REV Group - Earnings Call - Q4 2020

Transcript

Speaker 0

Greetings, and welcome to REV Group twenty twenty Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year 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 will now turn the conference over to Drew Kunop, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Development.

Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Sherry. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. This morning, we issued our fourth quarter fiscal twenty twenty results. A copy of the release is available on our website at investors.revgroup.com. Today's call is being webcast, and a slide presentation, which includes a reconciliation of non GAAP to GAAP financial measures, is available on our website.

Please refer now to Slide two of that presentation. Our remarks and answers will include forward looking statements, which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our Form eight ks filed with the SEC this morning and other filings that we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings call, if at all. All references on this call to the quarter or a year or to our fiscal quarter or fiscal year, unless otherwise stated.

Joining me on the call today are our President and CEO, Rod Rushing as well as our CFO, Mark Skanechnie. Please turn now to Slide three, and I'll turn the call over to Rod.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Drew, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call this morning. I'd like to start by welcoming everyone back from what I hope was a healthy and happy holiday season. We are pleased to report improved earnings for the fourth quarter, where we achieved the high end of our guidance that we provided in our last quarterly call. Sales of $616,000,000 were six percent sequentially or up 6% sequentially despite some lingering end market challenges related to COVID-nineteen, illustrating the benefit of a diverse portfolio of businesses as well as momentum that we're building operationally. Our fiscal fourth quarter EBITDA of $28,000,000 grew 45%.

Our EBITDA margin increased 150 basis points on a year over year basis despite a 6% decline in our revenue. Our business generated 31% more EBITDA this quarter than we did in the third quarter, and we were able to convert those earnings into cash, allowing us to reduce our net debt by over $40,000,000 within the quarter. We fully participated in increased demand for recreational vehicles and showed market share gain in three out of five product categories. While our Fire and Emergency margins improved throughout the year, the Commercial segment was able to address an organic drop in sales of $120,000,000 and limit our full year decremental EBITDA margin. During the last nine months, we faced difficulties and perhaps some unprecedented external challenges while delivering three quarters of sequential margin improvement.

We still have much work remaining, and we continue to operate through the challenges with parts supply and absenteeism tied to the COVID matter. However, we believe we're in a position to continue to deliver year over year improvements throughout the upcoming fiscal year through our operational disciplines and capabilities that we are building. One important cornerstone that we are committed to establish at REV is to have aligned and unified leadership team that operates under the principles of timely, data driven, fact based decision making with a high sense of ownership and accountability. We have spent quite a bit of time focused on leadership alignment and organizational structure. We have completed our review of the businesses, and we have implemented a redesign of our operating model.

This was a thoughtful examination of how the business operates, where decisions are made and how we are structured to predictably deliver results, creating value for our customers and shareholders. The result aligns leadership and management on how we are going to run this business and where accountability sits within the organization while simplifying our business and optimizing our cost structure. There are many changes that were made to this process, but I will provide a bit of insight on a few examples. We made a decision to move our center led parts business back to the business units. There was an initial hypothesis that growth would be achieved by implementing a consolidated centralized parts business stemming from some end market synergies.

That growth did not materialize. Our businesses inherently know our customers and products and have the institutional knowledge to answer questions and deliver results to our customers more efficiently. Further, the realignment will create a $5,000,000 annual structural cost savings. Combined outcome of reducing complexity for our customers, the unrealized growth and what ended up being creating a duplicate cost structure drove the decision to make this change. This decision was a result of a careful reexamination of how to efficiently serve our customers and simplify our operations.

Commercially, there are a few aspects of our operating model where we have moved more firmly to a cinder led operation and becoming an operating company. These include development of cinder led activities related to operational excellence and commercial excellence where scaling of capabilities and processes will yield value creation for our shareholders. Many of these capabilities have been discussed by management previously, but have lacked the commitment and rigor to yield sustainable improvements that create value. We are focused on changing that and made investments in new personnel and technologies to our operating model to build the disciplines necessary to drive sustainable improvement on performance. As part of our operational excellence, we are building capabilities to improve database decision making, simplify operations and improve efficiencies on our balance sheet.

This includes disciplined review and controls of corporate costs, manufacturing overhead, labor and direct materials. It requires increased capabilities focused on engineering, manufacturing operations, supply chain and purchasing. To accelerate the change process and create a best in class operations, we have made several management changes. There are a couple that I'd like to highlight today. First, we've expanded the role of our Commercial President, Brian Prairie, to include the role of Senior Vice President of Operations.

In this role, Brian leads our manufacturing execution, operational excellence and supply chain. Brian is a master black belt in Six Sigma, a lean sensei and has extensive background in manufacturing operations and purchasing, making him the ideal person to build out our scintillate operational efforts. He is well positioned to take on this dual role while continuing to lead our commercial segment. In addition, we've hired Rob Dyslowski as Vice President and Chief Supply Officer. Rob joins REV Group having recently led Honeywell's Intelligrated Global Supply Chain and was Honeywell's Corporate Chief Procurement Officer.

As CPO at Honeywell, he managed an $18,000,000,000 annual spend portfolio as well as leading 3,000 global procurement specialists. Rob has a very broad industrial background from aerospace, automotive, paint and coatings and includes logistics. He has had executive leadership roles with XPO Logistics, Valspar, Reynolds Group and Alcoa. He brings to REV Group both the vision and the execution capabilities to build the best class global sourcing organization we're looking for and purchasing supply chain organization, combined with a sense of urgency to do this at a pace. Rob has only been in the position at REV for a few weeks, but he's taken an exhaustive look at our infrastructure has quickly identified a list of opportunities.

I'm very pleased to have Rob join our team, and I look forward to the impact that he will have on our business performance. In my nine months since joining REV, there have been challenges, some that were expected and some that were unexpected. We've implemented much change during that time. We began to see sequential improvements in our results. We have much work remaining in the months ahead, but I'm encouraged by the progress to date.

I look forward to sharing more about the plans and the path forward with you during our Analyst Investor Day that we're planning for April. With that, I'm now going to turn over to Mark for details on our fourth quarter segment performance. Mark?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Rod, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Page four of the slide deck as I review our segment level performance. Fire and Emergency segment fourth quarter sales were $330,000,000 a 23% increase compared to prior year. This includes approximately $75,000,000 of sales attributable to our acquisition of Spartan ER that occurred earlier in the year. Excluding Spartan, organic segment sales decreased 6% from the fourth quarter of last year.

While organic fire sales were relatively flat, we shipped fewer ambulance units due to lingering impacts of COVID. Although down from prior year, North American ambulance deliveries increased 21% sequentially and order trends continue to remain strong as municipalities and federal stimulus dollars prioritize health and safety needs. CARES Act stimulus dollars remain available for ambulance units delivered through the 2021 calendar year end, continuing an important driver of demand for our F and E segment. Within the Fire division, throughput increased sequentially once again at our E1 plant in Ocala, Florida. Unit production was up 44% year over year, demonstrating the benefits of lean programs and operating disciplines that were deployed over the second half of the year.

Bringing in lean expertise allowed a dual track of affecting immediate change while allowing time to develop leadership, train internal resources and build a pipeline of OpEx projects that will sustain continuous improvement. We plan to follow this model of deploying lean assistance where we feel there will be an immediate impact while training our internal teams at all businesses through a lean academy that is designed to deliver annual throughput and cost out targets. F and E's segment adjusted EBITDA was $14,800,000 in the 2020 compared to $7,400,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty nineteen. The increase was primarily due to the improvements in E1 just mentioned and the acquisition of Spartan ER. Amylin's EBITDA was relatively flat with the prior year despite the decrease in sales due to productivity improvements that increased margins, most notably at our largest manufacturing location in Orlando.

Spartan contributed $4,000,000 adjusted EBITDA to the F and E segment within the quarter, which completes three quarters of integration that exceeded expectations. The addition of this world class chassis manufacturing business provides a center of excellence that will be leveraged across our fire businesses and brands, creating further opportunities for manufacturing efficiencies within the segment. Spartan is now integrated into the F and E segment operationally, and we do not plan to call out its individual contribution in the future. Total F and E backlog was $966,000,000 up 16% year over year. This includes backlog acquired from Spartan and strong ambulance order intake throughout the fiscal year, including the fourth quarter.

A decline in legacy fire backlog is largely the result increased throughput at the Ocala plant and a decrease in fire industry unit orders that occurred from the onset of COVID through approximately September. Industry orders during that period declined over 25%. Since that time and during the final two months of our fiscal twenty twenty, our order rates improved to levels on par with fiscal year twenty nineteen. Fire backlog remains strong and now reflects competitive industry lead times and ambulance backlog is at a record high, which provides a solid base for sales growth and conversion to earnings within the F and E segment. We currently expect year over year F and E revenue improvement versus this year's softness related to COVID absenteeism and inspection delays, which occurred primarily in the second and third fiscal quarters.

At this time, absent another recurrence of the virus or additional government restrictions, we feel confident that we will convert to earnings more efficiently and with improved incremental margins. Turning to Slide five. Commercial segment fourth quarter sales were 91,000,000 a decrease of $56,000,000 compared to the prior period, which included approximately $57,000,000 from the shuttle businesses divested in early twenty twenty. The organic decline in sales was related to lower sales at all businesses within the segment. Year over year school bus sales declined 14% in the fourth quarter, which is a significant improvement to the third quarter decline of 31% and puts our fiscal second half twenty twenty sales ahead of reported declines in industry registrations for the same period.

Municipal transit sales decreased 40% versus the prior year, primarily due to delivery schedule adjustment to a large order to accommodate the needs of our customer that we disclosed in our fiscal third quarter. The change extended the delivery timeline through fiscal twenty twenty one, and there have been no further changes to that contract. Specialty markets remain depressed with sales down 40% versus last year. While this is an improvement from third quarter decline of 50%, the sales were primarily existing stock units built to order cancellations or delivery or delays that needed significant rework to meet customer specifications. Turning to segment adjusted EBITDA for the Commercial segment.

Commercial segment adjusted EBITDA of 6,400,000 was down 61% versus the prior year period, which included $1,000,000 EBITDA related to divested shuttle bus businesses. The decline in EBITDA was primarily a result of the sales decline in all businesses as well as the inefficiencies related to the rework of stock units within the Specialty division. Although the stock unit rework had a negative contribution to performance in the quarter, given the severe end market declines in this business, we took the opportunity to rightsize what had become an inflated stock unit inventory. Within the bus division, despite revenue declines in both school and municipal markets, these businesses were able to continue to flex production with demand and contributed high single digit EBITDA margins. Commercial segment backlog at the end of the fourth quarter was $274,000,000 down 14% versus the prior year quarter, which contained $86,000,000 of shuttle bus backlog.

Excluding shuttle bus, an 18% organic backlog increase is result of an increase in specialty division orders within the fourth quarter and timing of a large municipal transit order that entered backlog in the first quarter this year, partially offset by decreased school bus orders. The increased specialty orders were for both terminal trucks and street sweepers, and this quarter marks the best order intake since fiscal first quarter twenty nineteen. We have been aggressively pursuing new contracts and renewals in these markets, winning a large rental company contract for street sweepers and advancing in the bid process for terminal trucks at several national accounts. Last month, we are excited to announce a partnership with Hyster Yale Group to develop electric and hydrogen powered terminal trucks to reduce emissions and increase efficiency and productivity. We are targeting the end of our fiscal year to have the initial prototypes available for market testing.

With momentum in our specialty markets, a longer cycle municipal transit backlog, we feel the commercial segment is in a position to grow revenue despite uncertainty around the timing of a full time return to the classroom and impact on school bus demand. As COVID-nineteen vaccines become more widespread, there is reason to be optimistic that decisions reopen schools and districts will benefit our peak spring selling season for school bus. Given the cost out activities that we took this year across all of our commercial segment businesses, we expect increased volume in specialty and potentially school bus to convert at solid incremental margins. We anticipate the overall variability of twenty twenty's commercial segment bottom line margin performance will dissipate in 2021. Absent any new government directives that may impact end markets, employee attendance or delivery acceptance, the near term potential for this segment remains in the high single digit EBITDA margin profile.

Turning to Slide six. Recreation segment sales of $194,000,000 were up 12% versus last year, reflecting strong wholesale shipments and retail demand for Class B, Class C and towable units. Class A shipments were down mid single digits versus last year's production was limited by supply chain constraints, primarily in gas units. We feel the backlog and production capacity are in place to support higher shipments once these bottlenecks clear. Despite shifting fewer Class A units, our award winning product introductions continue to take market share resulting in higher retail demand, increased pricing and lower discounting and allowances.

Recreation segment EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA was $20,500,000 for the quarter, an increase of $12,000,000 or 175% versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.6% reflects a higher sales mix of non Class A products within the quarter as well as the impact of operating leverage and productivity improvements achieved across all categories with sequential and year over year margin gains. Despite lower Class A unit sales, profitability increased over six fifty basis points versus fourth quarter twenty nineteen and for a business that had recently struggled to breakeven, it was encouraging to see profitability reach levels that have not attained over the past two years. We expect to continue this momentum by driving efficient manufacturing practices and commercial activities focused on dealer wins and market share gains that would deliver sustainable performance, not only during this upturn in demand, but across all parts of the demand stocking cycles. Segment backlog increased 220% year over year to $540,000,000 which reflects strong order intake across all RV categories over the past six months.

The past two quarters were historic highs for orders by a substantial margin, and our current backlog is nearly double that of any point in REV's Recreation segment history. We feel this supports the current industry thinking that wholesale shipments will be up 20% or more in calendar twenty twenty one and that our product portfolio, niche market placements and iconic brands lands us in a strong position to participate in that growth. As we move forward, we expect the sales mix of products to normalize as Class A production and delivery schedules improve and therefore would expect segment margins in the mid single digits versus 10% achieved in Q4. On Slide seven, consolidated full year net sales declined 5% year over year to $2,300,000,000 in a challenging year that includes expansion of production activities at our Recreation segment at the onset of COVID and unplanned disruptions related to the pandemic at several other businesses. Adjusted EBITDA declined 34% compared to fiscal twenty nineteen to $67,500,000 Nearly $50,000,000 or three quarters of that total occurred in the second half of the year as revenue, throughput and margins improved sequentially through the period.

Rod mentioned a number of restructuring activities related to rightsizing the organization. This included decentralizing the parts business from the corporate center back into the individual businesses and sunsetting less profitable brands and dealer relationships within the portfolio. The total structural cost savings executed through our fiscal year end are expected to deliver a total of $10,000,000 annually. Turning to Slide eight. Full year net cash provided by operating activities was $56,000,000 compared to $53,000,000 of net cash provided in the prior year period.

Cash generated was primarily related to improvements in accounts receivable and inventory management as well as an increase in customer deposits received. We will continue to work all aspects of net working capital, including reinforcing the disciplines needed to reach optimal inventory levels, balancing accounts receivable and payable terms and aligning more of our businesses with a model that collects a greater amount deposits. Net working capital at 10/31/2020 was $355,000,000 compared to $373,000,000 at the end of fiscal twenty nineteen. Net debt as of October 31 was $331,000,000 including $11,000,000 cash on hand versus $377,000,000 at the end of fiscal twenty nineteen. At fiscal year end, the company maintained ample liquidity with two eighty three million dollars available under our ABL revolving credit facility.

You may recall that our term loan amendment effective in April reverts to a net leverage ratio of 5.25x with certain add backs related to the Spartan acquisition in the fiscal first quarter of twenty twenty one. We are confident that we will obtain this target. You may also recall that our term loan expires in April 2022. We will be working with our banking partners throughout the upcoming months to optimize our capital structure. We do not plan to issue guidance today due to the recent recurrence of COVID nineteen cases globally within our business across the country.

The safety of our employees remain the top priority. Contact tracing, testing, and measures to prevent the spread of the virus come with uncertain staffing levels that impact our businesses and supply chain partners. The CDC has issued and continues to update new directives that we follow. Under these conditions, our customers' ability to travel and inspect vehicles for acceptance creates uncertainty of delivery and revenue recognition timing. Until we can reasonably predict the potential impacts of these changes, we feel it would not be prudent to give a range of estimates.

However, with the emergence of vaccines, we hope to have better clarity when we host our virtual investor and analyst day in April that Rod referenced. Please save the dates on April 15 when we plan to provide a deeper look at our business and operating model and provide immediate term targets. If we feel that the operating landscape has become more predictable, we expect to also provide full year guidance. We will extend a formal invitation to this event soon. With that, I'll turn it back over to Rod.

Speaker 2

So I guess just a few closing comments then. So the fiscal year 2020 has been challenging for the REV Group and our employees in many regards. We have gone through a number of internal changes as we move towards the future. We sold the business, purchased it and integrated a business during that time in which the external alignment, as you all know, has been very and often unpredictable. I'm pleased with the progress we have achieved in a short amount of time given the amount of change we have experienced.

Our businesses continue to have relatively healthy backlogs, and we believe they support revenue growth in the upcoming year. And most importantly, I'm very pleased with what our employees have done. Every day, they've put themselves in a situation where they've delivered on done everything they can to deliver on our commitments and deliver to our customers under some very adverse circumstances as we look to support the first responders in our country. So I'm very pleased. I want to thank them publicly for what they've done.

And with that, I think we'll hold it over and have a Q and A with an open mic. So question and answers.

Speaker 0

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 participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key.

Please ask one question and one follow-up question and then re queue for additional questions. Our first question is from Gerry Brevich with Goldman Sachs. Congratulations

Speaker 4

on a really strong performance here. What really stood out was the margin performance in the RV business, and you alluded to mix helping. I'm wondering if we just step through looking at the year over year margin expansion, much of that was improved productivity, how much of that was pricing mix, and should we think about the mix tailwind as being sustainable from here?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Jerry, as I said in the in the my my prepared remarks, you know, the mix really helps us. And I think we've always said that, you know, outside of class a, those are double digit performing businesses. So when you look at the mix there, our mix was down on Class A. And we really had two things helping us from a tailwind perspective.

The fact that we had a larger mix in those more profitable business being the Class B, Cs and towables. And Class A actually had a high concentration of diesel product within the quarter, which is, more profitable than the gas product. So so even though we say COVID, a lot of the furniture issues we've had that we talked about previously were on our gas unit lines. And so even within Class A, we had a margin pickup from the concentration of diesel within the quarter, which we would expect to more flatten out to a reasonable normalized rate going forward. And of course, as Class A continues to develop, it'll get more to the forty, sixty sort of split that we traditionally have seen within that group.

So it really is just a matter of the amount that we sold within those other product categories plus the mix benefit. And, of course, as you saw within RV itself, the productivity improvements that they had drove a, you know, significant part of that 650 basis point improvement. Their sales were actually down. Go ahead.

Speaker 5

Sorry. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I was saying the sales are actually down here on here. Right? So they actually were able to deliver a profit that's a quarter versus last. So that was majority of that benefit was from productivity.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then Fire

Speaker 4

and Emergency, nine sixty Ocala turned the corner. Can you talk about how the production rates have continued into December? Have you continued to ramp higher? Or was the 40% increase essentially get you to a normalized run rate? And when do we see, from an accounting standpoint, lower per unit costs flowing through to the full extent?

Speaker 2

Well, I do think this is Rob. We have made considerable progress in that location, but there's still opportunity for us to even do much better there. So we as Mark mentioned in his earlier discussion, we've gotten back to more of a standard industry lead times. We continue to work on throughput on both aerials and pumpers in that plant. And we believe there's opportunities for continued margin expansion through productivity.

So while we're pleased with the path we're on and seeing this thing move and get be able to get look at our backlog and get to what we think is a more of a standard lead time. We still believe there's opportunity to improve our efficiencies in that plant and margin expansion in that business. So that's just work in front of us.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. I

Speaker 6

guess a couple of questions. One, I think you noted on the commercial side, you expected to see growth year over year. Just a clarification, I'm assuming that's normalized for the divestitures. So look at sort of the $90,000,000 quarterly run rate when you're talking about growth. And I guess just my second question, can you just give more color, obviously the outlook on the bus side or the school bus side is somewhat uncertain.

As you talk to customers, can you just talk about how they're thinking about buying trends in the latter part of the year? What would be the major drivers? What would they need to see to come back in the market and just sort of the overall age of the fleet? Well,

Speaker 2

I think that this is Rod. The feedback we have from end markets or dealer partners is that the whole thing uncertainty around school openings or schools that are open staying opening, that's the driving factor. Right now, there's just tremendous uncertainty around that. The back half of this year is going to shape out differently. Obviously, with the emergence of the of the multiple vaccines and and I think what's our real drive for, for people to get back in school from the public, I think that's that's pretty clear that people wanna go back to school.

That that makes promise. We've got a couple of things there I think could be tailwinds to help us get where we need to be. But we're gonna know I think by the time we get to get together in April, we're gonna know how that shapes up. But right now, there's just too much uncertainty for us to look forward and project what that school bus market's gonna look like, not knowing what the impacts of COVID is going to be until we see the success rate on this virus and what that looks like and then further moving into the spring when we typically see April, May being when we start getting significant orders and deliveries. So that'll be a time frame we're going to know.

But right now, not clear. Just tremendous uncertainty. Everybody's kind of awaiting that time period.

Speaker 6

Sorry. And then just the commentary on revenues for commercial, assuming it excludes the divestitures, so look at the $90,000,000 quarterly run rate.

Speaker 1

Correct.

Speaker 6

And then my last question, how to think about the corporate expense line as we look to 2021? Any color there? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. So you're right on the commercial, exactly right, excluding the $90,000,000 And then on the corporate, of course, parts was part of the centralized, so that 5,000,000 drops right to the corporate line. So you could see that 5,000,000 drop. That's where that was traditionally shown, the centralized parts business.

Speaker 6

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Courtney Yakavonis with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Speaker 7

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Speaker 3

Wanted get

Speaker 7

back on the comments. You know, appreciate that, you know, there will be a mix shift in recreation next year. I think you said you expect, you know, in line with the industry wholesale shipments up about 20%. But I

Speaker 0

think you had said that

Speaker 7

you were expecting mid single digit margins, and I think we've historically been seeing more high single digit out of that segment. So just wanted to make sure I I fully understood what you what you were thinking the mix shift impact, would have on on 2021 given that class a's been weak for some time now.

Speaker 3

Yeah. We've we've traditionally seen mid single digits. So, you know, what we determine as mid, right, five to five to 7%. So that's probably in line with what we've historically done. But the mix shift really is what I referred to with Jerry's question is, again, at 40% of our sales being in the RV or our Class A business, know, those, as you know, are depressed margins.

So those bring down the ones that are at double digit from a run rate perspective. So it's really the fact that RV, our what we call RV, our class a was actually down from a mix. So as they come more to the 40% to 50% range, they were 40% in the quarter versus 50% in the prior year. So you had a 10% drop there from a mix perspective. And so it's really that that simple as far as looking at the other three businesses that we have in that portfolio at double digit and bringing in a lower single digit mix from the Class A will actually depress those 10% down to the more of the 5% to 7% range.

Speaker 7

Okay. That's helpful. And then any more specificity you could give us just on commercial and F and E margins as we think about impact to next year? Obviously, appreciating that it's gonna be dependent on your delivery schedule, but any high level thoughts on on the margin side.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 3

I think we said high single digits on the from the whole commercial side, but obviously on the capacity, if you're talking about capacity, that's, you know, that's one we're still with the backlog here. So as I said in my prepared remarks, we took the opportunity to a lot of the units that we had developed coming into the what our normal selling season didn't develop. But exiting the quarter, we're very happy with some of the progress we made, and our backlog is now performing. So we should see the the variability get out of there. But when you look at the total commercial segment, we would expect the high single sort of what we were expecting coming in the quarter if we wouldn't had the issues that we experienced on the commercial side and liquidation that we did on some of those stock units.

So we are expected to get more, like we guided to, last time, more of the mid or the high single digits for the commercial segment.

Speaker 7

Okay. Gotcha. And then I guess just lastly, you know, you mentioned, you know, concerns about delivery schedules for next year. But if you had to just highlight, you know, what are the three categories that has the most variability or you're most concerned about versus the ones that are or that you feel most confident in the delivery schedules for next year just just so we can get a sense of of where the real risk is?

Speaker 2

And by by categories, you mean the business units or the product categories?

Speaker 7

I get yeah. I guess I just meant, you know, the within the business units, you know, obviously, your recreation backlog is is, you know, pretty strong. So do you feel like that's, you know, where you have the most certainty, you know, versus some of the product lines in in SME and commercial?

Speaker 2

I think that the and I'll comment and then Mark can clean up what I say. I think that when you think about end markets that are affected by issues, I think primarily, obviously, end market demand in the school bus business is the issue. All the businesses are subject to some level of supplier issues that we're dealing with. I think RV is probably the one that we've seen the most stock out, which is pretty consistent across the industry. The other element that we deal with a little bit, which is a timing issue, not a impact probably within the fiscal year is just the inspections that have to take place in ambulance and fire around getting a bus off the lot or I'm a truck or ambulance off the lot related to completing final inspections by getting people to the site.

That's a real issue that we've been dealing with in terms of revenue recognition because that has to happen in order for us to convert the bus. So I think in school bus, it certainly is, it's in market demand. There's some supplier issues that are spread throughout that we've been able to overcome for the most part, but they do pop up and we have to work through that. And then and then the last thing would be the the businesses that are subject to inspections, which is, you know, your your your emergency segment is where we see that at. Mark, I don't know if wanna add anything.

No. I think

Speaker 3

that's right. I think as we said previously, one of the things that we thought would happen here with COVID as people converted, like people working from home, we expected that more people would, adopt virtual inspections for our ambulance and fire trucks. And as exiting COVID, our customers have come back to wanting to see their trucks in person. And with this resurgent here, we're hoping that they'll go back to virtual, but, we have shifted back to wanting to do in person inspection. So we haven't seen them going back to virtual.

So, obviously, there is some flux there if people would go back to virtual inspections depending on what happens with the COVID environment. But, we are back to our traditional, as Rod referred to, actually seeing the units before they leave the the yard so that we can revenue them. And that's really the delays that I was speaking to of. It's really our customers coming in and inspecting the units and approving them for shipment.

Speaker 0

Great. Thanks. Our next question is from Raj Patel with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Speaker 8

Hey. Thanks for taking the question. Quick one on F and E margins. What's the anticipated F and E margin expansion once all the production inefficiencies are sorted out? What do you think the new margin profile looks like in a new normal?

Speaker 3

Yep. From a fire perspective, obviously, as Rod has reiterated multiple times, we're still in the multiple inning journey here. So as he's referred to on the e one, we still have a lot of work to do. We're seeing progression, but, of course, we have other facilities within the portfolio too that we're gonna address, as I said in my prepared remarks. So we're still expecting to be in the double digits, at the end of this journey, but we're still working through that.

Right? So, of course, we're not giving guidance here. But again, it's still in a multiple year perspective to get to that 10. So we're just happy to see the progression here that we've seen throughout the quarter. And obviously, our forward looking will provide more guidance in April.

Speaker 2

Think there's when you think about operational improvements and how you walk down that what Mark referred to as a multi energy. When you come into the role, there's some quick things you can do to get POP and get improvement. And then it's about building capabilities. And I mentioned from an operational excellence standpoint, standing up the lean capabilities and center led type activities that get implemented in the plants around CI, around purchasing, building engineering capabilities to getting design costs through VAVE. Those are things that you got to do some capability building.

But good thing is that it's a continual improvement continually improved process where you're going to be getting at that every day by building pipelines to go execute against. So we're in the process right now coming out of our operating model discussion of standing up those capabilities and building out those teams and doing the certifications that Mark talked about through lean that are going to yield benefit to us for a very, very long time. Things that did did not exist now, we're we're standing up those capabilities and bringing on Rob to lead our purchasing organization and get focused on that significant spend, I think it's going to yield great benefit to us too. So those will all contribute to a margin expansion story, not only in emergency but across the business. And so that's but it does take work to stand it up.

Starts with organizing and aligning and then investing in those capability building and then driving it through process rigor each day, each week, each month.

Speaker 8

That's helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Our next question is from Mig Dobre with Baird. Please proceed.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Hey, good morning. A quick question on chassis. As you're looking at your current production planning based on your backlog, are there any portions in your business where you're getting a sense that you're having either challenges obtaining chassis or, the the delivery time lines are extended?

And and, look, I mean, I'm I'm thinking specifically around ambulances and and some of the stuff in recreation as well, like, you know, Class B and so on.

Speaker 3

Yeah. No, Mig. I'm glad to say, and, we we we're not experiencing those. In fact, you know, we've we've had a pretty good supply chain from that perspective. So I was happy this quarter not to be talking about chassis shortages for once, even though it's only my second one.

So I know you've heard that consistently. So we've been very happy with that. In fact, you know, in the RV side, you know, we took advantage of what the, our run rates were gonna be and actually ordered ahead. So we're actually sitting with plenty of chassis from that perspective in in that business. And then on the ambulance side, we haven't had any issues from a a chassis perspective.

We've been getting our appropriate allocations from our OE partners.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe my follow-up, sort of sticking with the steam, how do you think about steel prices and raw material inflation in 2021? What are some of the steps that you've taken to mitigate this? Because obviously, historically, this has been an area where we've seen some trouble in prior years.

Speaker 2

Yes. So I mean, obviously, on the parts of our business, which large part of our business is built out of backlog, there's always the issue you're trying to offset inflation with your efficiency efforts because your purchase price is established on a backlog based business. So we're managing that. Obviously, a big part of what Rob's efforts is going to be is to look at new purchasing to be able to offset that within a fiscal year so we can cycle through and get the margins that we need on a price cost basis. But so it's a lot around driving efficiency to make sure that we're doing everything we can to optimize our cost structure to have any leakage that does come through inflation into a backlog based business we can offset through other means.

And Mark, I don't if you want to add anything to that or

Speaker 3

No. I I think that's right. And that's one of the things that I'm working personally with Rob on, make sure we understand those inflationary factors as we go through 2021 as well as our agreements with our supply base. And that's one of the things that Rob's getting acclimated to, and we there's actually a heightened focus in those businesses where we don't have the longer backlogs. We obviously come out with some price increases as our competitors have.

So we're managing that with the supply base as well as our our customers.

Speaker 2

I do think one of the things, many things we're working on is trying to get in front of how we think about price as a function of inflation and to make sure when you think about a price increase or setting a price in the market that you're thinking about the build cycle of when that vehicle will get built. So you reflect some inflationary characteristics in your costing in the business. Of our businesses have done that to some degree, but that's just something I think that we got to get great around because when you're working on a backlog based business and you're doing, selling forward projection on deliveries, you gotta be thinking about the inflationary times that you're in and making sure that you're you're costing that vehicle such that by the time you're doing the build or you're you're shipping the vehicle that you've anticipated any inflationary cost in your pricing cost.

Speaker 5

Absolutely. I I understand that. I guess I'm just wondering based on what you know today, do you believe you're going to be in a position where you can be neutral from a pricecost standpoint going forward? Or should we try to bake in some kind of a headwind? Yes.

Speaker 2

I think based on the data we have now relative to pricecost, the efficiency efforts that we've got in the business should yield us a minimum neutrality in our performance going forward in the fiscal year.

Speaker 5

Appreciate it. Good luck, guys.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Mick.

Speaker 0

As a reminder, just star one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. We will pause for a brief moment to poll for final question. There are no more questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rod for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Okay, great. Well, thank you again for joining. I appreciate the questions. It's again, I want to take a moment as we close out our fiscal year in a nine month period for myself and then think about all the changes that we've made both in process and structure and people to thank our team for what's been a pretty whirlwind year. Considering all the external situations that all of us have dealt with, on top of that, new leadership coming in and expecting to do things a different way and maybe change some thinking, I want to compliment our leadership team and also thank our frontline employees and what they've done to serve our customers and also serve this nation and getting these necessary vehicles out to our communities.

So again, I appreciate your time today. I look forward to seeing you all in April when we'll have a deeper discussion around where we're taking this business going forward. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Speaker 0

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