Acushnet Holdings Corp. (NYSE:GOLF) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Matthew Boss: Great. And then, Sean, could you elaborate on the investments that you cited in 4Q across segments? And just help us to think about operating expense dollar growth relative to sales growth as we think about the opportunity for operating expense leverage multiyear.

Sean Sullivan: Yes. As I called out, we’re really trying to invest in the business, build on the momentum for 2024 – build on the momentum we have now for 2024 and beyond. I cited the selling, I cited R&D and other A&P. So obviously, the club and ball franchises and the Titleist brand is a big part of that. So you’re going to see – our expectation is a meaningful investment in OpEx in Q4 relative to sales growth. So again, we talked about that on the last call, probably had more ambition around IT and some other areas that we had called out. We certainly are still working on a number of enterprise-wide technology initiatives that are going well, but probably the pace of investment and spend is slightly lagging where our expectations were – was, I guess, at the end of Q2.

So I figured I’d call that out as well because that is a slight positive. So we certainly will expect the investment in Q4. I think we’ve got some ambitious plans. And we think that, again, we like where we’re from an EBITDA margin perspective, our OpEx investment. I do think that we’re investing significantly in our customization and distribution capabilities that we certainly can talk more about on future calls, but we really think we’re setting ourselves up for good operating leverage in the business. As we’ve called out a number of times, this business has grown significantly over the last three or four years. And I think between customization, distribution, technology, we really have an opportunity to build real scalable platform and create operating leverage in the business in the mid to long term.

Matthew Boss: Great color. Best of luck.

Sondra Lennon: Thanks Matt. Operator, next call, please.

Operator: Our next question is from Joe Altobello from Raymond James. Joe your line is open, please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst : Good morning. This is Martin on for Joe. Congratulations on a great quarter. I do want to touch really quickly on the revenue guide. There’s only two months left. And I believe last year, you’ve narrowed the guide to about $25 million, so we just view the $50 million gap. It’s a little bit wide. Would you mind touching based on some of the uncertainties for the remainder of the year?

Sean Sullivan: Yes. Happy to, Martin. So again, obviously two months left in the new year. It is a seasonally low point, as David talked about. I think that given the macroeconomic environment, we’re just taking a conservative approach to Q4 on the sales side. October results are certainly coming in line with expectations. Across the board, I think, the footwear category and FootJoy we’re keeping an eye out. We’ve talked about it a number of times now. But as we think about – it just seemed like the prudent approach to holding firm on the sales side. We certainly tightened the adjusted EBITDA range given the Q3 performance in our outlook for the year. So, we thought prudent to tighten that one, and we have certainly more confidence – leaving the range where it was at sales seemed to be appropriate at this point.

David Maher: Hey, Martin, just the only thing I would add to that is clubs, right? We did – Sean mentioned in his remarks, there was a – there’s a timing shift within clubs, which we shipped irons in Q3 this year. Last year, remember, we launched metals in Japan in Q4. That won’t repeat. So that’s the only unusual call out on a year-on-year comp that is worth noting.