American Outdoor Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:AOUT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brian Murphy: Yes. We’re smiling here on the side of the phone because the reception has been absolutely tremendous. And we’ve — we’re not going to disclose how many users we have today on it, but it has exceeded our expectations. And so we’ve seen tremendous consumer demand for that product. We’ve also seen a lot of professionals come forward on their own, unsolicited and support that product as it’s not a fishing scale. I mean it does that, but it’s really a new way to approach fishing. And there are, look, 50 million anglers out there in the United States that fish on a regular basis, but there’s another 25 million on top of that, that don’t fish on a regular basis, but have and they’re waiting for something interesting and new to come along before they jump back into it.

So we’re thinking about this much larger than just this base of, let’s say, Baas anglers, we could see this being a pretty big game changer for fishing overall. So we’re — consumers love it so far, and we’re really excited about the prospects.

Matthew Koranda: Okay. Great. And then just maybe one for Andy. I have a two-part modeling one, if I could. So I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks expect gross margins to be higher year-over-year this coming fiscal year. Just any way to quantify the benefit you’re getting from lower inbound freight as you kind of burn off some of the higher cost inventory, does that pick up more in the back half of the year, maybe just speak to the seasonality of the gross margin profile? And then on OpEx, any stuff to take into account as we think about modeling the year, especially with the Columbia lease takeover that you got going? Just any color or help there on sort of the movement of distribution costs throughout the year?

Andrew Fulmer: That’s two great questions. So on the margin side, the way that I would think about it is the two pieces I talked about in the prepared remarks, improvement in freight and then the facility consolidation. The way that I would look at that is improvement in freight, we did have a chunk of improvement in fiscal ’23. So I would not expect a full year of improvement in fiscal ’24 just because we had a little bit. And then on the facility consolidations, that piece in gross margin flows through inventory. So that inventory has to turn. So I would probably plan on that benefiting kind of more of the back half of the year just as that inventory turns. And then on your OpEx, you’re spot on OpEx. The additional lease starts on January 1st, so I would definitely model those additional costs for the last four months of the year.

Matthew Koranda: Got it. Okay. Appreciate it guys. I’ll jump back in queue.

Brian Murphy: Thanks, Matt.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Brian Murphy for any closing remarks.

Brian Murphy: Thanks, operator. In closing, I want to thank each of our employees across American Outdoor Brands for their loyalty, hard work and dedication. Your contributions throughout fiscal ’23 and every day have helped us move forward on the path for an exciting future. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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