Clarus Corporation (NASDAQ:CLAR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

John Walbrecht: Positivity from increases to be as much a headwind as it was 2022. We don’t anticipate having to experience as much air freight. So all those things being positive to the overall EBITDA.

Mike Yates: I think — I’m sorry, John, that’s a great point. The FX in the airfreight, right, the freight’s behind us, right, that — for the second half of 2023. And we’ve seen those container and shipping costs normalize the FX is built in. I said we were expecting about $2 million headwind compared to last year. But compared to last year, FX overall was a $9 million headwind. Q – Matt Koranda Okay. Got it. Very helpful. On Precision Sport, just wanted a little bit more detail. You mentioned the onetime sale, bulk sale, just what was the EBITDA headwind from that in the fourth quarter, Mike? And then is there any more sort of large amount of loaded ammo inventory that you could be sitting on that you can monetize over the next quarter or 2 that we should be factoring into sort of how we think about the first half of the year?

Mike Yates: Well, that’s — we’ll that one. We don’t have any pistol and revolver ammo large amounts of that, right? John’s prepared remarks, we’re really leaning into the centerfire rifle, which is what Barnes and Sierra really — that’s really where they play. We were opportunistic in ’21 when we did sell some of this pistol and revolver 9-millimeter stuff. We have a couple $3 million of 223 ammo, and that’s about it. What I’ll say is slower moving stuff. But from a margin perspective, we sold it at cost. So it was a pretty significant impact. That’s why margin of 23% for the segment was — that’s the main driver, right, in that we don’t expect that to continue. We expect that profitability of the business to bounce back to that 30% to 35% range that we’ve talked about, our Precision Sports business performing at.

Matt Koranda: Okay. Great. I just want to sneak one more in on the Adventure segment, if I could. The — it seems like the issue in that business, especially in Rhino-Rack, has just been channel inventory over the last couple of quarters. Just any update on sort of where you think channel inventory sits? How long do you think it will take to kind of work through over the next couple of quarters? It sounds like some nice developments on the distribution front in North America. How does that play into your growth expectations and maybe just the progression of the revenue for the year in Adventure?

John Walbrecht: I would say, Matt, that there are two headwinds that we faced, both in Australia and in North America in 2022 that we didn’t account as aggressively for. One was the inventory hangover. And the second was really about the new vehicles. And the two are similar, i.e., we expect, typically, 10% to 15% a year type of growth through new product introductions associated with new vehicle launches. And when the vehicles get delayed, whether it’s at the Polaris OEM level or it’s at the consumer not being able to buy an F-150 or whatever, that has an impact. Now I anticipate — I think that the impact of the inventories were really heavy in three and four, Q3 and Q4, and rolled over a little bit into Q1. I think as we come into the spring-summer, we anticipate those inventories to get to minimal levels and the business start to see a pickup.

Matt Koranda: Got you. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street. Please proceed.

Mark Smith: I wanted to just dig in a little bit more on Precision here for a minute. We’ve seen a slowdown in 9 millimeter in .223, 556 as well. Are you starting to see some of the beginnings of maybe some slowdown or normalization in the remainder of centerfire rifle, especially as we start to see channel inventory fill up a little better?

John Walbrecht: Are you — and your question is, you’re seeing that or are you asking..