Can you maybe size the advanced build contributions and speak to any opportunities for inventory to potentially be a source of cash in coming quarters?

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

Yeah, that's a great question. Working capital is one of my top priorities for 2025. Free cash flow is the other, for sure. When we are thinking about inventory, we were very, very purposeful, strategic about where those builds would occur. We were pinpointed in getting more stocking positions, favorable stocking positions for our aftermarket businesses, particularly in sport truck, ride tech, custom wheelhouse, and making sure that we have the right levels of inventory to support that demand there. As we move forward, we're going to continue to look for opportunities to right-size and optimize across the businesses.

I feel really, really good about the focus. That is one of the things that Mike keeps pointing out, the focus. The teams are more focused than ever before on free cash flow generation and improving EBITDA margin %. It is great to see this showing up in the sequential results.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Excellent. Thank you, guys. Thanks a lot.

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

Hey, Jim, you cannot get off the call without us saying congratulations on your retirement. You are going to be missed, my friend. You are going to be missed.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, it has been a pleasure to work with you. I very much appreciate your support for the franchise. With Peter giving continuity, you can expect Steve's coverage to remain strong.

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

We hope to talk to you along the way, so do not be a stranger.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director in the Consumer and Retail)

Very good. I look forward to staying in touch.

Thanks, Mike.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

All right.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to Larry Sobo with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Pete Lucas (Research Analyst)

Yes, hi. It's Pete Lucas for Larry. You guys covered a lot of my questions. Just, I guess, curious about your efforts outside of the United States. A few quarters back, you highlighted some of the international opportunities, in particular on the auto OEM and upfitting side. Just wondering if you had any updates on that front in terms of new product development, OEM partnerships, or anything we should know about there.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I mean, a lot of continued development in that area. Obviously, we've been focused on what's happening in the U.S. as well. A lot of focus in the U.S. One of the things that's interesting, Peter, is that as you think about wheels as an example, wheels are a tariffed item coming from Asia to the U.S.

What's helped us is the fact that our Method wheel business and the custom wheelhouse business is an international business. We can sell wheels both here in the U.S. and in Australia, Middle East, and other places. Having the ability to expand and grow globally has been a nice step up for us in ability to have diversification geographically. Also, one of our biggest growing bike customers is a Chinese company. Expanding our relationships even in China, which is a difficult conversation right now, as you can imagine, but expanding those relationships gives us that diversity. Whether it's an upfitted truck or wheel, baseball bats in Japan, which are booming, or even the bike business in China, we absolutely are leveraging that international growth to help offset any issues here at home.

Pete Lucas (Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. And then just one last follow-up.

Just wondered, any updates on the Gainesville plant, anything special going on there? Just basically just general updates.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, one thing I'll call out, and it was not in the prepared remarks or one that I had thought of until you just asked the question, but one of the things about tariffs is insourcing or resourcing production back to the U.S. from offshore. One of the things the team in Gainesville has done a fantastic job on is moving that insourcing up by about 1,000 basis points from 60%-70% on machine parts moved into Gainesville. That ability to move inside our four walls versus doing it outside of our four walls has been really important, not tied to tariffs.

It was actually happening naturally and organically before tariffs, but that change over the last year is significant for our ability to respond and support our customers without some of the significance of tariffs. Gainesville is doing well. We recently moved Toyota to Gainesville, and it's going fantastic. From my perspective, it's been a long road getting Gainesville to where it is now, but really proud of the team for making that progress.

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

Yeah, it's a great point because one of the things that you saw in the numbers, we talked about the significant mix shift and that impact on gross profit. Sequentially, however, you saw the team improve 50 basis points quarter to quarter. That is exactly the cost improvement work that Mike is talking about, and it's flowing through.

Pete Lucas (Research Analyst)

Extremely helpful, thanks. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to Michael Schwartz with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Michael Swartz (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, guys, good evening. Maybe just to touch on the tariffs, I know there's a ton of uncertainty, and I appreciate you guys kind of framing the gross impact. As we look at 2025, just a little more color on your ability to absorb or offset that. I would assume that we're talking probably a half-year impact to the maybe $25 million-ish on a gross basis. Maybe just run through how exactly you're going to go about offsetting that.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, I mean, that's about an hour-long conversation, Mike. Let me give you the highlights and see if we can cover as much as we can. It's different by business.

Whether it is PBG or our custom wheelhouse business, as I mentioned earlier, or baseball, you really have kind of three different strategies and probably 20 different actions associated with those different businesses. On the whole, some of it comes down to commodity price index changing. Aluminum tariffs are a function of commodity indexing. That flows through our OEMs. We are working with our OEMs to mitigate as much of that as possible. It is not an easy conversation. Do not get me wrong. It is not like we just change the price tomorrow and off we go. Those conversations are happening. We are having some good success with those OEMs as we work through that aluminum tariff issue. Some of it is insourcing or resourcing, as I mentioned earlier.

That work is longer in duration to get done, but obviously, it's something that we have started before tariffs and will continue to drive. In baseball, we started a manufacturing facility in Taiwan. Not us, it's a partner of ours that has a manufacturing facility. So we've moved some baseball bats to Taiwan. We've also moved some finishing of baseball bats and both composites and aluminum to both Baton Rouge and Scottsdale. We actually moved some of that onshore to reduce some of the impact of tariffs in that scenario. In wheels, we had already had a strategy to move a good chunk of our wheel business outside of China to other locations in Asia. Wheel manufacturing is predominantly an Asian activity. It doesn't happen here in the U.S., so it would be hard to move that onshore.

A lot of that work started before the tariffs, as I mentioned, and we will continue to drive it going forward. From a supply chain and manufacturing footprint, again, keep in mind, most of our manufacturing footprint, as you know, is in the US or on the continent. We are not sitting too bad, and we have done a lot of really hard work in terms of executing very well against moving as much as they can and mitigating as much as they can. They will continue to do that work. We are early innings of this game. As you know, we are the first inning, and we need to get through eight more. So far, very positive in what we have accomplished. The second half of the tariff thing is really not about supply chain and manufacturing. It is about how does your brand withstand tariffs?

How does that hold up where your set of brands? And then how does the consumer demand look? Consumer demand, I'm not going to spend much time talking about because, as you mentioned, and we all know, it's pretty hard to call the ball on consumer demand. We'll have to wait and see what inflationary issues occur, what recessionary issues occur, and those kinds of things. We're not going to try to contemplate that. Our brand strength really resonates here in the U.S. with being whether it's Marucci, Victus, Fox, or others, very much an American brand story. I think we get the benefit of that American brand story with our enthusiasts and our customers. We're seeing some tailwind associated with that as we move through this.

Again, at the gross level, a pretty big number, not something we take lightly, but a lot of work by a lot of people in this company to try to drive that number down. We will keep working at it, and we will keep you guys appraised of how we are doing quarter by quarter as we go through it.

Michael Swartz (Director of Equity Research)

Right. That is super helpful. Second question, just I know I am going to get this question, so I am just going to ask it. Given that you came in above the high end of your revenue range, did you see any discernible maybe pull forward in the quarter from people trying to buy ahead of tariffs, to buy ahead of price increases?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Great question. No, not really. I mean, we saw a few pull-ins, but they were really tied more to product launches.

We've got a lot of product launches this year, and they tend to sometimes sit right around quarters, pivoting from one quarter to another. We saw some of that power happen more maybe in Q1 versus Q2. On the whole, not a lot of buying ahead of anything. Maybe we see that in Q2. Haven't seen it yet, but maybe we see that in Q2 as we get closer to kind of that second half of the year and where maybe more tariff impact could be. So far, no. We're feeling pretty good about where we are. Awesome.

Michael Swartz (Director of Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Perfect. Next, we'll go to Anna Glaessgen with B. Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Anna Glaessgen (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question.

Touching on tariffs, thinking about the indirect impact or further down the supply chain from you, within the bike business, are you generally within Asia shipping within Taiwan and then therefore subject to that reciprocal tariff down the line? Or your partners are? Or is there anything that's being shipped from China?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

No, nothing significantly shipped from China. In the bike business, we deliver to our OEMs on the island. The OEMs typically bring it across to either Europe or the U.S. Obviously, the tariff conversation is very different when you're talking about Europe or the U.S. Where we have a little bit more direct tariff impact would be in our aftermarket businesses. In that scenario, we've actually done a pretty good job of building inventory in advance of the tariffs to give us some buffer.

All that's factored into our thinking for the back half of this year. Generally speaking, we work with our OEMs to help them be successful in this environment more so than a direct impact to us.

Anna Glaessgen (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. Within the prepared remarks, you talked about improving the product mix and that helping margin. Can you elaborate a little bit more on if that was a skew rationalization or shifting the mix and if that was concentrated to any one segment?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

It's across the segments.

As part of our cost initiatives and as part of our look at the business to make sure we're driving the most profitable parts of our business and allocating capital to the most profitable parts of our business, we spend a lot of time looking at our catalogs and the different things that we're doing and really focusing on if we're going to innovate and if we're going to spend the money for innovation, let's make sure it's at the right product level and serving the right consumer demand. It's pretty much across the board. I would say there's some highlights both in PVG and the vehicle makeup in bike. Some of our product launches happening in Q1 and Q2 are at the very high end of the range, probably higher than we've been before in some of our forks and some of our new technologies.

So we're really focusing on that kind of ultra-premium level right now, and that seems to be serving us well. And then just broader expansion of portfolio and things like wheels, where we have the raised wheel category now, not just the Method wheel category. So trying to create a more diversified product portfolio on the higher end of the different brands and platforms, giving us some ability to pivot and move as we kind of go through this volatility.

Anna Glaessgen (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys.

Dennis Schemm (CFO and President)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Next, we'll go to Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Bret Jordan (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. On the PVG side, I think last quarter, you called out a lot of motorcycle manufacturers you're now doing business with, maybe BMW and Triumph and I think Ducati. And you'd mentioned the motorcycle business is up.

How much of the PVG growth was sort of infill orders with new customers on that motorcycle side versus selling sort of organic sales growth?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

The best way to answer that, Bret, is on the automotive side, as forecasted. We had forecasted a bit of a lower automotive quarter just from a stand, not because of tariffs. Obviously, we did not have tariffs back in our original forecast anyway. We expected the Q1 to be a bit lighter on the automotive side. You have that piece. On the power sports side, we expected continued softness and saw it in power sports. That has not disappointed, if you will. Probably the wrong word to use, but that is the one I will use. It has gotten softer as expected. Really, motorcycle has offset, more than offset, some of that softness in power sports.

Automotive was kind of right where we thought it would be. Power sports was soft as we expected it to be. Motorcycle picked up the difference, especially in that space. Aftermarket was up. Our aftermarket business, as you can imagine, when interest rates are high and people can't buy new trucks, they tend to fix the trucks they've got. Aftermarket tends to do well in that, and it did well for some Q1. We expect it to do pretty well in Q2 as well.

Bret Jordan (Managing Director)

Okay. Can you remind us on the seasonality of Marucci? I sort of didn't imagine it would sell in as the start of baseball season and peak early, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You call that bikes were the strong piece of SSG. How do we get that?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah, you've got seasonality a little bit wrong. Keep in mind, seasonality is a function of kind of the seasons of baseball or softball, as it may be. It is also about the seasonality of product launches. Most of the time, you launch like our Azura bat, as an example, as a pre-launch into the direct-to-consumer space right now. Ultimately, it will be a launch into our retail partners later this year. Most of the big launches through retail, brick and mortar happen kind of Q3, Q4 in preparation for the holidays and some of those things. Early launches get out there or to get out there in the field, get them in players' hands and things like that. That happens in kind of Q1, Q2, probably majority Q2. When you think about seasonality, it is not just tied to, "Hey, the season's starting.

It's time for a new bat." There is some of that, but it's also tied to when in the year do you go direct-to-consumer? When in the year do you go to big box? Those things have probably an outsized impact on your quarterly revenue charts versus just when baseball season starts.

Bret Jordan (Managing Director)

Okay. I think we're talking a lot about the benefit of being able to market it with MLB as the official bat. Obviously, that MLB marketing would start with the season. Your sales don't really tie or line up necessarily with that MLB season sponsorship?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Not necessarily. MLB sponsorship does a lot for us. That starts obviously early in the season, Q1. That's at the player level, the pro level. We're already very invested. We have 56% market share with the pros.

Our relationship into the MLB season is fairly baked even before Q1. What MLB is really helping us with is not only creating that brand awareness at the MLB level, it is pushing it all the way down into our little league businesses and even, frankly, into softball. We are using that leverage to help us grow those businesses. As we go through the season of MLB and fill the orders for bats at the stadium level, a whole different business profile, which is more souvenir-based, starts to pick up steam as we go into the year. Pre-season, not so big. You get them in the main season, Q2, Q3, and then finally in Q4 with October, kind of a different conversation. Early in Q1, not as big of an effect.

What's interesting about, and I'll just throw this out there, what's interesting about Q1 was the demand we saw with the torpedo bat almost instantaneously. Like an overnight, all of a sudden, it was a whole new ball game, excuse the pun. That was not expected, frankly. And we pivoted pretty hard to fulfill that demand as it came across. Obviously, we didn't expect the Yankees to do what they did to create all that positive noise for us. But the team did well and pivoted, and that did drive some demand in Q1.

Bret Jordan (Managing Director)

Doesn't make legacy inventory obsolete, though, right?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Does not. And not every player is going to go to a torpedo bat. So there's a few that seem to do really well with them, but there's a lot that still uses all the rest of our wood bats.

Bret Jordan (Managing Director)

All right. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you.

Next, we'll go to Scott Stember with ROTH MKM. Please go ahead.

Scott Stember (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just Scott. Yeah, circling back to, I guess, Bret's question, I guess, trying to parse out SSG in the quarter. Can you just size up which one grew faster? Maybe give us just some rates, just trying to get a sense of the direction of each one of them, at least coming out of the first quarter.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah. We don't want to give out necessarily rates on each individual product line, but I would tell you that bike, both of them actually surprised us to our forecast. Both of them beat the forecast to the upside. Bike had a really good revenue quarter. Really impressed with what we saw. I think that points to, Scott, some stabilization that we've been looking for for a long time.

We've talked a lot for a lot of quarters about looking for stability in bike and potentially recovery. Right now, I'm comfortable saying stability is where we are. We've stabilized. We'll start talking recovery as we get into Q2, Q3, and Q4. A real good quarter for us on the bike side. The team was smiling. It's been a while. It was really nice to see the team with some positive view of the rest of the year and the product launches that we've got coming. Really impressed with the bike business. Again, Marucci, we expected it to be a down quarter because we didn't have the CADX launch in the Q1 period. That's a big launch. Hard to overcome that. The year-on-year comp is pretty tough.

With some of the other launches they had and with the torpedo bat and some other things, they did a real nice job beating their numbers. That business continues to grow and expand throughout the year. We are really optimistic about the Marucci business and that team, including Victus and Lizard Skins and Bombat. Nothing negative to report there at all, just kind of a difference in timing of product launches.

Scott Stember (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

On the bike side, what are you hearing as far as retail for your, I guess, the higher-end mountain bike market? What are you hearing as far as the pull-through? Obviously, you guys are getting back to a better sell-in situation, but how is that being pulled through?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Like I said, our bike business in Q1 was good. Our conversations with our OEMs are very positive.

Man, I do not want to get out ahead of my skis. I think it is too early to start to call a victory lap on bike. Too many quarters in the past, we thought we were there or thought we were close to there and we were not. Give us the benefit of the doubt to have another quarter or two in our pocket before we say that we have won the game, so to speak.

Scott Stember (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Last question on the lower price of fork that you have in the market, how it is performing. I know this is a pretty big year for that launch, right?

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Yeah. I mean, that started last year. It is suspension. It is fork and shocks in kind of that entry premium space. That has done well for us. We have expanded our share. We did not have any share in that space.

Any growth there is good growth. We are continuing to push forward in that space to expand our relationships with our OEMs. I think you will see that one is probably more linear in its growth curve than a lot of other businesses because it is a model year picking up a bit more and more spec. We expect good things out of that part of the business over the course of 2025, model year 2026. We will just continue to push that forward.

Operator (participant)

Got it. That is all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to now turn the call back over to Mike Dennison for concluding remarks.

Mike Dennison (CEO and Director)

Thanks, everybody. Appreciate the time today. Have a good evening, and we will talk soon.