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

Sean Sullivan: Yes. No, good question. So obviously, we’ll settle tomorrow. That will leave us with $80 million. I think our historical pattern is as good as a predictor of our approach to capital allocation. Again, we’re investing heavily in the business, as you know, in the form of R&D and capital expenditures as we called out today. We’ve got a nice dividend and a robust share repurchase program. I guess the best way to answer that is I would expect that probably at some point in the first half of 2024, you’d see that $80 million needing to be revisited.

JP Wollam: Great, thank you. And best of luck moving forward.

David Maher: Thank you.

Sondra Lennon: Thanks JP. Operator, next question, please.

Operator: Our next question comes from Daniel Imbro from Stephens Inc. Daniel your line is now open, please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst : Hey guys, this is Reed on for Daniel. I just had one quick question for you. As we see smaller players move into the space specifically more in like balls and apparel, does that change any of your thinking around the competitive landscape anyway you would run the business differently? And anything on your go-to-market strategy? Also, as you just sold off your new senior notes, would you think about maybe acquiring one of these businesses, one of these up-and-coming smaller guys that are starting to disrupt the market? Thank you.

David Maher: Yes. Reed, I’ll just preface by saying we certainly take all competition very, very seriously. As you know, we’ve been at this a long time. And this is not new. We continually have seen a flow of new competitors. I will speak a little bit differently about balls than apparel. I don’t see the competitive landscape in balls being that dynamic or influenced by smaller players today. But again, we always watch carefully. So, I’m not sure that narrative is as outsized as maybe you see in apparel where you do see it just got a low cost of entry, low-barrier entry. It’s not difficult to get in the apparel business. What’s difficult is sustaining an apparel business over the long term, and that’s most important to us. So, specific to our portfolio, we’ve said this before, our apparel portfolio, we’ve got FootJoy as a global premium player with strength across markets.

We’ve got Titleist apparel in Korea and the Asian markets, which approaches the super premium, and we’ve got shoes in Western markets as well. So, we like the construct and composition and size of our apparel portfolio and likely not inclined to add to it at this point. So, we’re certainly paying attention. We watch all competitors, take them seriously. But as you’ve seen, and I think our results speak to it, our primary focus and investment has been in totally, and that’s serving us very well.

Unidentified Analyst : All right, thank you guys.

Sondra Lennon: Thank you, Reed. Operator, next question, please.

Operator: We will now take our next question from Casey Alexander from Compass Point. Casey, your line is now open, please go ahead.

Casey Alexander: Yes good morning. And thank you for taking my questions. I’d like to approach that from a little bit of a different aspect. The recent fire at the Taiwanese golf ball plant appears to have taken a substantial portion of capacity out of the system, particularly for value golf balls, right, when you are about to reintroduce your new lines of value golf balls. Is there a possible shortage out there that you guys could take advantage of in terms of capturing some incremental market share and building affinity with new customers who maybe were using other brands, but due to the fact that some of that capacity is out of the system, does that provide you guys an opportunity to take share there?