Sentiment Analysis of the earnings transcript to help figure out if there are any bullish or bearish sentiments that could be gathered from it. We're doing ML and AI based analysis on the earnings call to get some more insights.
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| Statement |
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| We expect 2024 to be a much better year, with the outlook after that only getting better |
| But we were quite pleased with how our core service department performed in the quarter |
| We believe our industry has seen the bottom of new RV sales and results, and are seeing positive indicators that the next several years will produce growth in revenue, unit sales, overall gross profit, and sequentially an improving bottom line for our company |
| We did see a nice improvement in service year-over-year |
| And we continue to see upside in growth, especially with external work within our service base |
| The execution of this strategy puts us well ahead of our competitors and drives market share growth going forward |
| So we expect to see over the next several years, continued improvement, continued Bay utilization, et cetera |
| We continue to work forward, in making sure that our inventory is clean, our SG&A is tight, so that we can enjoy that type of growth hopefully in the years past 2024 |
| Us having a 30% improvement in EBITDA over a lower number is not any high five moment for our company |
| And we've seen good explosive growth with the new acquisitions of certain dealerships that had grand design |
| Good Sam had another record year with 12% growth in gross profit and generating $100 million of adjusted EBITDA for the first time in company history |
| We also achieved our goal of significantly improving our new unit portfolio |
| But we have also seen solid performance out of our Keystone business and our JACO business just the same |
| Our new inventory position was further enhanced by our successful negotiations in the fall of '23 with our OEM partners to reduce invoice prices in key categories |
| As volume comes back, we expect first year revenue recognition and then the following year's revenue recognition to improve materially |
| And we do believe that we'll start to pick up some incremental gains year-over-year by Q3, Q4, which is why when Marcus suggesting the sequential improvement, we see a lot of upside here in Q3 and Q4 in particular, because of these acquisitions, plus all the different expense reductions we've been making, and we see a lot of upside there |
| We expect our used margins to improve sequentially starting over the next 60 days, and to normalize to historical levels by Q4 |
| This overall inventory strategy has resulted in positive same-store new sales in December and this trend continued throughout February, increasing in the mid-single to low double-digit range |
| But the manufacturers have been, in my opinion, stellar in understanding that the overall growth of the market is dependent on the cleanliness of the inventory |
| And that's an excellent assessment because that's ultimately how the Good Sam business works |
| And we know that that's a bit of self-inflicted pain, but really good inventory hygiene and management and that's at the stage very well then for the balance of the year, where I wouldn't be surprised if we settle into that like 20% to 21% range for the balance of the quarter throughout the year |
| And while we know that, that doesn't make everybody happy, we promise that the investment in staying discipline will yield much better results in this year and the following years |
| That's why we're excited for volume to come back |
| We are working our ass off [ph] to get to a number in '24 that cobbles together better margins, better top line revenue on new sustaining our relevance in used, continuing to grow our service business and stabilize our use -- our Good Sam business, while we are contracting costs at the fastest rate that we possibly can |
| Meanwhile, our Good Sam Services & Plans segment posted record revenue and gross profit for the year with $194 million in revenue and $134 million of gross profit |
| Total new unit sales increased 3.2% turning positive for the first time in 10 quarters |
| We believe that the new margins are going to sequentially improve as we continue, to move out of 2023, and really get back to a more normalized margin state for the full year |
| These short-term maneuvers will allow our used volumes, to improve over time, as appropriately valued inventory is brought back into the system |
| It just moves a lot of the profitability, as expected, to the normal quarters where we make the bulk of our money, which is Q2 and Q3, and we will have a much better Q4 than we did the last two years |
| While we worked through the inventory, while working through the inventory was our primary focus, we must recognize the Good Sam business, which delivered record earnings over $100 million for the first time and continues to show stability, and growth in servicing the installed base of our RVs [ph] |
| Statement |
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| In the fourth quarter, we recorded revenue of $1.1 billion, down 13% from last year, driven primarily by used unit volume |
| And the reason for that, is that we know that the #1 thing that could kill a business is poor inventory management |
| But if we keep moving having these wild swings in invoice pricing, the customer is going to lose confidence and more importantly, the banks will lose confidence in what their end value is |
| We're apologizing and disappointed with used margins that are still going to be higher than everybody's excitement, around new margins |
| Our adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter, was a loss of $8.9 million during what is historically, our industry's toughest quarter |
| And if you look back in 2023, each manufacturer took a lot of pain and a lot of gas, both on the top line side, and on their overall contribution to dealers to cleanse inventory |
| Our new volume by location has hit a level along with everybody else in the industry that is unacceptable to us and not sustainable |
| So the used margins are going to continue to take pressure |
| We have to be realistic that there's still a possibility that it could even go lower |
| At the same time, we were unsure of ourselves in terms of our willingness, our appetite to take on risk and continue to procure inventory at the same time while we knew there was a falling knife on used values |
| We, through the fourth quarter, took a lot of gas and a lot of pain in liquidating that used inventory, and at the same time shut off our procurement of use, at a pretty rapid pace |
| It's going to be very difficult to actually continue to yield the demand that we're seeing out there, knowing that Ford is still imposing price increases on their chassis |
| The worst customer experience and the worst overall brand building that a company can have is when customers come in and there's nobody to answer the phone, nobody could call them back, nobody to take care of them |
| The second contributor is we also believe that we're not going to experience the same gross margin pain through the second and third quarter that we were experiencing last year |
| In 2023, we recorded revenue of $6.2 billion, a decline of roughly 10% from last year, driven primarily by new unit volume, while used vehicle revenue of $2 billion increased 5% from last year, and was a record for the company |
| Our volume on the used side will be temporarily constrained, because we are not chasing procuring inventory just yet |
| We had to acknowledge that the success on one side, could create a short-term risk for us on the other side, and that's the used inventory values |
| As we have said for a very, very long time, the lowest contribution of margin in our entire portfolio is the new margin |
| So as we look at driving advertising costs down, getting out of poor-performing locations, making sure we have the right staff levels, modifying pay plans, which is always tough, we are going to wait for some wind to come into our sales that is outside of our control, but that we anticipate happening at some point |
| Back in Tampa, you talked about likely margin compression in 4Q and 1Q to clear out non-current inventory |
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