The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

David MacGregor: Okay. And you talked in your prepared remarks about increased marketing expense. Is this really where you’re seeing it is just trying to support the residential and the landscape contractor business, some of these more consumer-facing businesses?

Angie Drake: Yes. We’ve seen those marketing expenses normalize, but we have had kind of a targeted marketing campaign in our residential group, which is really for kind of the long-term benefits of our premium brand and that was planful. But yes, we are beginning to see some of those more normal targeted promotions too for the sales side of things.

David MacGregor: Okay. And I want to ask about inventories. Your April 30 inventory levels remained pretty much in line with the previous quarter. I noticed in your guidance, you’re sort of thinking 90% to 100% conversion now. I guess from a timing standpoint, how are you thinking about sort of the timing? And maybe we’re talking about extending into 2024, but how are you thinking about the timing of liquidation of the excesses getting back down to more sort of typical turns.

Angie Drake: Yes. I’ll first start with probably saying that our inventory is really not where we want it to be. We have a very sharp focus on that this year to really reduce the amount of inventory that we have. We did see some improvement in our composition over the quarter where our WIP actually went down a bit. The majority of our inventory now is sitting in finished goods. And as we think about the cash flow, we do expect to see stronger cash flow based on all of our working capital factors in the second half.

David MacGregor: Okay terrific, thanks very much.

Rick Olson: Thank you.

Operator: One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from Tom Hayes of CL King. Your line is open.

Thomas Hayes: Thank you, and good morning and I appreciate you taking my questions. First on the golf segment, Rick, just wondering, are you seeing any difference in the demand across the spectrum, of course, is it whether municipal semiprivate private?

Rick Olson: Yes. First of all, welcome back. Good to hear from you again. And the golf as you can imagine, just from looking at the end demand, the interest in what’s happening with professional golf situation right now, the demand for golf continues to be very strong, and we see that across the spectrum of types of golf courses. When you get into the municipal courses, municipal budgets for parks and those outdoor parts of their budgets have been prioritized and are in very healthy conditions. So even when you get to a municipal and small private level, they’re still seeing very strong demand for golfers and that just feeds the funding available to upgrade equipment and do the replacements that they would normally do. So we’re not seeing a difference really top to bottom. They buy different suites of equipment. But other than that, the demand is strong across the spectrum.

Thomas Hayes: Okay. May be just shifting gears a little bit to the rental equipment market. I know some of the public companies in the space have talked about the continued strong demand and I was just wondering how you guys are seeing it?

Rick Olson: We see the same. In fact, we are just having a conversation. I asked the leader of our area responsible for rental to go back and look at the numbers again, he came back and confirmed really the strength of all of our industry sources, which says rental continues, and we’re seeing that strength ourselves in the near-term and it’s reflected in the orders that are out there for the future as well. So a lot of drivers of the rental business, but they are very positive about the future.

Thomas Hayes: Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you very much for the time.

Rick Olson: Thank you, Tom.

Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question is coming from Eric Bosshard of Cleveland Research Company. Your line is open.