Brunswick Corporation (NYSE:BC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mike Schwartz with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Swartz: Hey guys, just a question on the boat business. I think you’ve mentioned now for, I think, the second conference call in a row that you are kind of you are kind of prioritizing some of the premium and value boat lines and understanding that probably has to do with some of the market demand that you are seeing. But is there any resource allocation to think about as you think about the Boat business and maybe model make up longer term and then if you are shifting more towards the premium side of the boat business, is the supply chain where it needs to be. Obviously, those are more heavily contented models, usually are there any potential hiccups or risks to that?

David Foulkes: Yes, Mike. Yes. So shifting doesn’t necessarily mean a kind of wholesale move from aluminum to fiberglass or something like that. It is really shifting to different model lines within those categories. So as you know, we make both the cost $1500 small aluminum jumbos. But we make them in the same facility aluminum facilities where we make $100,000 Lund premium fishing, aluminum fishing boats. So that kind of emphasis, if you like and certainly, it does and has involved resource allocations within facilities, essentially means producing less of those commoditized type products within a facility and more of the premium product lines with higher margins, it isn’t a wholesale shift from like Crestliner to some way or something like that.

What we have really seen in the market in the value aluminum is none of the – with kind of major players are gaining share. What has happened is some of the small kind of let’s more scrappy, I guess, I would say, players in that really value aluminum segment that were dominant during COVID and really challenged by supply chain have kind of come back to life and taken some share in that really kind of value, value and the aluminum market. We are just not interested in kind of chasing that much, when we can reallocate resources to more premium aluminum product lines, particularly Lund and Pontoon product lines. So there really is a huge difference between what you see in terms of unit volumes in the marketplace and where the profit pools are and it is more about product line resource allocations versus a major shift of emphasis.

Ryan Gwillim: And maybe on the supply chain, Mike, I think, yes, the supply chain is coming along with us. But I will say that we have made concerted efforts to in-source some of those pain points. Several examples would be furniture at Whaler, pontoon, fencing that we brought in-house. A lot of these, not surprisingly, where we share with RVs and when they are running really hot, it is kind of hard to get value. But we have taken a lot of our pain points and start doing them ourselves. Mercury has always been famous for their vertical integration and the boat business has been concentrating on it as well. So we are working with our supply chain to ensure their up to the task. But when they are not or where we see challenges, we are very happy to take it in-house.

Michael Swartz: Okay. Great. And then maybe just one follow-up on the guidance, I think your moving pieces would suggest that gross margin may be flattish to down 50 basis points or something of that nature. Maybe walk us through the moving parts, the pluses and minuses as we think about gross margin. I’m sure currency is a big one, but maybe some of the other things we are not thinking about specifically?