MarineMax, Inc. (NYSE:HZO) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael McLamb: I can start off and make it a comment. I mean, the types of companies that we’re looking at are consistent really with what we’ve looked at in the past to a degree, there’s dealerships. We’re really focused on higher-margin dealerships though, which would be those with the storage component, good management, good brands, all of that. And so we’re still in discussions with dealerships. We still are looking at the superyacht services sector. We acquired AGY to begin this fiscal year, which is a great business, actually an important business to help grow our overall business in Greece. Marinas in the U.S. and also internationally where they make sense and where they have a reasonable return for a company like us and just other businesses that are involved in marine to have a higher margin profile with a good team and a good strategy that makes sense to kind of bring into our family.

Eric Wold: And the competitive environment for those?

Michael McLamb: Again obviously, when you’re talking about marinas, there’s a lot of people around the world that are attracted to marinas. With the dealerships that we’re looking at in terms of the premium end and the relationships, usually it’s not a very competitive environment. It’s usually — we’ve known the folks for a long, long time. And this is the case that it’s always been this way. And same with some of the other businesses where we’ve developed a reputation as a good place to — for a team and a company to belong and to become a part of where in some of these acquisitions, where we’re talking to companies, there’s not a crowded field of people that we’re talking to — that are also talking to them.

Eric Wold: And a follow-up question. Obviously, you noted a lot of pressure from higher interest rates and interest costs in the floor plan. If you think back to kind of where you were a couple of years ago in the midst of pandemic, you actually got — do you use your cash balance, it takes floor plan finance basically down or floor plan balance basically down to 0. You’re sitting on a healthy cash balance down you had in the last few quarters, [$300 million]. What’s the kind of appropriate level of cash to keep on hand relative to what you want to have leverage your floor plan on the inventory side?

Michael McLamb: Good question, Eric. I mean, obviously, you can imagine, I mean we’re a net debtor. And actually, we have been for most of our 26 years that we’ve been public. And as a net debt or throughout the quarters, this is not a surprise probably to anybody on the phone, our cash is 0, we pay down our floor plan and save all the interest on that. And then at quarter end, like every other company does, we add the cash to the balance sheet. So everybody realizes we have a lot of liquidity, which we do. But we’re paying down debt every single day all the time, except a rate at quarter end. So we’re taking advantage of the cash that we’ve generated.

Eric Wold: Got it. Helpful. Thanks Mike.

Michael McLamb: Thank you, Eric.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Swartz with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Lucas de Servera: Hi, guys. Good morning. This is Lucas on for Mike. Could you talk a little bit about the — your expected cadence of average selling price in fiscal ’24?

Michael McLamb: Yes. In 2024, we — overall, in the guidance, we commented that we expect the industry to have, call it, modest unit growth, flattish to slight unit growth, and we would have low single-digit to maybe as much as mid-single-digit same-store sales growth, you can assume that the same-store sales growth is roughly 50-50 between maybe units and ADP or could lean more towards AUP. We’ve had nice AUP growth for a number of years. And with the new models that Brett talked about and with what our manufacturing partners are providing there’s great product. They tend to have more options and also maybe a little bit on the larger side and the more premium side, which does drive the AUP higher over time.

Lucas de Servera: Okay. Perfect. And then just you also commented on driving savings in SG&A. Any additional color to share there, maybe some quantification or where it’s coming from? That’s all I had.

Michael McLamb: No. The commentary of the script are we’re digging in and analyzing opportunities for savings. I will comment, we did have in the quarter a handful of categories that increased slightly, one was up more than slightly those healthcare insurance, just a number of unfortunate claims that hit our stop loss maximums. But we’re digging into things and trying to see where we can get some synergies in the organization and also some potential cost savings, but we don’t have an answer today.

Lucas de Servera: Okay. Thank you. That’s all I had.

Michael McLamb: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Healy with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

John Healy: Thanks for taking my question guys. And congrats on the strong close of the year. Just one question for me, just on the SG&A side. I think you mentioned during the prepared remarks that you’re looking at some opportunities there to improve that customer experience. But if you look at SG&A opportunities outside of things that would impact the customer experience. Is there a way you can maybe textualize that a bit for us? Kind of maybe what some of the bigger opportunities are there? How much runway there is on that? And — is it more in the traditional business? Or is it more on the marina side and some of these kind of adjacencies that you’ve extended to recently?

William McGill: Yes, I’ll comment first, just at a high level. There’s clearly an opportunity with our superyacht IGY in that segment to create more synergy, which does cost saving synergies in a lot of cases, which were digging into aggressively right now. And then just from the day-to-day operations of all of our stores have been around a long time, there’s always things to dig into but there is inflation in all of that, which is some of that can be mitigated and some can’t. Mike, do you want to.

Michael McLamb: No, that was good. There’s — we don’t have all the answers today, but generally, what Brett just said is what we’re looking into.

John Healy: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Please go ahead.

Joe Nolan: Good morning. This is Joe Nolan on for David. I just have one quick one for you guys. Just wondering about the used boat market. Just wondering what you guys are seeing in terms of values and in terms of demand there?

William McGill: Yes. Used boat markets are strong, holding up well. We don’t see any significant wild action on price changes, pricing is holding up well in the marketplace, new boats are higher and higher prices. So that helps. So it’s been a good part of our business, and continue to focus on it.

Joe Nolan: And any notable trends within mix within the used boat market?