Brunswick Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 24, 2025
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Operator

Good morning. Welcome to the Brunswick Corporation's First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode until the question and answer session. Today's meeting will be recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

Operator

I would now like to introduce Zach Younger, Senior Financial Analyst, Brunswick Corporation.

Zach Yunger
Zach Yunger
Senior Financial Analyst at Brunswick

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call this morning is Dave Fouts, Brunswick's Chairman and CEO and Ryan Gloom, Brunswick's CFO. Before we begin with our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, our comments will include certain forward looking statements about future results. Please keep in mind that our actual results could differ materially from these expectations. For details on these factors to consider, please refer to our recent SEC filings and today's press release.

Zach Yunger
Zach Yunger
Senior Financial Analyst at Brunswick

All of these documents are available on our website at brunswick.com. During our presentation, we will be referring to certain non GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of GAAP to non GAAP financial measures are provided in the appendix to this presentation and the reconciliation sections of the unaudited consolidated financial statements accompanying today's results. I will now turn the call over to Dave.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Thanks, Zach, and good morning, everyone. All our businesses delivered a strong first quarter as the resilient composition of our portfolio, together with proactive pipeline management, well received new products, the benefits of executed and ongoing structural cost reduction measures and efficient execution resulted in first quarter financial performance ahead of expectations despite the challenging macro environment. Year to date, unit retail sales for our core and premium boat brands and product lines are in line with expectations for a second half biased year. We're seeing some weakness in entry level products, prompting us to consider streamlining our product offerings in the entry level space, while growing Freedom Boat Club as an alternative participation model. Early season boat shows are essentially complete with retail performance at shows flat to prior year and in line with expectations.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

While overall retail performance in the quarter resulted in appropriate bulk field inventory levels as we enter the primary retail season. Our first quarter results again demonstrated the resiliency of our portfolio with our recurring revenue businesses and channels, including our engine P and A business, Propulsion's Repow business, Freedom Boat Club and Navico Group's aftermarket sales, contributing nearly 60% of our first quarter adjusted operating earnings. We had outstanding free cash flow generation in the quarter, leveraging the inventory reduction and other working capital initiatives started last year, resulting in the second best first quarter cash flow on record and 160,000,000 improvement versus Q1 twenty twenty four. This performance enabled $26,000,000 in share repurchases in the quarter, maintaining our commitment to returning value to shareholders. Despite the uncertain market conditions for Brunswick, our customers and our channel partners, we're very pleased about our overall start to the year, which exceeded our expectations back in January.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Turning to some highlights from our segments in the quarter. Our propulsion business delivered sequentially improved sales and operating earnings versus the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, a low below first quarter twenty twenty four levels as anticipated. Mercury's outboard engine lineup continues to take market share, gaining 40 basis points of U. S. Retail share on a rolling twelve month basis, with indications of a strong April performance following significant share increases at twenty twenty five boat shows.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Sales to U. S. Boat OEMs were strong as our customer builders increased production levels ahead of the primary retail season and engine pipelines remain at appropriate levels. Our engine parts and accessories business had another strong quarter with solid year over year earnings and margin growth despite lower sales. This primarily aftermarket based business continues to derive its success from stable boating participation and the world's largest marine distribution network, which delivered sales growth of 2% through continued distribution market share gains, resulting from our ability to support same day or next day deliveries to most locations in the world.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Navico Group had flat sales and slightly lower operating earnings versus the first quarter of twenty twenty four as aftermarket sales to dealers and retailers remained strong, but OEM orders were pressured. Navaco Group delivered sequential sales growth versus fourth quarter twenty twenty four as its exciting recently launched new products continue to gain momentum and market acceptance. Finally, our Boat business had sales and operating earnings below the first quarter of twenty twenty four, consistent with lower planned wholesale shipments, but sales grew mid single digits versus fourth quarter twenty twenty four as anticipated. Our boat group teams are working hard to reduce product costs and protect margin in an environment with limited pricing opportunities. Freedom Boat Club continues to expand globally in premier boating locations and deliver steady membership sales growth.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

And early season member boat usage trends continue to be strong with trips up 3% sequentially in the first quarter. Turning to external factors, the uncertain tariff environment has, of course, become an elevated consideration in a challenging macroeconomic backdrop and is contributing to declining consumer sentiment and more uncertainty in U. S. Fed policy and the trajectory of interest rate reductions. The abrupt introduction of the tariffs in early April and subsequent policy confusion, in addition to the capital market turmoil, have certainly introduced new reasons for short term consumer hesitancy.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Brunswick has the benefit of producing the large majority of our products in The U. S. For The U. S. Market, and we have significantly reduced our exposure to China based suppliers since the initial imposition of Section three zero one tariffs in 2017.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

However, at current tariff rates, we have the potential to incur up to $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 of incremental net tariff costs in 2025, which Ryan will discuss further in a few moments. We continue to prepare for a range of scenarios and have many short and long term mitigation actions already underway, including continued migration of our supply base, inventory staging, pricing and optimization of our facilities, but this remains a very dynamic situation. Despite the macroeconomic noise, dealer sentiment remains fairly stable as early season boat show performance was solid and retail traffic is holding in.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Consumer sentiment remains volatile in response to the daily news flow, but our dealers are reporting that retail foot traffic continues to be steady and with the right incentives, they're able to

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

get sales across the line. Moving now to U. S. Industry retail performance. U.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

S. Main powerboat industry retail was down modestly in the first quarter with Brunswick's performance influenced almost entirely by declines in the value segment. You'll see on this slide that we're showing a slightly different view of U. S. Retail, which reinforces the fact that versus a strong first quarter twenty twenty four, retail remained very steady for our premium brands, including Boston Whaler, Sea Ray, Lund and Navan, and as a whole for our core brands.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Retail performance for our value brands continues to be challenged. We're working to optimize the profitability of these businesses at reduced production volumes. Outboard engine industry retail units declined 6% in the quarter with Mercury slightly lower, primarily due to calendarization of registrations moving into the April. We remain confident that Mercury will continue to gain share for the full year. Lastly, we have continued to diligently manage both pipeline levels and first quarter U.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

S. Wholesale shipments were down 16%, resulting in an 11% reduction in U. S. Pipelines or over 1,500 fewer units. U.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

S. Weeks on hand are lower than Q1 twenty twenty four at thirty five point six weeks with similar pipeline dynamics also occurring outside The U. S. Before I turn it over to Ryan, I want to walk through the components of our updated full year 2025 adjusted EPS guidance, which is now in a range between $2.5 and $4 per share. There remains significant uncertainty related to our 2025 performance and guidance, primarily

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

due

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

to the uncertainties of trade policy, the direct and indirect impact of these uncertainties on our consumers, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and the interest rate environment. Attempting to provide guidance is uniquely challenging in this environment, but we appreciate investor desire to understand the earnings components and guideposts that we're tracking internally to drive financial results. To that end, this slide is showing midpoints of ranges of what we currently anticipate to be the most likely outcomes for the year, assuming the current tariff rates persist and estimating the resulting impact to our businesses, the economy, our channel partners and the end consumer. After accounting for the Q1 beat, we believe that we would see volume pressure, especially in the near term, as our consumer spends cautiously in response to the uncertain tariff environment. Dollars $0.07 5 would represent an approximate 5% reduction in revenue related to slower retail sales, resulting in comfortably lower wholesale sales.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

We've modeled $1 of EPS as the midpoint of our anticipated net tariff impact. This is in addition to the $30,000,000 of China Three Zero One tariffs that were included in our initial guidance for the year and would represent a scenario where current tariffs remain in place, but we continue to work urgently on our mitigation efforts with achievement better than our baseline plan. Offsetting these headwinds are more planned cost reductions and an improved foreign currency exchange rate environment, where the softer U. S. Dollar has lessened the initially planned transactional headwind from the start of the year.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

The result is an EPS range of $2.5 to $4 and a midpoint of 3.25 I'll now turn the call over to Ryan to provide additional comments on our financial performance and outlook.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Thanks, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Brunswick's first quarter results were solidly ahead of expectations, but remained below prior year due to the continued challenging U. S. Retail marine market and macroeconomic conditions. Versus the first quarter of twenty twenty four, net sales in the quarter were down 11%, with adjusted operating margins of 6%, resulting in an adjusted EPS of zero five six dollars First quarter sales were below prior year as the impact of continued lower wholesale ordering by dealers and OEMs and prudent pipeline management throughout the channel was only partially offset by modest annual price increases and benefits from well received new products.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Adjusted operating earnings were down versus prior year as a result of the impact of lower sales, lower absorption from decreased production levels and the negative impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates, partially offset by new product momentum, annual price increases and ongoing cost control measures throughout the enterprise. Lastly, we used 44,000,000 of free cash flow in the quarter, a significant improvement versus Q1 of twenty twenty four and the second best start to a year in over a decade as Dave stated earlier. Now we'll look at each reporting segment starting with our propulsion business, which saw a 16 decrease in sales, primarily resulting from continued pipeline management and overall lower wholesale shipments to OEM boat builder customers, which although below prior year first quarter were slightly ahead of expectations. Segment operating earnings were below prior year due to the impact of sales declines and lower absorption, partially offset by cost control measures. Our aftermarket led engine parts and accessories business had another solid quarter with a 3% decrease in sales versus the same period last year due to slightly lower shipments, but a 7% increase in adjusted operating earnings resulting from the efficient operation of the business and slightly lower cost inflation.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Sales in the product business were down 9%, while the distribution business sales were up 2% compared to prior year. While the segment's adjusted operating margin was seasonally strong at 15%, up more than 100 basis points versus prior year. Navico Group reported sequentially stronger sales versus fourth quarter twenty twenty four and a slight sales decrease of 1% versus Q1 of twenty twenty four, primarily driven by reduced sales to marine and RV OEMs resulting from lower customer OEM production levels, mostly offset by strong aftermarket sales and new product momentum. Segment operating earnings decreased due to the lower sales. Navico continues its progress with new product introductions with the successful recent launches of the Eagle and Elite FX multifunction displays together with the recon trolling motor leading to share gains in the fishing segment.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Finally, our boat business reported a 13% decrease in sales resulting from anticipated cautious wholesale ordering patterns by dealers, which was only partially offset by the favorable impact of modest model year price increases. Freedom Boat Club had another strong quarter contributing approximately 11% of segment sales, including the benefits from recent acquisitions. Segment operating earnings expectations as the impact of net sales declines and lower absorption from the reduced production was partially offset by pricing and continued cost control. Next, I wanted to provide additional information on our anticipated tariff impact for 2025 should the current tariff rates continue for the remainder of the year. This slide shows the approximate percentage of COGS affected by tariffs currently in force, along with our anticipated 2025 net tariff impact for each category after planned mitigation measures are considered.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

The largest tariff impact relates to China. And while only approximately 5% of our COGS could represent 75,000,000 to $100,000,000 of tariff expense due to the current 145% tariff rate on supply from China and China tariffs on U. S. Imports. These incremental tariffs are in addition to the approximately $30,000,000 of Section three zero one tariffs that were included in our initial guidance for the year.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

We continue to make strides in lowering our dependency on the China supply chain and are working with our Chinese supply partners on cost sharing and other mitigation efforts. Mexico and Canada supply accounts for approximately 15% of U. S. COGS, but most of the supplies from these two countries are imported under the USMCA, meaning that our tariff exposure here is small assuming the continued USMCA exemption. Finally, there are other smaller tariffs on rest of world imports.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Not included in this analysis are other impacts or potential impacts both positive and negative to the enterprise, including potential retaliatory tariffs from The EU and Canada on U. S. Manufactured boats and possibly engines and parts, tariffs on boats imported into The U. S. By our European OEM partners that use Mercury engines and parts, Mercury engine competitors, which are paying tariffs on the importation of engines from Japan or other non U.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

S. Manufacturing locations and maybe most importantly, the disruption of the capital markets and the corresponding impact on our consumer during this critical point in the retail boating season. As everyone is aware, this is an extremely dynamic situation and the entire Brunswick team is committed to minimizing the overall impact that tariffs ultimately have on our enterprise. My last slide shows our updated full year guidance, taking into account the uncertainties that we have been discussing. Earlier, Dave walked through the components of our adjusted EPS range of $2.5 to $4 which is driven by anticipated revenue of between $5,000,000,000 and $5,400,000,000 We are strongly focused on cash generation and believe we can still reach or exceed our initial guidance of $350,000,000 of free cash flow for the year.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

We anticipate the Q2 market conditions looking similar to Q1 with sequentially stronger revenue and earnings driven by the annual seasonality of our businesses. Lastly, while we still believe a flat U. S. Retail boat market is achievable for full year 2025, our guidance contemplates potential volume impacts resulting from the tariff environment and general uncertainty in the macro economy and its anticipated impact on our consumer, which we believe could result in boat unit sales being slightly down versus 2024 with weakness primarily related to value product. I will now pass the call back to Dave for concluding remarks.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Thanks, Ryan. As we wrap up, I want to highlight some of the key product launches and events from the first quarter, as well as some of the notable awards we've received so far this year. During the twenty twenty five Miami Boat Show, Cimrad launched the all new NSS4 multifunction display, the latest premium chart plotter and fish finder in the Cimrad portfolio, which for the first time allows anglers to track four sauna sources on a single display. One had a very busy start to the year with the January launch of the 185 Impact GL and an all new heavy gauge product line on the way. In February, Ryan and I were able to attend the Annual Freedom Forum, another successful gathering of our outstanding Freedom Boat Club franchise partners and corporate team.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

We all have the opportunity to experience the power of being part of the Brunswick family and celebrate Freedom's continued growth and success. FLYHT launched the all new Series five Blackboard with a highly efficient FlightJet II propulsion system in Miami, hosting a media event and on water demos featuring their full product lineup, while the Bayliner C21 had its European launch at the Dusseldorf Boat Show and was very well received by its international channel partners. Lastly, Navan's C30 and S30 models had a strong boat show season following their North American introduction late in 2024, with sales at multiple shows already in 2025. They've also been very well received as a premium option at a select number of Freedom Boat Club locations. Finally, we've continued our rapid pace of awards in the quarter for our people, products and commitment to innovation and are on pace to eclipse 100 awards again in 2025.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

In the quarter, we won a pair of Newsweek awards, including being named to the list of the most trustworthy companies in America for the third consecutive year. Brunswick ranked in the top 10 companies within the manufacturing and industrial equipment category. Also for the first time, Brunswick was named to Newsweek's list of America's greatest workplaces for women, and two of our outstanding female leaders were selected as Women Make winners, the highest honor for women in manufacturing from the National Association of Manufacturing. Our product awards continued in the first quarter with the Flight Board team winning a pair of Red Dot awards, one of the world's most prestigious design awards, and Printz Craft winning its first ever National Marine Manufacturers Association Innovation Award at the Minneapolis Boat Show. We also expect to be able to announce a number of additional product awards in the near future.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Finally, Boating Industry Magazine announced its twenty twenty five forty Under 40 list, recognizing six emerging leaders from Brunswick Corporation and Freedom Boat Club among the industry's top young professionals. Congratulations to all the winners. Despite the continued external headwinds, we never take our eye off the importance of making Brunswick One of the most exciting and rewarding places to work. That's the end of our prepared remarks. We will now turn it back over to the operator for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Thank you. Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Mike Swartz with Truist Securities.

Operator

Please proceed with your question.

Michael Swartz
Michael Swartz
Director - Equity Research at Truist Securities

Hey guys, good morning. There was a lot of numbers and scenarios thrown out in terms of guidance update for 2025. But maybe Ryan, Dave, at a high level, could you help us just understand what's embedded at the lower end and maybe what's embedded at the higher end of your outlook for the year?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. Good morning, Mike. I'll take a stab and then Dave can fill in. It's pretty straightforward. I think the high end of the range would anticipate a couple of things.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

It probably be a moderation a bit of the tariff environment and or combination of us being able to continue to mitigate the costs better than anticipated, which by the way, we're I think we're as an enterprise doing the best we can and really been on this since day one on mitigation exercises. So that would if the tariff environment moderated a bit, I think you would have an argument that the volume degradation that's in our that's in the bridge there could be lessened or even go away. So it's kind of that simple on the high end. On the low end, really the opposite, right? It's the tariff environment that goes to the far end of our range that we show on the slide and the volume doesn't.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

So we see a decline in volumes throughout the year and maybe there's not the FX benefit that we've shown. So it's kind of all those things on the chart, so pretty negative versus on the top end, there's just a little bit of relief.

Michael Swartz
Michael Swartz
Director - Equity Research at Truist Securities

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And just with the tariff outlook of the mitigation efforts, I would assume that's only is that only half year? I mean, we were annualizing that, would you anticipate another $100,000,000

Michael Swartz
Michael Swartz
Director - Equity Research at Truist Securities

next year? I'm just trying to

Michael Swartz
Michael Swartz
Director - Equity Research at Truist Securities

dig through how that works.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. We lost you there in the middle of the question a little bit, but I think I have the question right about a full year annualized view. No, I would say, well, obviously, what's on the slide, the tariff slide is a 2025 impact, right? And that's not a full year. But that does assume that the current tariff rates continue as they are today, including an extremely high China rate, which is our biggest impact.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

However, if you go to a year, you're going to have a lot more ability to mitigate and a lot more time to do that, Mike. And I think we've shown the ability to be very thoughtful and quick in mitigation. You would also have some of the benefits from tariffs paid in 2025 that would actually not show up until 2026. And that would include duty drawback and substitution primarily at Mercury. Because the accounting tariffs, there's a bit of a delay on when we pay them and when it occurred and then when we are able to do some of the mitigation, drawbacks or substitution and some of that timing would benefit a future year.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

So it's really hard for me to give you an exact number, but I am confident it will be lower than just an annualized full year 2025.

Michael Swartz
Michael Swartz
Director - Equity Research at Truist Securities

Okay, perfect. Thank you for that.

Operator

Thank you. Our next questions are from the line of James Hardiman with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

James Hardiman
James Hardiman
Director - Leisure and Travel Analyst at Citi

Hey, good morning. And maybe just a quick follow-up on that last point, Ryan. If we're to think about 100,000,000 to $125,000,000 of net impact this year. What's the gross number, I. E, how much are you assuming you're able to mitigate away?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. It's hard give that number. Mean you can take the COGS that we've given you on the slide and multiply it by the rates. But there's so much that goes in there, James, including, as I said, the timing of when the tariff comes in. It's obviously we're mitigating a good amount.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

I would say the gross number is probably not double that, but it's somewhere south of it. But again, with all the moving pieces on how you have to account for it and actually pay it versus incur it, it's just not as simple as a cost calculation that you'd want to make.

James Hardiman
James Hardiman
Director - Leisure and Travel Analyst at Citi

Got it. And then let's talk about Q2 and then sort of what's implied for the second half of the year. Certainly, the Q2 guidance came in pretty materially beneath the Street. What's driving that? And I guess as part of that question, as we think about tariffs, how much of that 100,000,000 to 125,000,000 is in Q2?

James Hardiman
James Hardiman
Director - Leisure and Travel Analyst at Citi

And what are you assuming for inventory? Normally, Q2 is an inventory drawdown quarter. Is that going to be even more aggressive this year? Just trying to think through a second half guidance that assumes material growth year over year despite a bunch of tariffs in there, how realistic of an expectation that will be? Thanks.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

All right. Thanks, James. Couple of several questions in there. I'll try to respond. So I will say first on Q2, yes, there is a tariff impact.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Obviously, the way you have to account for anticipated full year tariff impact would include capitalizing the cost that you anticipate for the full year as incurred. So there is a portion of that tariff impact that is in Q2. There's probably a little bit of conservatism there in terms of the sales figure. You saw the volume drop on our bridge. I think we would anticipate that starting in the second quarter, it's an important quarter for retail, it's important quarter for wholesale.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And if there's still uncertainty in the tariff environment and in the macros, I think you could see that come through in the second quarter. But also it could be a little bit of a delay. The other thing, FX is kind of a good guide for us in the quarter And there's probably some mix in there as well, with a little bit more sales to P and A. So a lot of back and forth between what you kind of what we saw in Q1 and what we'd anticipate in Q2. The last thing I'd mention, and you can correct me if I left anything out.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

For inventory, we do still plan on an inventory reduction through the year. One of the big drivers of our cash flow success in the quarter is inventory and working capital usage being down. So we keen on keeping inventory to match our production. And should there be value reductions needed in the back half because of sales pressure, we will and have shown the ability to ensure that we put the brakes on inventory coming in.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Would just add James that there might be I think there might be an implication in there that we had some sales pull ahead into Q1, which has been the case in some other industries like automotive, for example, but we really didn't we had negligible sales pull ahead into Q1. And really, we did embed quite a bit of the revenue uncertainty in that bridge into Q2 just because of the extremely dynamic environment, which we think is driving more hesitancy and uncertainty at the moment versus what will hopefully be a bit more of a certain environment in the back half of the year. So there's plenty of opportunity for us to do better in that second quarter if things stabilize.

James Hardiman
James Hardiman
Director - Leisure and Travel Analyst at Citi

I guess ultimately my question, if you don't mind just sort of following up and maybe distilling my question a little bit better. As I think about the second half, you've got earnings up year over year. Obviously, a big tailwind is that you were reducing inventory in the back half of last year, right? So that was a big negative a year ago. This year, you're going to have significant tariff exposure.

James Hardiman
James Hardiman
Director - Leisure and Travel Analyst at Citi

Are we as we work through our models, is the assumption that the good guy is bigger than the bad guy as we work through all of that math, particularly given an uncertain consumer environment.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes, James, that's a good point. And yes, that's a good point. I think you're really talking about pipeline inventories at a little bit more than our inventory, in which case, Remember that we Mercury took their production down the second half dramatically, more than 50% even in Fond Du Lac and our high horsepower and both did something similar. So we've done a really nice job of lowering production and lowering the pipelines in advance of what we anticipated was going to be a strong 2025 and actually was actually a good start to the year. I think even on balance, the good outweighs the bad as we look to the second half even in a tariff impact environment.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. I think one of the main components of that is we were operating in a very inefficient way in the back half of last year. Our production lines were not optimized. We had too many people because we're all we're kind of always kind of trailing, trying to get people optimized for production rates. Mercury, Ryan said, was running essentially every other week.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

So, we should be operating much more efficiently in this environment in the back half of the year.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And that will come through on the absorption line too, James. That's a big, the year over year production swings look much more favorable in the back half, in tariff impacting environment.

Operator

Our next question is from the line of Craig Kennison with Baird.

Craig Kennison
Director of Research Operations & Senior Research Analyst at Baird

The

Craig Kennison
Director of Research Operations & Senior Research Analyst at Baird

press release mentions plans to streamline entry level boats. I'm wondering if you could shed more light on those plans and maybe even comment on which categories or brands might be impacted.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. Thank you, Craig, very much. Yes, we already are essentially in process at a kind of model by model level. Obviously, as we showed in the slide deck, the entry level really is the most impacted at least in our portfolio at the moment, which tends to correlate to the more economically sensitive consumer, I would say. And as we've seen these successive declines in volume, there's if we were anticipating a year of increasing volumes in that segment, then we could maybe tolerate those lower gross margins for a while.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

But given the current environment, it seems appropriate to take action in that segment. So, the first thing you'll see is really reducing the number of models that we continue to offer in that category. I would say broadly, probably fiberglass value is weaker than aluminum value at the moment. Every model that you continue really carries the cost of not just the immediate cost of kind of lower gross margin, if you like, but also the requirement for future investment to develop new models or enhanced models or model year changes. And as we think about where we prioritize our investments, we clearly would like to prioritize it in the areas with the highest margins for us and the biggest growth opportunities.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

So, we'll be working on that. We're certainly studying additional ways to make sure that we optimize manufacturing in that area. One of the things I would just point out though is, although the margins on those products are relatively small for the boat group, of course, are margins that flow through to Mercury and Namco Group. All those boats carry Mercury engines. So, we have to think holistically as we're doing this to make sure we compromise Mercury share, for example, as we take those actions.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

But you should expect to see more detail on those as we go through the year and firm up the direction.

Craig Kennison
Director of Research Operations & Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Should we think of those as more tactical decisions to reduce the number of models you have within a brand? Or are you making more strategic decisions with respect to some of your brands or some of the bulk categories themselves?

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. I wouldn't say that we're making any strategic decisions at a brand level. But I would say that we're studying options that would have long term cost benefits to us, not just short term tactical opportunities.

Operator

The

Operator

next questions are from the line of Megan Klap with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Megan Clapp
Megan Clapp
Executive Director at Morgan Stanley

I wanted to ask, I think, Ryan, you talked a lot about impacts that could impact the guide that aren't included in your analysis today, one of which disruption of capital markets. I wanted to ask, premiums held up very nicely over the last couple of years, and I think you said was flat in 1Q. But anything you're seeing or hearing from dealers kind of month to date in April as it relates to discernible impacts from that consumer in particular, just as we've seen more stock market volatility?

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. Maybe I'll start and Ryan can follow-up. I think our I would say our premium brands seem to be in a pretty decent spot overall, I would say. I would say that there's been if you look it's always difficult to segment our brands exactly because even our premium brands have small models for Boston Whaler has a 16 foot Super Sport. So I think what we're seeing at the moment is it tends to be smaller product, less than 100,000 that we might see a bit of weakness in.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

And then I think some of the very large product categories that we don't really participate in. So fundamentally, I think our brands are in pretty good shape. But certainly, the stock market is going to have a fairly it could be concerning for a whole broad range of consumers. I think we're feeling okay at the moment. So, yes, I think we're in a good position relative to others in the marketplace with our products.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

But yes, there certainly could be some short term hesitancy. I would say that both buyers, particularly in that premium segment, are not just holding up well, now they've held up well for a number of years in the face of quite a few headwinds. So, they're a very resilient consumer. They tend to be very engaged in the on water lifestyle. So, we continue to expect them to be pretty resilient even in the face of the current uncertainty, but everybody's impacted, right?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And if maybe you translate that into wholesale, this is where the very lean pipelines, especially at Whaler, Sea Ray, some the premium lung products really helps us. Q2 wholesale for those products is already kind of in the books, if you would. So retail, whether it slows for a temporary period or doesn't, still our dealers are feeling the need to take product just because their boats per rooftop, if you would, are still extremely lean and that's a result of all the activity we did at the end of last year.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Would maybe another

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

component here is, you're right that the capital market turmoil is certainly a headwind. I would say a bit of a tailwind for our brands, particularly the premium brands and core brands, really all of them, is that they're produced domestically. And most of them carry Mercury engines that are produced domestically. So versus some of the imported brands, we are not we're in a beneficial tariff environment at a boat level anyway. So I think as dealers look at where to place their bets in terms of wholesale orders, we're probably in a preferred position at the moment, which is a which, to some extent, mitigates some of the other headwinds.

Megan Clapp
Megan Clapp
Executive Director at Morgan Stanley

Okay. That's helpful. And maybe just a follow-up on propulsion. It seems like just looking in the appendix that by segment, that is where the bulk of the at least bottom line cut is coming from, which presumably I think that's because you're importing components from China, but correct me if I'm wrong. But how do you think about again, I think, Ryan, another factor you mentioned was the potential for, I think, what would be a tailwind given some competitors are importing from importing the full engine from other countries.

Megan Clapp
Megan Clapp
Executive Director at Morgan Stanley

So I guess, how you kind of think about that potential tailwind today? Is that anything you're seeing or hearing yet from OEMs? And when could that potentially play out?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. Thanks, Megan. And you're correct on the first piece. Mercury is the recipient, if you would, on a majority of our tariff impact and also the tariff impact on their sales into China, which are actually not immaterial given the day they sell engines and parts into China at 125% for Talosori, those are going to be very challenged. But yes, one of the potential benefits is the non U.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

S. Engine manufacturers paying tariffs on the importation of their engines into The United States. All the way back to 2017, this has been a pretty sore subject around mercury as many of us use similar Chinese supply chains and have for a number of years. Some of our competitors take those same components, go to their facilities in Japan, manufacture the engine and sell the engine into The United States with zero tariff. We take the same components, sell it, send them to The United States, use all of The United States labor up in Fond Du Lac, make those projects products here in The United States, but we pay tariffs on the importation of those exact same components.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And so yes, there's certainly a benefit there if the non U. S. Engine manufacturers continue to have a tariff inbound. I don't know if we've seen any of that benefit yet. I think there's a whole lot of people that are just being cautious and looking at each other right now with and keeping their inventories steady until they see where it's ultimately going to land.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

But that is one where I think that would be a pretty nice advantage for Mercury moving forward.

Megan Clapp
Megan Clapp
Executive Director at Morgan Stanley

Okay, great. Super helpful. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Yan Xu with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.

Xian Siew
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Hi, guys. Thanks for the question. You mentioned the mitigants. Can you maybe give a little bit more color on what the mitigation actions would be in terms of mitigants against tariffs? Is it pricing?

Xian Siew
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Is it moving sourcing? And how confident are you to realize the mitigants? Thanks.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. Thank you for the question. Again, it's the things that you just mentioned certainly. Well, maybe we'll start with pricing. We have some ability to take price, but we have to be very careful about how we do it.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

For example, we are not intending for Mercury to take big pricing this year despite the tariff impact. It's just not an environment where we can introduce additional pricing and not affect volume or market share and other things. But we can do it selectively on some product lines. And certainly, internationally, we have a little bit more freedom to do that. We certainly are continuing to migrate our supply base, either to other to lower tariff international locations or to onshore it.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

We've been doing that for a long time. And we have plans to reduce our China sourced components very substantially. And that is well in flight, Just making sure that we can do it with quality, it can happen instantaneously. We need to make sure that we do it well. But those actions are very important to us.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

The other thing, to be honest, is just how you classify components. The HTS, the harmonized tariff schedule components, HTS codes have incurred differential tariffs in some instances. For example, making sure that our products that we manufacture or components that we manufacture in Mexico and Canada are appropriately classified for USMCA. So there's quite a lot of work in making sure that we appropriately classify all our components to minimize the tariff exposure. I would say all of this was really was and has been in flight for a long time.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

This is not stuff that we suddenly had to action, or at least most of it is stuff that we didn't have to suddenly action recently. Our exposure to China back in 2017 was much larger. And we could easily see our exposure to China reducing by 50% by the end of this year. So, we have a lot of actions like that in flight.

Xian Siew
Analyst at BNP Paribas

That's super helpful. And then maybe just on inventory at pipeline, I think you mentioned you're hoping to reduce that over the course of the year. Could you maybe give us a sense of like where you hope to end in terms of weeks on hand for pipeline?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. I mean weeks on hand, obviously, is a function of what you anticipate retail being. Maybe in terms of units, I think we still think we'll take for full year, we'll take another 1,000 units out globally, which will get you down another week or two. In The U. S, probably something similar, maybe a little less, maybe 500 units or so, and that would land you really in the mid-30s, kind of comfortably where we've been historically.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And that's with a kind of assuming a TTM that's still negative. So smart there. And then maybe Zian, I know we don't talk about it as much, but even on the engine side, it's very likely that we'll take significant engines out of the pipeline for the full year, which will, if you look at kind of a three- or four year curve, kind of put us back to where we started almost coming out of the GFC with pipelines really about as lean as they've been certainly since we started the all the efforts on the 150 horsepower and above and taking all the market share. So again, ourselves up for some nice wholesale benefits as we think the market eventually picks back up.

Xian Siew
Analyst at BNP Paribas

Great. Thanks. Good luck.

Operator

Our next questions are from the line of Scott Stember with ROTHMKM. Please proceed with your question.

Scott Stember
Executive Director & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Hey, Good morning.

Scott Stember
Executive Director & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Can we talk about boating participation? It looks like at least through the quarter through your engine P and A sales that it held up pretty good. But have you heard anything or from Freedom Boat Club or just through any other marina data that for whatever reason since April 2 that we've seen that slow down at all?

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Hey, Scott, it's Dave. No, it's the answer. I think the exact phasing of P and A sales, I hate to bring this up, but weather is important. So this year, the Northern Lake kind of ice off is about three weeks behind. So we should see actually some, I think, check up in P and A sales as we get into April and May that might have been delayed from earlier parts of the year.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

And we are not seeing any material change in overall boating participation.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And Freedom Trips are actually very steady year over year. They're essentially flat and that's with a relatively poor weather respectively in Florida, which is the busiest traffic state of freedom certainly at this time of year.

Scott Stember
Executive Director & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Got it. And then just last question also in April, any signs of any tightening of lending from lenders or credit deterioration on the behalf of the consumer?

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

No. Actually, both kind of retail financing rates have been holding very steady around 8% -ish, maybe a little bit less than that for larger loans, if you have decent credit. So the spread to the mortgage rate is actually narrowed. And interestingly, it's been 8% for several months now. We have not seen any change in that.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

There's also potential buyers can also get discounted rates. There are a number of OEMs and other opportunities for getting discounted financing rates. I don't think that's yes, I don't think I don't haven't seen any deterioration in that, nor in credit quality.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And maybe on

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

the wholesale side, I'd say the same thing. Dealers came out of their curtailment holiday in late winter, early spring and dealer health continues to be very strong. So we're not seeing any degradation on dealer finance side as well.

Scott Stember
Executive Director & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Got it. That's all I have. Thank you.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Thank you.

Operator

Our next questions come from the line of Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Please proceed with your questions.

Joseph Altobello
Joseph Altobello
MD & Senior Analyst at Raymond James Financial

Thanks. Hey, guys. Good morning. Question, I want to go back to the $0.75 reduction to your EPS guidance owing to softer volumes. And I apologize if I missed this, but does that assume demand trends here in April remain constant?

Joseph Altobello
Joseph Altobello
MD & Senior Analyst at Raymond James Financial

Does it assume it gets better or worse in the second half?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. I mean it's hard to put an exact time frame on it, Joe. But just think of it, it's our view on an approximately 5% sales decline off of our original projection, right? So $5 plus billion, $0.75 with our variable margin looks like $200,000,000 to $250,000,000 of sales. As we said earlier, I think we, in our minds, think that, that could be a little heavier in the second quarter.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

As we know, we're dealing with tariffs environment today. It could get better in the second half. But it would probably be an impact that would be felt throughout the year should the current macros continue.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. I would also say, Joe, that 5% is really a revenue number. That shouldn't be conflated with a boat unit sales number, I mean, could tolerate boat unit sales in the entry level brands deteriorating much more significantly than 5%. Given the fact that 60% of our earnings is coming from recurring revenue sources and we expect P and A to hold up a lot better. So I would say that 5% is pretty aggressive in terms of an assumption.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Is it could be unit sales down more than that.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Right. And that's a good point and worth reiterating. That chart anticipates or presupposes that the tariff environment lasts the whole year. So the volume is a direct result, the volume reduction is a direct result of the tariff environment pain that is on our end use customer. If that abates in any way, then those things are very much interrelated.

Joseph Altobello
Joseph Altobello
MD & Senior Analyst at Raymond James Financial

Okay. Perfect. And maybe just a follow-up. The outlook for share repurchases, I think it's still $80,000,000 You talked about that being the floor. Potentially, given where the stock is today, any thoughts to upping that at some point?

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

Yes. We'll see, Joe. Obviously, we're balancing a lot of things here with our capital strategy, obviously, debt and dividends, which are in pretty good shape. And then share repurchases, we obviously would like to be aggressive given where our stock price is. But we also want to make sure that we're generating and using cash in the best way as possible.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

And again, maybe just to reiterate, we had our second best cash quarter in really since the GFC, whether it's on record or in a decade. Our records go back a long way, but our company was very different as far as once you go too far back. But we are in a situation where our cash position today, as we're on this call, we are now free cash flow positive for the year. The first time I certainly I've been able to say that as CFO and certainly it's something we've been working hard on. So this is about as early of cash generation as we've done.

Ryan Gwillim
Ryan Gwillim
Executive VP, CFO & Chief Strategy Officer at Brunswick

So should that continue, that will give us a good chance to be aggressive on shares and maybe even take another swing at some of the debt reduction work that we started last year.

Joseph Altobello
Joseph Altobello
MD & Senior Analyst at Raymond James Financial

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Jamie Katz with Morningstar. Please proceed with your question.

Jaime Katz
Jaime Katz
Senior Equity Analyst at Morningstar

I just have one quick one. It was mentioned in the prepared remarks that retail traffic was steady and that when the right incentives were working, there was some conversion on units. So is there any insight that you guys have into what is working best for consumers right now? Is it rate buy downs or pricing promos? Or is there something else that might be noteworthy?

Jaime Katz
Jaime Katz
Senior Equity Analyst at Morningstar

Thanks.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Yes. Thank you. I think, to be honest, the cash back is the thing that has the most consistent appeal. I think, there are opportunities for consumers to get kind of portfolio benefits from cash off plus in some cases discounted financing rates. But I would say the basics continue to probably work the best.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

I would say though, your question raises something, and that is that we are being more targeted right now with our promotions and discounts. So, we are operating, particularly in the entry level, and it might be costing us a bit of volume there. We're operating with about a point lower of kind of aggregate promotions and discounts than we did last year. So, we do have an opportunity to dial it up a bit more if we really need to. But at the moment, we're really trying to balance kind of volume and profitability.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

This is still a promotional environment, but and the basics still work the best, I think.

Jaime Katz
Jaime Katz
Senior Equity Analyst at Morningstar

Thanks.

Operator

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

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Well, thanks everyone for your questions. They're much appreciated. I think as we noted, the resilient composition of our portfolio drives very strong earnings and cash flow generation for us, which is extremely welcome and certainly differentiates our business. Our exceptional team also continues to execute extremely well and we are focusing on all the levers we can control as you saw. Beyond that, we continue to pursue the initiatives that will yield growth and margin expansion and balance sheet strength in the future.

David Foulkes
David Foulkes
Chairman & CEO at Brunswick

Despite the unique challenges at the moment, we elected to provide refreshed guidance in a form that we hope will be useful to our investors as they assess and react to the current environment and model future changes. So, we're a transparent company, we wanted to share the best of what we know at the moment. Thank you very much.

Operator

This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful

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Earnings Conference Call
Brunswick Q1 2025
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