Harley-Davidson, Inc. ($HOG)

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the investor discussion of Harley-Davidson Financial Services business. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Shawn Collins, Head of Investor Relations for Harley-Davidson. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. This is Shawn Collins, the Head of Investor Relations at Harley-Davidson. You can access the slides supporting today's call on the Internet at the Harley-Davidson Investor Relations website. As you might expect, our comments will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. These risks include, among others, matters we have noted in today's investment discussion presentation and in our 10-K, which was filed on February 26, 2026. Joining me for this morning's call are Harley-Davidson Chief Financial Officer and Commercial Officer, Jonathan Root; and Harley-Davidson Financial Services Senior Vice President, Charles Do. We will not be holding a question-and-answer session as part of this call, but instead, we wanted to make this session and presentation available to you as an informational resource. As I said earlier, it is located on the Harley-Davidson Investor Relations website. With that, let me turn it over to our CFO, Jonathan Root.

Thank you, Shawn. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. I am going to start on Page 2 of the presentation. Today, we aim to provide you with a brief discussion of the Harley-Davidson Financial Services business. We will likely refer to this by a shorthand term HDFS, from time to time. I will start with an introduction of the business. Charles Zhou, who runs the HDFS business, will give you some greater color on the HDFS transaction, our recently announced strategic partnership with KKR and PIMCO. And then Shawn Collins will provide some detail and explanation of some of the business concepts that may be useful from a financial modeling perspective. After that, I will provide a few key takeaways on the HDFS business. Harley-Davidson Financial Services is a key part of the overall consolidated Harley-Davidson business and it is important to me personally. I joined Harley-Davidson Financial Services in 2011, and I worked in that business for the next 12 years, where I was responsible for a host of core operations of the HDFS business before I then moved on to become the CFO of Harley-Davidson in mid-2023. In my last 3 years at HDFS from 2020 to 2023, I was responsible for HDFS globally across all areas of the business from strategy through to implementation and execution. The HDFS business was started in 1992 and was started by a finance executive who today is a prominent Harley-Davidson dealership owner. This helps demonstrate the strategic importance of HDFS to the Harley-Davidson business. Turning to Page 3 of the presentation. HDFS is the captive finance company for Harley-Davidson and serves both retail consumers and Harley-Davidson dealers alike. While this is relatively common across some industries in the automotive industry, it is more common for an OEM to have a captive finance subsidiary. Auto companies with captives include General Motors, Ford, Toyota and BMW. In addition, equipment manufacturers, Caterpillar and John Deere both have captive finance companies. As you can see on the slide, HDFS provides a comprehensive suite of financial services products. HDFS is engaged in the business of financing retail consumer loans and wholesale inventory receivables, primarily for the purchase of Harley-Davidson and LiveWire motorcycles. These are lending activities. HDFS also works with certain third-party partners to provide motorcycle insurance and voluntary protection products to motorcycle owners, and we earn licensing fees from Harley-Davidson branded cards. These are non-lending activities. HDFS lending and non-lending activities are conducted principally in the United States and Canada. On the lending side, we provide new motorcycle loans to retail customers with up to 96-month terms. And we also provide used motorcycle loans to customers. These services are an important advantage for Harley-Davidson as we offer a range of tailored loan solutions, including flex financing and rider-to-Rider programs. We are able to work closely with Harley-Davidson dealers and respond to market conditions and opportunities in a coordinated cost-efficient and timely manner. On the lending side, we also provide a host of financing solutions to Harley-Davidson dealers, mainly floor plan lending, lines of credit to dealers and assisting dealers with their working capital needs. This is a business where we know and are comfortable with the lending collateral, mainly Harley-Davidson motorcycles and related dealer equipment. Dealers view HDFS as an important equation to their business success and as a stable and dependable financial source, whereas other more traditional financial lenders, think regional banks, credit unions, thrifts and other specialty lenders are perceived to be less committed to the motorcycle industry and its financing needs, particularly over the long term. On the non-lending side, under protection products, we offer insurance products on behalf of third-party insurance partners. In our card products business segment, we have co-branded credit card partnerships, including a program with U.S. Bank in the U.S. The Harley-Davidson name, brand and association are valuable to us and are also valuable to our third-party partners where we both benefit commercially. Turning to Page 5 of the presentation. Briefly, I want to point out that HDI provided our financial outlook for 2026 for all 3 of our business segments on February 10, 2025, as part of our Q4 and full year 2025 earnings presentation. At HDFS, we laid out that we expect full year 2026 operating income within a range of $45 million to $60 million. Our last update on both the HDI and HDFS guidance was in the HDI 10-K filed on February 26, 2026. In addition, you can see record results for the HDFS business in full year 2025. As a reminder, these results are positively impacted by the closing of the HDFS transaction in the second half of 2025. We anticipate the transaction will transform Harley-Davidson Financial Services into a less capital-intensive and derisked business model. It also changes the financial scope of HDFS starting in Q4 of 2025. We believe it affords a high degree of optionality in how we fund and run that business and an opportunity to grow the loan assets over time if we so choose. In the next section, Charles Do of HDFS will talk further about the new business model at HDFS. Turning to Page 6 of the presentation. We wanted to point out several of the business highlights of the HDFS business as we see it. U.S. retail market share of new motorcycles was strong at 71% in 2024. Overall, including new and used motorcycles, we financed a total of approximately 139,000 new and used motorcycles in calendar year 2024. The percentage of loans for new motorcycles was approximately 60%, while the percentage of loans for used motorcycles was approximately 40%. This split is in line with historical new versus used mix. This equates to $3 billion of loan originations in calendar year 2024. The return on equity for the HDFS business in 2024 before the HDFS transaction was completed was 18%, while for the 5-year period from 2020 to 2024, the average return on equity was a healthy 21%. These are some of the characteristics that make us view HDFS as a strategic asset that supports Harley-Davidson's success. At this point in time, I am going to turn it over to Charles Do.

Thanks, Jonathan. For those who may not know me, I'm Charles Dow, Senior Vice President at HDFS, and I lead all aspects of the HDFS business. I'm going to start on Page 7 of the presentation. On July 30, Harley-Davidson announced a strategic partnership with KKR and PIMCO to transform Harley-Davidson Financial Services into a capital-light and derisked business model. We closed the transaction at the end of October of 2025. The transaction included 3 key components: the sale of the existing HDFS retail loan assets of roughly $6 billion. HDFS also expects to sell approximately 2/3 of future retail loan originations to KKR and PIMCO. And lastly, HDFS sold a total of 9.8% of equity interest for approximately $50 million in proceeds to KKR and PIMCO based on a 1.75x post-transaction book value. By executing these 3 components, the transaction unlocked approximately $1 billion in dividends from HDFS to HDI and shrinks the balance sheet, while Harley-Davidson retains full control and majority ownership of HDFS without significant operational changes to the business. Please note that HDFS continues to refine its capital structure related to its retail loan assets. The next page in the presentation, Page 8, details out more specifics about the mechanics of HDFS' strategic relationship with KKR and PIMCO. HDFS originates retail loan assets for both new and used motorcycles. In recent years, HDFS has originated on average approximately $3 billion in loans per year. For the next 5 years, HDFS expects to sell approximately 2/3 of its retail loan assets to KKR and PIMCO, which may generate a gain or loss on each loan sold. The remaining 1/3 of the retail loan assets will remain on HDFS' balance sheet. Post sale, HDFS will continue managing the sold assets for a servicing fee of 1% for prime loans and 2.5% for subprime loans. The strategic relationship has several benefits, including reduced capital market reliance and funding risk for HDFS. Additionally, the credit risk of the sold retail loan assets will shift from HDFS to KKR and PIMCO. In the event where both parties can't mutually agree on overall loan pricing, there are mechanisms in the agreement for HDFS and each partner to enter a 12-month transition period prior to ending the partnership. The partnership is structured in a way to align each partner's interest and allows for us to end the relationship in an orderly and constructive manner if we can't mutually come to terms on pricing. Page 9 of the presentation is meant to provide an illustrative view of how the partnership changes the retail business. Motorcycles will continue to get financed in the dealership. For loans HD keeps, funds are borrowed in addition to using our own equity to fund about 1 out of every 3 loans. The economics on these loans remain unchanged. A customer pays HDFS interest, HDFS pays interest on the money it borrowed while at the same time, taking credit risk. HDFS used to go through these processes for all the retail loans funded. Going forward, we expect approximately 2 out of 3 loans will get sold to KKR and PIMCO. There will be a gain or loss associated with each sale. KKR and PIMCO will also pay a fee for HDFS to service those loans on their behalf. Our partners receive the economics as well as take the risk on the loans they purchased. HDFS continues to set the overall company credit policy and end consumer rates. Much of this happens behind the scenes, so our dealers and end customers won't notice a change due to our strategic relationship with KKR and PIMCO. And now I'll turn it over to Shawn Collins.

Thanks, Charles. I'm going to start on Page 10 of the presentation. The aim is to try to touch upon some of the building blocks of the HDFS business that may be helpful for financial model forecasting purposes. We understand that owning a finance captive or specialty finance business is not an entirely common setup for a consumer company, making it easy to overlook from an analyst perspective. I will try to complement on a lot of what Jonathan and Charles touched upon. I will start with our non-lending activities. You can see that in 2023 and 2024, these businesses had revenue of $152 million, and $148 million, respectively. After the HDFS transaction, these non-lending activities will continue in a similar manner, and we will receive new non-lending activity income within the HDFS segment. This will be for both servicing fees and any gain or loss on the sale of the loans. These new sources of revenue are derived from retail lending activities, but they are a service fee in nature and not part of lending activities. Thus, they will be captured as part of HDFS's non-lending activities. We expect to charge servicing fees on all loans sold to KKR and PIMCO as part of the HDFS transaction. On December 31, 2025, off-balance sheet retail loan principal was $5.1 billion. Moving more into lending activities. dealer financing or as we sometimes call it wholesale financing remains the same as before the HDFS transaction. Wholesale finance receivables have been at a level of approximately $1 billion at the end of the year in each of 2023 and 2024 and in 2025. Wholesale loans are usually due within 1 year, and they turn over as bike sell and new motorcycles are shipped and newly financed. Yields we charge are based on a number of factors, including overall interest rates and overall economic and market conditions. We believe we know this customer very well. That is the independent Harley-Davidson dealer network in the U.S. and Canada. At the end of 2025, we had approximately 600 Harley-Davidson dealerships in North America. Now I would like to turn to Page 11 of the presentation. Here, I plan to focus on lending activities and specifically the building blocks of retail loan asset levels. specifically the ones that we classify as held for investment. These are owned retail loans that we keep on our balance sheet and earn a return on, subject to loan performance. As a reminder, retail loans are comprised of loans to consumers who buy a motorcycle, whether it is a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle or a used Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Using the end of year figure before the back book sale of retail loan assets associated with the HDFS transaction took place. On December 31, 2024, gross retail loans were $6.7 billion. Again, focused on Page 11, on the right-hand side, you can see that gross retail finance receivables held for investment were $754 million on December 31, 2025. This would be the beginning balance as you think about financially modeling the business in 2026 by quarterly periods or by annual periods. We expect this balance to grow over time as new retail loans are originated, and we expect 1/3 of those loans to be retained by HDFS. Retail loan receivable balances are dynamic. where at any point in time, someone is taking out a motorcycle loan while someone else is paying off a motorcycle loan. Just a reminder that retail loans are amortizing. Thus as soon as a motorcycle loan is taken out, each month thereafter, there is a contractual payment due. In addition to contractual monthly payments, we also assume some amount of voluntary prepayments by loan holders. And naturally, also, there is some amount of loan losses or write-offs, which are netted versus loan asset recoveries. One point to keep in mind is when forecasting expected retail loan balances, the conceptual equation is, and it's on Page 11, beginning balance plus total originations, less originations to partners, less collections, less write-offs equals ending balance. Again, the high-level concept is that at any point in time, someone is taking out a loan represented aggregately by loan originations, while someone else is paying off a loan represented aggregately by loan collections. There are a host of other business drivers to be mindful of, which you can see in the box on the right-hand side of Page 11. These include retail market share, average amount financed and the assumption of a collections factor and assumed credit losses each period. Turning to expense items. Again, for financial modeling purposes, you can see a few assumptions on Page 11. I know there's a lot of financial information and terminology in the presentation, but we hope that Pages 10 and 11 can be used as a type of resource when it comes to some of the assumptions behind building an HDFS financial model for forecasting purposes. This is how we think about these things, so we hope some of this information will be helpful. Now I would like to turn to Page 12 of the presentation. I am going to briefly focus on the balance sheet at Harley-Davidson Financial Services and its capital structure. I know this page has a lot going on. We would recommend looking at each business, Harley-Davidson Motor Company, and Harley-Davidson Financial Services separate and distinct from one another, especially from a capital structure standpoint. This is simply because the businesses are very different. At HDMC, after the transaction, we paid down $450 million of debt in the second half of 2025. And we received a cash dividend of approximately $1 billion from HDFS to HDMC in Q4 of 2025. As a result, HDMC or Harley-Davidson Motor Company on December 31, 2025, had debt of $297 million and a cash balance of $1.2 billion, resulting in a net cash position, which we would define as cash and equivalents less debt of $935 million. At Harley-Davidson Financial Services, or HDFS, the post-transaction capital structure will continue to change as HDFS continues to refine its debt and cash balances. We would note 2 important things on this page, which is Page 12. At the end of December 2025, total debt at HDFS was greater than total finance receivables. As Jonathan will discuss next, Harley-Davidson expects HDFS to continue to increase its retail finance receivable base, while Harley-Davidson continues to refine its capital structure. Thus, we focus more on net debt levels here on this slide for HDFS, which are in line with expected levels. Last point here on Page 12, at the consolidated parent level, which we refer to as Harley-Davidson, Inc. or HDI, which is a roll-up of both Harley-Davidson Motor Company and Harley-Davidson Financial Services and also includes our LiveWire subsidiary. We would note that overall total debt levels are reduced significantly from $7.5 billion at the end of 2024 to $3.5 billion at the end of 2025. At the consolidated net debt level, which is debt less cash and equivalents, as shown on the slide, Slide 12, it is reduced more significantly from $5.9 billion at the end of 2024 to $412 million at the end of 2025. This is another way to view the derisked and less capital intensity of the post-transaction balance sheet at Harley-Davidson, Inc. or the parent. Again, I know that there is a lot of financial information and terminology here all at once. Naturally, Jonathan and I are always available to discuss the Harley-Davidson business in greater detail with the investment community whenever it makes sense. Many people on this call may know how to get a hold of me, but if that is not clear, then I would direct you to the Harley-Davidson Investor Relations website, which has a significant amount of company and financial information as well as contact information. With that, I am going to turn it over to Jonathan Root.

Thank you, Shawn. I'm going to turn to Page 13 of the presentation. As you can tell, we are optimistic about the HDFS business, and we see a path to growing operating income over time. At our Q4 2025 earnings on February 10, I outlined that as of that date for full year 2026, we expected operating income of $45 million to $60 million. As we move beyond 2026, we expect HDFS to continue to increase its retail finance receivable base over the coming years as it continues to originate retail finance receivables held for investment. We expect the anticipated increase in the retail finance receivable base will contribute to higher levels of HDFS operating income which we expect to reach around 3x 2026 expected HDFS operating income in or around 2029. Also important to note is that given the updated funding profile of HDFS and the unchanged approach to driving historical fee income plus the incremental servicing income generated through the retail loan sales, we expect this to allow for the continued high return on equity of the business. Also, the new forward flow funding mechanism affords a high degree of optionality in how we fund and run that business in the immediate future and overall, including in the long term. Turning to Page 14 of the presentation for a few key takeaways. While the HDFS transaction was transformative and freed up significant levels of cash, we still note that HDFS is doing everything largely the same as it did pre-transaction, but has changed one simple but very important facet of the business. HDFS is now selling a portion of its retail balance sheet to its strategic partners. Also, HDFS has retained 100% of strategic touch points with Harley-Davidson dealers and riders. Last, I want to wrap up by highlighting a few of the positive balance sheet impacts. HDMC had a net cash position of almost $1 billion at the end of 2025. HDFS continues to reduce indebtedness as planned, but had net debt less than total finance receivables at the end of 2025. And last, consolidated Harley-Davidson net debt was $5.9 billion at the end of 2024 and was at $400 million at the end of 2025. I'll leave you with Page 15 to read on your own, which summarizes some of the highlights that we have discussed today. That will conclude the presentation. As always, we appreciate your interest and focus on Harley-Davidson. Again, we are not going to do a Q&A session. Instead, we want investors to use this discussion as an informational resource. As Shawn said earlier, we are always available to discuss the Harley-Davidson business in greater detail with the investment community whenever it makes sense and whenever you need us. Feel free to reach out to us directly or go to the Harley-Davidson Investor Relations website, which has a significant amount of company and financial information as well as contact information. Thank you.

This concludes the investor discussion of Harley-Davidson Financial Services business. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.