BRP Inc. (DOO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to the Annual General Assembly of BRP shareholders. Jose Boisjoli is my name. I'm the President and CEO of BRP and President of the Board. If you will allow me, please let me send a message to our Franko Phone audience, and I will come back in French. For those who are participating via the webcast audio or the conference call, you can benefit from the simultaneous English translation service by using the link and phone number provided in the English version of our management proxy circular available on BRP website as well as on SEDAR and EDGAR. Now I'd like to ask the participants in the room to shut off their cell phones and other electronic devices and respect the measures and precautions put in place by BRP to ensure health and safety of all participants. They were communicated to you at your arrival, and they are in effect for the length of the meeting. In conformity with our rules, I will be the President of the assembly. I would like to present the people assisting me today, Sebastien Martel, CFO of BRP; Martin Langelier, VP Legal and Public Affairs; Michael Hanley, Principal Administrator, Auditor of BRP. He has an essential role at the Board as administrator -- main independent administrator. The AGA today happens in very peculiar circumstances that's for sure. We'd like to speak to all the people affected by this situation, our employees, our dealers, our business partners and our shareholders. In order to reduce risk and preserve the health and well-being of these parties and the employees at Valcourt as well as protect the integrity of our operations, BRP has decided that only the proxy holders and the shareholders that were registered will be admitted here. We encourage all shareholders to participate remotely. I would like to talk about 2 pieces of news concerning our Board. I first would like to talk about the departure of J.R. Andre Bombardier, who has contributed to building our company for 50 years. He joined this family business in 1969 as VP of the Industrial Division. He then had many positions, high positions in demonstrating his passion for the business, and this passion has brought him to sit at our Board since the beginning in 2004. An impressive contribution for this man who is very attached to our history. So it is our turn today to wish him goodbye and good luck. He's retiring and for -- I'd like to thank him in the name of all the people on the Board and my colleagues for his contribution over many years, and I wish him great success and much happiness. So before going forward, I want to announce a piece of bad news. Like all of you know, Daniel O'Neill has passed away 10 days ago. He was on our Board since the beginning of BRP in 2004. I would like to take a few minutes to pay homage to him. During all these years, Dan has contributed to the growth of BRP. He was an experienced businessman. He participated in identifying and developing new vectors for growth and remaining truthful to profound personal values. He was able to find the balance between questioning things and questioning the orientations of the company and supporting the company in difficult times. We all lose not only an important member of the Board but a dear friend. In the name of the Board, I would like to transmit our most sincere condolences to his wife Elise and his children, Darcy, Patrick and Jennifer and his grandchildren, Lilly, Charlotte, Audre, Owen and Seb. On this sad note, we will now go back to the agenda of the day. We agreed this year that Mr. Michael Hanley would direct the formal part of this assembly. I would now like to give the microphone over to him so we can begin.

Thank you, Jose. Because of the current situation, the shareholders of BRP have been encouraged to vote in advance of the assembly on questions that will be discussed and participating remotely to this meeting by web or phone conference. Because this is the first time that BRP holds a shareholder meeting in person with a web component and a phone conference component, we think it's necessary to remind you and establish some rules to ensure the functioning and order of the meeting. Please note that the shareholders that are here in person, by web or by phone cannot vote or speak. However, the shareholders and proxy holders that were named and registered will have the opportunity to submit their questions electronically on the webcast platform, at the chat box on the bottom. The registered shareholders and proxy holders also have the opportunity to transmit some questions to BRP before the meeting electronically through this platform. These questions will be covered during the Q&A part of the meeting and in compliance with the standard protocol of the assembly. The registered proxies and shareholders will be able to also ask questions during the question period at the end of the assembly and in compliance with the standard protocol of the AGA. Please note that the questions or comments that contain inappropriate or gratuitous language or disturb the functioning of this meeting and questions that will have already been answered or are redundant or repetitive will not be answered. We would also like to welcome the members of the public that are not shareholders or proxy holders and who are here remotely by web or phone conference. We would like to remind you that only registered shareholders or valid proxies can ask questions to BRP and vote on questions that will be brought up during this assembly. Before we begin the assembly, I'd like to invite Mr. Martin Langelier to speak to the directives in terms of health and safety, security instructions.

So we have taken some precautions and measures necessary to -- following the recommendations and directives admitted -- put out by governance and public health. They were communicated to people in the room when they arrived, asking them to respect these instructions during the assembly. And in the -- if there's an emergency, we'll give you the signal, and there will be an alarm system. The valuation will be -- the evacuation will be done with 4 -- 1 of the 4 exits that will bring you outside. There are 2 emergency exits behind me, one on the right of the room that brings you to the muster point at the rear of the building. The fourth one leads to the muster point as well, next to the parking lot. Once outside, our agents will guide you to the closest meeting point or muster point.

So I now declare the assembly open. In compliance with the rules of BRP and the powers being -- having been conferred by Mr. Jose Boisjoli, President of the assembly, I will direct the formal part of this assembly, and Mr. Langelier will be the secretary. I have before me a copy of the convocation, the circular for socialization and the voting documents, and Mr. Langelier gave me a proof of the documents being sent. I would ask Mr. Langelier to deposit these documents in the file for the assembly. I would like to note that this assembly was convened to answer questions specified in the convocation memo. So Computershare Inc. will be the auditor of this assembly. The report given to the Investors, Computershare Inc., before the beginning of the assembly confirms that we have a quorum for the voting shares as well as secondary voting shares. I ask Mr. Langelier to put this file into -- put this file into -- and I now open the meeting, and we will now address the business for which we are here. Before we begin, I'd like to say a few words on the proceedings of the meeting and the proceedings for voting. Subjects that will be covered today are found in the circular and the documents that were sent to you. We will begin the assembly with examining questions that are indicated officially in the convocation request. A presentation will then be made by our President Mr. Jose Boisjoli; and our CFO, Mr. Sebastien Martel. Then we will have a question period during which the Board will answer questions from the proxies and registered shareholders asked in person or electronically by the web platform accessible online. And counting the proxies received and the votes counted and the shareholders that will vote in person in each case in compliance with the procedure described in the circular. The auditors said the 275 million votes for multiple voting shares and 29 million votes for secondary voting shares are represented here today. The vote will be done by ballot for all questions on the agenda today. The proxy holders designated in compliance with the procedure for voting and the shareholders that has registered and have not sent proxies and that are here registered, received a ballot for all the proposals before us to respect the measures and precautions to ensure their health and safety. Now covering the first point on the agenda, I would like to submit the consolidated financial reports for the last fiscal year as well as the financial statements. These documents were sent in compliance with the dispositions of the law to all shareholders that requested them. I will now dispense Mr. Langelier from reading them. I will ask him, however, to put a copy of all of these files into the record. So we will now go to election of administrators of BRP. The mandate of the directors elected will begin today, and will carry on until the next AGA or until election or nomination of their replacements. The Board proposes 11 directors to be administrators or directors at BRP. You can see that on Page 20 to 32 of the circular, a short bio as well as many other pieces of information on each of them. The proposal for naming the directors, the names appear in the circular, was proposed by Anne Le Breton and was seconded by Philippe Deschenes, who is also a proxy holder. So the proposal is advanced and supported. Because there's no secondary candidates -- no second candidates, I would ask Mr. Langelier to proceed to a vote.

Thank you. Given the context this year with the COVID situation, we have encouraged all the shareholders and proxy holders to vote in advance, and we thank them for their collaboration in that respect. So the registered shareholders and proxy holders keep their rights to vote during the assembly. And if they came to -- these people came to the assembly, we gave them a ballot when they entered to reduce the manipulation of the ballots. So I now declare the vote closed on the basis of proxies received and voted -- votes counted, I confirm the election of each of the 11 candidates proposed as director. Based on the proxies obtained in votes during the assembly, the election of each of the directors was supported in a proportion varying between 94.11% and 99.96% of votes. The results of the vote will be sent by press release over the web later today.

I congratulate each 1 of the 11 directors that you've just elected. I'd like to thank the Board of Directors for its governance and its monitoring that they have carried out with discipline. Thank you for your contribution and your advice, which allows BRP to continue to be a leader in the industry of motorized sports. I would also like to welcome Mr. Charles Bombardier as a director within the Board of Directors of BRP. We will now proceed with the appointment of the auditors for BRP. The Board of Directors as well as management of BRP recommend to reconduct the mandate of Deloitte as auditors for BRP until the end of the next Annual Assembly of the Shareholders. The proposal to reconduct the mandate for Deloitte was duly moved by Anne Le Breton, proxy holder; and was seconded by Philippe Deschenes, who is also a proxy.

Now we gave the people who are present their voting ballots so as to a decrease in manipulation of the ballots, so I declare the voting closed. So on the basis of the proxies received and the votes that have been counted, I confirm the nomination of Deloitte as auditors of BRP. Based on the proxies obtained before the assembly, the nomination of Deloitte was supported by a proportion of 99.91% of the votes. The final results of the vote as to the election will be made available on SEDAR.

In light of these results, I congratulate Deloitte for the renewal of the mandate that you have granted them and the confidence that you are showing them. The agenda now says that the shareholders or proxy holders will be invited to vote for or against the adoption of the resolution, the nonbinding resolution when it comes to BRP's approach as it pertains to compensation for members of senior management. You can read the text of this resolution on Pages 34 and 35 of the circular, the 2020 circular. As explained in the circular, the approach adopted by BRP aims to maximize its global performance by resting on the individual performance of its senior managers. The objective is to recruit, retain and motivate executives so as to improve the performance of the business and to increase its value for shareholders. And the effect is to support the commitment of BRP when it comes to performance-based compensation. The Board of Directors recommends as shareholders or proxy holders to vote for the adoption of this resolution. I would like to remind you that given that this is an advisory resolution, the results of the vote will not bind the Board of Directors of BRP. However, the members of the HR Committee and the Compensation Committee will take them into consideration when they review the principle, the politics, the programs or arrangements that have to do with compensation of members of senior management. The proposal for the adoption of the resolution was duly moved by Anne Le Breton, proxy holder; and was seconded by Philippe Deschenes, proxy holder. The proposal was duly moved and seconded. I am asking Mr. Langelier to proceed with the vote.

If registered shareholders and proxy holders are present at the assembly, we have given them their ballots when they came into the room so as to reduce the handling of the ballots. So I declare this voting closed. And on the basis of the proxies received and the votes counted, I confirm that the present proposal is accepted and carried based on the proxies obtained before the assembly, the current proposal and motion was supported in a proportion of 98.85% of the vote.

This concludes the questions that were officially indicated in the notice of meeting. I will now invite the President and CEO of BRP, Mr. Jose Boisjoli; and the CFO of BRP, Mr. Sebastien Martel, will make a presentation to you.

Thank you, Michael. As mentioned, we're going through a period of uncertainty throughout the world, a period that has been affecting since the beginning of our new fiscal year and which will have consequences, unpredictable consequences. This said, the financial exercise for 2020 is the end of our Challenge 2020 plan, and it ended in a very positive -- on a very positive note. We've surpassed our own objectives and proved once again our leadership in our sectors of activity. Today, BRP has a solid foundation to get through the crisis and face the challenges of tomorrow, thanks to our extensive line of products, our diversified manufacturing footprint and our presence in the market. We've surpassed our financial objectives by $6 billion in revenues, and we have a normalized profit per share of $3.50, 1 year in advance. We were able to do this by basing ourselves on our strategic pillars of growth, agility and lean enterprise. In November 2019, we launched our new strategic plan, Mission 2025. Its pillars are growth, client experience and lean enterprise and employee experience. These will be key indicators for the months and years to come. Naturally, with the current crisis, we will wait for the situation to be more stable before we realign our strategic objectives, if needed. This morning, we will give you the results of the fiscal year 2020, where we continued with this incredible momentum. For 2020, we increased our revenues by 15% to reach $6.1 billion. Our normalized EBITDA increased by 23% for a total of $804 million, which brought about a normalized profit per share beyond our forecast at $3.83. Here, we're talking about a progression of 24% over the last year. These results are due to the growth of all-season products, a growth which is founded on our reputation of constant innovation of our solid network of dealerships and our capacity to support them through exemplary execution. For a fourth consecutive year, we have surpassed the industry. Retail sales of our products in North America have increased by 15%, that's more than double than what we've seen in the industry. We have broadened and rethought our activities throughout the world. We have reinforced our competitive edge, our strategy, our know-how when it comes to products, solid production and more agile production and proximity to our main markets. Our plants throughout the world are at the -- are at the -- are very developed. Over the fiscal year 2020, we finished the reorganization of our plant in Valcourt and Gunskirchen in Austria. We've transformed our ways of working and integrated the modular approach for manufacturing in addition to updating our infrastructures. In Mexico, we finished the second phase of Juarez 2, which increased our production capacity. With these updates, we have increased the agility of our plants. This is a key element that allows us to deliver new products that meet needs. And this is what has allowed us to keep our commitment to launch a new platform for side-by-side vehicles every 6 months for 4 years. That has given us our first line of products of $1 billion. It's also what allowed us to launch products that are highly personalized like the Can-Am Ryker. And finally, it's what permitted us to create a line of accessories that are easy to use and that are interchangeable between products, several of them with the link system, and to increase our revenues by 75% in 4 years. I would also like to say that 2019 -- in 2019, we celebrated the 50-year anniversary of our design and innovation team. When it was created, this department was a first of its kind in our industry. We owe a large part of our progress as a business to the creativity of these artisans. Our design team, by working together with the engineering team, represents now a competitive element for BRP in the market. At our last meeting, we had talked to you about our buy, build and transform strategy to transform the nautical industry as we've done for motorized sports. We've completed the second phase of our strategy last year by buying in 2019 Telwater in Australia and by integrating our 2 first boat companies. This integration was following the group of the Marine group 18 months ago. And I must mention the announcement that was made yesterday concerning the immediate stoppage of the motor fabrication. We had to make this difficult decision because of negative trends in the market for this line of products made it difficult to have a return on investment. To all of our employers who I want to tell you that I'm very proud of you, and I thank you for your contribution over the past few years, and particularly, of your commitment to helping us create the Marine group. And now we will concentrate our efforts on the development of both in innovative technologies. We see a lot of potential of transforming the experience on water for our consumers. We're currently working on 2 fronts. In the build phase, we want to maximize our synergies between our new companies. And in the transform phase, we are activating the complete redesign of all our brands of boats. Our last fiscal year also allowed us to pursue our marketing approach that is centered on experiences that consumers can experience with our products. And it is this approach that allowed us to strengthen our relationships with our community of riders and to better meet their needs. For the dealerships, we've established the best value proposal, in addition to offering a portfolio of emblematic brands. Our objective is to be their preferred manufacturer, thanks to our long-term agreements, a flexible ordering system, an increase of incentives to allow them to increase their margins. Over the past 4 -- 5 years, we've built our credibility in the market as a leader in the industry. We've also built our credibility with investors, thanks to impeccable execution when it comes to our operational and financial management. Today, we are largely diversified in our portfolio of products, our strong distribution network throughout the world and our global manufacturing footprint. We have proven processes, solid governance and dedicated employees. We are confident that even if we are affected by the current situation, we will continue with this growth. The global trends towards urbanization, the protection of the environment and the sharing economy are accelerating, which means that the interest of consumers will turn towards new ways of moving about, including electrical vehicles. Our research and design teams are continuing to explore the possibilities in this promising market. They've developed new concept vehicles and have adapted some of our current products in electric versions. In September 2019, we presented them to the BRP Club in Las Vegas. When the demand will be there, we will be ready with an offer that fosters the consumer experience without any compromise. We had great global momentum with each one of our lines of products, and we were planning an excellent year for 2021, and all of this was put on hold with the arrival of COVID-19. We had to -- we quickly adjusted because meeting challenges and surmounting obstacles is part of our DNA. We are well positioned in the market with our know-how in all of our products, our manufacturing footprint and our presence throughout the market, combined to our know-how and our experience. We will stay on track, thanks to our values, our corporate values, the determination, ingenuity, passion and the confidence that we have in our colleagues. I am extremely proud of these successes of BRP and also of the strength and resilience of our team. Comprised of exceptional people of great quality employees who demonstrate a constant desire to push back the limits. Thanks to them. We can be proud of the company that BRP has become, and I'm convinced that we have all that we need to continue to be a global leader. I thank you for your attention. And now I will give the floor to our CFO, Sebastien Martel. Thank you.

Thank you, Jose. Hello, and welcome to all. As Jose has said, we started the first quarter very strong. We continued on our trajectory of growth in the last years up until the pandemic happened. We had to close some dealerships and suspend production in most of our sites, starting at the end of March. The situation has also slowed down the execution of our products with a drop of revenue of 8% compared to last year, a drop of the normalized, we are, 16%. Our normalized revenue per share is $0.26. So we -- so the USD 600 million with closure in 2027. With this additional liquidity, we have improved our position and cash flow to help us to concentrate on priorities and managing this business through uncertainty and continue to invest in our long-term growth. Our performance in retail was good, given the circumstances. Our results for motorized sport in North America have increased 4% and 10% if we exclude snowmobiles. Despite this situation, our portfolio of products has performed beyond expectations for the first quarter. We will continue to serve -- we continued to lead the category. Our side vehicles have increased about 40%. And alternate vehicles have seen growth around 10%. These results are due to a first quarter that was strong. And the second part of April that was very strong as well. The category of 3 wheel vehicles suffers the most in this current context, and it's explained by confinement measures that closed the driving schools and the annulment of demonstrator tours and those support growth in the sector. So even though the results are down for jet skis and snowmobiles, they are still above the averages for their sectors. In general, the momentum we've seen in April continue on its positive trend in May. Now let's look at our expectations for 2021. Given the uncertainty related to the pandemic, we will share a high level view of our expectations for the rest of the year. This perspective supposes 3 things. Starting our manufacturing activity again, but there won't be any stoppage in our production, suppliers or dealers. And that our dealerships in North America continue to be positive because we see a drop in our part of the world compared to last year. On this basis, we anticipate a second quarter that will be more difficult with a drop of revenue, about 40% due to 2 factors: The suspension of production in most of our sites in April and May, and a progressive rebound to go back to capacity and reconstitute inventory in our distribution centers and our dealerships and the impact of the cessation of production of motors, outboard motors. And we expect the trend to come back during the third and fourth trimester quarters and with production starting again. But a drop in revenue is still expected for the second part of the year of the magnitude of 10% to 20% compared to last year due to the next -- so the 2 next thing is a drop in demand for our products, especially in the international markets and the impact of the cessation of production of outboard motors. The result for the year will be affected by the pandemic, but the fundamentals of our business remain excellent. We continue to surpass ourselves in different sectors and gain market share. Our financial flexibility allows us to continue to invest in our initiatives for growth to position the business in a solid way for a strong rebound in coming years. In closing, I want to thank all our shareholders for their support and their engagement towards BRP. And now I would like to hand it over to Mr. Hanley.

Thank you, Sebastien. And here we are now at Q&A. For questions that were received before or during the assembly by electronic platform, we will read the question and lead the person who asked the question -- read the name of the person or the name of the entity that this person represents. In terms of shareholders and proxies that are present here and that have questions, we would ask you to come to the microphone, identify yourself and indicate if you are a shareholder or a proxy holder. I will now take the time to read the questions. Raul Galvao asked the first question. Do you have plans to launch electric vehicles in the future?

It is certain that we have put together concept cars in September -- vehicles -- concept vehicles last September for -- we wanted to send a message to our clients and dealerships is we are developing electric vehicles that are adapted -- electric ones that adapted to our products. A difficulty with the products that we fabricate is the electronic systems, the batteries must be very compact because our products are much smaller than a regular vehicle. So we are working on developing these different components for our electric vehicles. So yes, we will launch electric products at some point. It could be existing products that will be electrified or new products that will be better adapted to this kind of technology. Now for competitive reasons, we will not give more information, but BRP is examining these technologies, and we will be ready when the demand will be there.

The second question comes from [ Paul Morsette ]. It's a question of -- BRP started its activities in different sites following the stop or slowdown of production due to COVID-19. How is that going?

Well, naturally, we had to react quickly when the different governments implemented confinement, and we had to react. And so we had the opportunity to be able to start our R&D center here in Valcourt about 5 weeks ago, and that allowed us to better support our employees to restart operations in a secure way. So we have questionnaires. We have measures in place when we come in, in the morning, procedures to follow, taking people's temperature across different sites in the offices or the shops. We ensure there's social distancing in areas where we can't respect the 2 meters, we encourage the mask or the visor. So we have measures in place, and it's been done gradually. And we had the chance 5 weeks ago to improve our system. And last week and in the coming weeks, we are starting our manufacturing again, and we are going to implement the protocol we've developed everywhere around the world. So we are confident that we have the correct systems in place to be able to ensure health and safety of our employees everywhere around the world.

The third question comes from Anne Le Breton. Considering the current crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to make adjustments. Can you tell us how the current crisis affected the development of products?

Of course, in mid-March when we made important decisions to reduce our operations costs, we protected everything around R&D. We are on a really strong -- we're on a good roll. We've been able to gain some good momentum and gain some market share in different areas. Even if we've reduced certain expenditures, we've reprioritized certain processes, we are confident that our products will remain competitive for years to come. And we have made the right choices, in my opinion, to protect ourselves in the short term, but also ensure that we will come back strong following this crisis, medium and long term. So we are confident in our choices. Thank you.

Thank you, Jose. Are there any other questions or comments? The time allotted for questions is now over. The agenda being exhausted, we are now at the end of this assembly. The -- we need a proposer for closing assembly, Martin Langelier and seconded by Sebastien Martel, a proxy. I now declare the proposed -- the motion passed and the assembly closed. So now I we'll like to give it over to Mr. Boisjoli for the closing remarks.

I would like to thank all our employees. We owe them our success and the extraordinary year that we just ended. I would also like to thank the managers, the members of the Board, upper management for their contribution and support. I am confident that we will continue to shine in this industry. And with that, I would like to thank you for your presence and take care. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]