MotorCycle Holdings Limited (MTO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the MotorCycle Holdings 1H FY '26 Results Call. My name is Phoenix, and I'll be your Evercall moderator. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I will turn the call over to Matthew Wiesner of MotorCycle Holdings Group. You may now begin.

Thank you, and good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us today for the MotorCycle Holdings Half Year Results Presentation for the 6 months ending 31 December. I'm Matthew Weisner, Chief Executive, and I'm joined today by Michael Poynton, our Chief Operating Officer. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I'm pleased to present what has been a strong first half for our company, delivering record revenue, unit sales and strong profit growth. Before turning to the financial results, it's worth reiterating what underpins our performance. We are clear market leader in our industry, a diverse business model spanning wholesale distribution and retail across new and used vehicles, parts, merchandise and accessories, service and finance provides a strong and resilient platform. With a national footprint of 55 locations, market share of new vehicles now approaching 20%, we're well positioned to continue outperforming the broader market. The group delivered a strong set of numbers in the first half of FY '26. We achieved record half year sales revenue of $396.4 million, representing a 20.9% increase on the prior corresponding period. This growth was driven by both organic momentum in our existing businesses and the contribution of the Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven acquisition, which was completed on 31 July. Underlying net profit after tax increased 28.7% to $12.1 million, reflecting the revenue uplift, driven by the Peter Stevens group contribution and improved performance in our vehicle distribution business. Underlying EBITDA grew 21% to $31.7 million, aided by an improvement in gross margin from 25.2% to 25.9%. This margin improvement reflects stronger vehicle distribution margins. I should note that adjustments to statutory earnings of $1.3 million related to acquisition costs associated with the Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven acquisition of $1.1 million as well as the current year impact of the historical stamp duty underpayment of $200,000. We're on Slide 6. Inventory, excluding the Peter Stevens group addition, reduced by $10 million to $138.7 million, highlighting improved operational efficiency and disciplined capital management. We acquired $26.9 million of inventory from the Peter Stevens acquisition. Our strong cash generation enabled us to simultaneously acquire the Peter Stevens group assets from funds on hand, reduced net debt by 32.2% to $6.1 million and increased our dividend. This demonstrates the robust cash generating capability of our business model and our disciplined approach to capital allocation. The Board has declared a fully franked interim dividend of $0.095 per share, a 19% increase from the prior year. This dividend reflects our commitment to delivering returns to shareholders whilst maintaining the financial flexibility to pursue strategic growth opportunities moving forward. Earnings per share increased from $0.128 to $0.164, in line with our strong underlying NPAT uplift. Moving to Slide 7. Notably, we have continued our streak of consistent revenue growth. Total revenue grew by 20.9% to $396.4 million in the first half. Retail saw robust growth of 21.3% from strong performance in both new and used vehicle sales. Wholesale distribution revenue grew by 10.8%. This growth trajectory demonstrates the strength of our diverse business model and the benefits from our industry leadership position. On Slide 9, I'll briefly walk through the key movements of our profit and loss statement. Revenue growth from margin improvement from -- revenue growth, sorry, from 20.9% comprised of acquisitive growth from the Peter Stevens group of 16.1% and organic growth of 4.8% and gross margin improved from 25.2% to 25.9%, assisted by the favorable currency movements and improvement in vehicle distribution margins. Importantly, while the Peter Stevens group margin was lower than the existing group margin, it was an increase on the existing margin of the retail segment. The increase in operating cost is primarily attributable to the Peter Stevens group acquisition as well as further investment in corporate services, including our human resources, finance and digital and data transformation team. I should also note that on the 13th of November 2025, the company announced it had identified an underpayment of vehicle registration duty in relation to vehicles sold by MTO commencing in 2016. An amount of $5 million is provided for on the balance sheet, comprising of $3.5 million in duty and $1.5 million in related interest, representing management's best estimate of the liability. Under accounting standards, as the majority of the amount relates to transactions prior to the current financial period, $4.85 million of the provision has been created at July 1, 2024, with an accompanying recognition of a deferred tax asset of $1.45 million and a net position of $3.4 million reflected in an opening retained earnings at that date. In Slide 10, key movements on the balance sheet reflect the acquisition of approximately $10 million in net assets from the Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven group as well as the assets required for the recommencement of the business, including new bike inventory and related bailment finance and right-of-use assets and liabilities. Net debt improved to $6.1 million from $9 million at 30 June, a reduction of 32.2%. The FY '25 balance sheet has been restated to reflect an opening retained earnings adjustment at the 1st of July '24 to accrue for historical duty and related interest payable. Heading to Slide 11, I'd now like to invite Michael to take you through our operational performance for the half, including an update on the Peter Stevens group related integration. Mike?

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to take you through our operational performance for the first half, Slide 12. Operationally, the first half has been one of continued progress across the business. I wanted to highlight a number of key areas. We achieved continued market outperformance and organic growth in new and used retail vehicle sales. CFMOTO delivered strong market share gains in both the ATV, side-by-side and motorcycle segments across Australia and New Zealand. Our wholesale vehicle distribution business grew by 19%, reflecting the increasing strength of our distribution platform. We have also continued to improve efficiencies through the implementation of new business systems and processes. The reduction in inventory, excluding Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven, reflects improved operational efficiency and disciplined capital management. Gross profit grew by 23.4% with a margin of 25.9%, owing to increased retail sales volumes and strong wholesale performance in both Australia and New Zealand. E-commerce sales growth of 66% was a standout with a significant increase in digital engagement driving higher revenues. This represents a key area of future growth and investment for the group. Retail revenue growth of 21.3% was driven by record vehicle unit sales across both new and used categories. Slide 13. The breadth and balance of our revenue and gross profit contribution across divisions is demonstrated here. New vehicle revenue grew 23.4% to $213 million, with strong contributions from both retail and wholesale. Importantly, new vehicle gross profit grew 33.6% to $33.8 million, outpacing revenue growth and reflecting improved margins across the division. Used vehicles revenue increased 17.7% to $78.9 million, with gross profit up 24.8% to $12.2 million. Again, the margin improvement here is encouraging and reflects our focus on improving buying capability and growth per unit. Parts and accessories revenue grew 15.8% to $81.4 million, delivering gross profit growth of 14.3% to $33.3 million. This remains our highest margin category and a key contributor to overall profitability. Finance and insurance revenue increased 16% to $9.8 million, with gross profit also up to 16.3%. This is an area where we see further upside, and we invest in data and automation to improve the sale process and penetration rates. The key takeaway is that we are seeing growth across every division in both revenue and gross profit, which speaks to the strength and diversification of our business model. Slide 14, new vehicle sales. Our market leadership position strengthened during the half. New vehicle retail sales grew 22.3% to 9,966 units, a record result for any half year period. Our market share increased to 19.8%, up from 16.6% in the prior financial year, with 16.3% achieved organically and the balance of contribution from Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven. This reflects our continued ability to outperform the broader market, which remained relatively flat during the period. We are confident that on an annualized basis, our market share can exceed 20%. Slide 15, used vehicle sales. In used vehicles, we achieved record half year unit sales of 6,224 units, up 12.5% on the prior corresponding period. We also saw an improvement in gross margin on used vehicle sales. Used vehicle sales will continue to be a key focus area as management sees a significant opportunity to increase volumes and improve the ratio of used to new units. Slide 16, Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven. Turning to the Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven acquisition. As a reminder, this strategic acquisition enhances our national footprint, provides stronger relationships with OEMs, introduces new products and categories and increases our national market share to over 20% on an annualized basis. The integration has progressed well and is operationally exceeding our expectations across people, property and systems. While the contribution in the half represents a ramp-up of operations post administration, the businesses were profitable from the second month. Revenue and gross profit have progressively improved month-on-month with October through December performance at or exceeding prior year levels. Importantly, the gross profit margin of 24.6% from the Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven businesses exceeds the legacy retail business margin of MTO, which is an encouraging sign. The second half will be closer to business as usual, and we expect a stronger contribution accordingly. Slide 17, our strategic platform. We continue to build our infrastructure and platform for growth to efficiently expand our market leadership while improving customer and employee experiences. Our 55 location network across Australia and New Zealand provides multiple touch points in each major market. We are developing our omnichannel sales model, ensuring a consistent customer experience through both digital channels and showrooms. Our leadership positions with Harley-Davidson, CFMOTO and other high-value brands, combined with our end-to-end model covering sales, finance, aftercare and resale, continues to drive increased customer retention and diversified revenue streams. Slide 18, outlook. As you can see, operationally, this has been a strong half across the business with record unit sales, expanding market share and encouraging progress on the PS/Harley Heaven integration. I'll now hand back to Matthew to take you through the outlook for the remainder of FY '26. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. We're now on Slide 19. So looking ahead, our outlook is underpinned by a clear set of strategic priorities. We will maintain emphasis on cost management efficiency through structured expense reductions. Digital transformation remains core as we work to increase sales, optimize our efficiencies and continue to improve broadly our customer experience, especially in retail. Our core brand partnerships with CFMOTO with distribution and Harley-Davidson in retail obviously remain key and continue to be central to our growth strategy. We're pursuing ambitious growth targets in e-commerce and developing an omnichannel sales strategy of the future, leveraging our improved digital capabilities to reach more customers. Optimizing our property mix in retail and warehousing is vital as is constantly increasing our stock turns to provide better return on invested capital outcomes. We continue targeting further growth in used motorbike sales, building on our strong market position and the additional contributions from the Peter Stevens group businesses as they move into a full year of operations under our ownership will be obviously an important part of that growth driver. As a point, we are now circa 40% to 45% of dealer used bike listings on bikesales.com.au as we continue to push to dominate the used bike and used vehicle space in our industry. These priorities position us well to capture new opportunities, deliver improved financial performance and create long-term value for our shareholders in the year ahead. Looking forward, there are a number of considerations that will influence our second half performance. Firstly, the interest rate environment, of course and its potential impact on customer demand. We remain mindful of broader economic conditions and their effect on consumer sentiment in our category. As is typical for our business, there's a natural first half weighting to our results, consistent with historical seasonality sales patterns. This is an important consideration when obviously assessing full year expectations. We do expect an increased contribution from the Peter Stevens group businesses in the second half as the operations heading to now are pretty much in business as usual trading levels. As I mentioned, the first half represented a ramp-up period post administration. And we're obviously very encouraged by the direction that the group is taking. The strengthening of the Australian dollar has improved our position, particularly in wholesale distribution businesses, and we expect this to have a positive impact on gross margin in the second half. Finally, we continue to invest in the business. There will be a continued increase in corporate overhead. We build our capability in people, in systems and transformation. And we are actively optimizing our property through some additional store rollouts, reviewing our retail property and, of course, some lease exits to ensure that we're generating the best returns from the square meters we have in the group. As I've mentioned previously, the process moving forward, the journey we're going on will be a 24-, 36-month process as we focus on the legacy retail business transformations across those legacy dealerships and, of course, the MCAS business. Taking these factors together, we remain confident in the outlook for the full year. In closing, the first half of 2026 has been solid for MotorCycle Holdings. We've delivered record revenue, strong underlying growth, profit and expanded our market leadership. The Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven integration is tracking ahead of expectations, and our balance sheet continues to strengthen. I want to thank my executive leadership team and, more broadly, our team members across Australia and New Zealand for their dedication and commitment to driving further excellence across the group. Their efforts have driven the results that we've achieved in the first half and continue to work hard to set us up for a solid second half moving forward. My thanks also go to the Board and for their confidence and support. To our shareholders, I thank you for your continued support as we continue to build MotorCycle Holdings into the region's leading motorbike, accessories, merchandise, retailer and wholesaler in Australia and New Zealand. Thank you. We'll now be open to questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jared of Morgans Financial.

Congratulations on the result. Just interested if maybe you could provide a little bit of color to how you finished the half, just noticing that November, December, it looked like that the rate of growth in the organic business may have trailed off a little bit from the AGM update where you were up 6% organic. Maybe if you could just unpack some of that movement just given you also had a bit of a jam -- gross profit period was a bit stronger than sales as well. So I just wanted to understand the composition of that a little bit better.

Yes. Thanks, Garrett. So you're referring just to the retail business, how we finished the half. Is that correct?

Yes, correct.

Yes. Look, I think one thing to take into consideration when we look at the half '25 versus '24, we are 1 less store. There was an underperforming store that was losing money, which was in Keilor, Victoria that we closed earlier last year. So that's been obviously the numbers for '25 reflect that store not being there. But overall, from a retail perspective, I think we came home quite strongly, in particular with Harley-Davidson. And yes, that's across parts of the business, Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven, that's carried into January as well. But yes, look, overall, all things considered, the end of the half was okay.

Okay. And maybe just a little bit on the margin outlook. I mean the gross margin up on the PCP quite nicely. And now you're sort of pointing just as I look into the second half, you should probably benefit from a stronger period of Mojo and you've called out FX as well as a bit of a tailwind to that business and now quite strong in Harley, which is also higher margin. So just trying to understand, there's obviously been good work done in gradual underlying sort of retail expansion. Now you've added this additional Harley capability and have the tailwinds with Mojo, just sort of understanding fair to say that maybe margins have stabilized and there's more tailwinds than headwinds going into the second half.

Yes. So we did see an increase in the gross profit margin to 25.9%. The business that we acquired, Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven, the gross margin of that is higher than the legacy MotorCycle Holdings business. The reasons for that, the makeup of the 7 stores is 4 Harley stores in the 7 that generally have a higher gross profit margin than our volume dealerships. And there's also been some assistance through -- with Peter Stevens and Harley Heaven, the purchase price for some of the parts and accessories that were purchased at a discounted rate. So we have seen some higher margins there as we ramp the business up. And then as you point out, we're seeing the benefit of the strong AUD across our 3 wholesale businesses, so Mojo, Cassons, and also Forbes and Davies. We have seen in recent months an increase in the gross profit margin, for example, to the Mojo business that's increased by a couple of percentage points.

Perfect. So it all sounds pretty positive to me. And maybe just across the board, maybe one last one on Mojo. I mean I understand -- I know you've guided to some caution in the second half in the underlying retail business. But I mean, that Mojo business does skew a little bit to that fourth quarter, I recall. And you're obviously stronger and have developed that business further since picking it up and acquiring it. So I'm just trying to understand the seasonality that we might see within Mojo in that fourth quarter? And maybe just if there's any sort of new products within that business that you -- that may also solidify the pipeline for that and the outlook going forward?

Yes. Yes. Look, we're still very much optimistic about the outlook for Mojo over the second half and also Forbes and Davies as well being the CFMOTO distributor in New Zealand. The brand continues to go from strength to strength. We've increased our market share across all segments in both countries in calendar year '25. That doesn't appear to be slowing down as the brand gets more and more accepted. We've got new models being rolled out that we're introducing at higher price points with higher gross margin. And that's all assisted as well as we touched on before with the stronger FX. So the outlook for Mojo over the next 6 months is still quite strong. The ag market appears to be holding up quite well. As I said, our position within that market, our market share, it's definitely not going backwards. It's continued to increase in both markets and then throw into the mix as well, some new models that we will be rolling out over the next couple of months.

Jared, just to your point on gross margins as well, the point Mike makes about Harley-Davidson. I mean, obviously, the influence that Harley will have now given our size of the retail business, you will start -- you'll probably see more of a quarterly sort of cycle given the incentive programs and so forth that are quarterly based. So -- and those quarterly cycles end of December, end of March and June, end of September, and some of the other manufacturers are sort of heading in that direction, too. So -- and that's just, I guess, the nature of the business, just a bit of heads-up.

Great. Sorry, one last one, just on Peter Stevens, Harley Heaven. I mean just it feels like that monthly revenue piece is somewhat stabilized. And apart from the dip in November, December finished quite strongly, and it sounds like Michael it's also started well in Jan. I'm just trying to understand if you're happy with how the operations of that business has stabilized, if there's more potential uplift in volumes that you can generate. I'm just trying to understand that revenue piece within Harley going into the half ahead of the year.

Yes. Look, overall, it's continuing to exceed our expectations. We're very happy operationally with the people, the property, the systems there as well. You can see that we've ramped the business up quite quickly. We lost money in the first month being in August. We've then made profit every month since then. We had a very strong January as well. So that's carried over into the new year. So yes, look, it's definitely stabilized. We've had very low staff turnover, which is good to see. We're having some early conversations now about some potential expansion of the Peter Stevens brand, which is still very much early days. One part of the business where we're underperforming versus the same period last year would be with e-com, which we're trying to address at the moment. Just with that when you turn those businesses off as was the case through the administration, it just takes months to sort of get your position back with Google. So we're working through that now. But across the 7 different businesses or 8 businesses, including the online, the online business would be the only business which is backwards, and it's definitely our focus at the moment to get that to levels exceeding what it was during the prior period.

Perfect. And sorry, guys, if I could just squeeze one more in. I'm hogging it. But if you could just maybe clarify on Peter Stevens, how much money was that -- how much of that loss-making in August? And I guess maybe for the half, just trying to understand how much it may have dragged on the underlying result or if not at all.

I don't have the number here in front of me. Off the top of my head, it might have been around about $500,000 in the first month, but it has been profitable every month since, including January.

Our next question is from Sarah of Moelis Australia.

I just wanted to ask on the transformation and kind of efficiency initiatives that you've been working on, Matthew, since you've joined. Just curious how far through that process are you. How much, I guess, savings did you benefit from in the current half? And how should we think about the margin uplift going forward as you progress?

We have -- there's a couple of areas to this. One, we're obviously systems and process and the digital tools we've currently got versus what we need moving forward. This is primarily a lot of the work that we've been doing in the last few months. So we -- it's very much been about identifying since we have brought or expanded our team in this space to understand where the areas of improvement are and also what are our, I guess, choices moving forward and where are the areas that we need significant improvement. So we've been going through that process of identification. We had a meeting with the Board in regards to our progress there and some of the direction that we're looking at undertaking from a transformational perspective. And I'd also add to that, it's not just the systems, albeit there's a lot of work to do there. There is also the people side of that as well in regards to where and what are the skills we need to do what we need to do moving forward. So that's also happening in parallel. We're looking to actually talk to yourselves in more, I guess, detail around that to better show the direction that we're taking as we -- after the full year presentations this year and really take you, I guess, on a bit of a journey of process over the next couple of years to really expand on that and specifically, especially what that means on the retail side. I mean a lot of the work is focused on that because that's obviously where a lot of our costs, a lot of our property, people and inventory and where we see most of the opportunity on top of that, also how do you take that customer experience to another level. So there's a lot going on in that space. Give us a bit more time, and we're going to take you on a roll through that in a few months' time.

Sure. And in terms of, I guess, understanding the cost because you've called out that in the second half, there might be a bit more cost around people and systems. How should we think about that? Because it sounds like the return is a bit backdated.

It's mainly been getting the right skills inside to be able to do the work we've done so far. So I mean, as you'd appreciate, this is not 6 months process, this is a fairly significant undertaking because not only are we looking at where we need to be, we're also playing catch-up. It's an area that needs work some of it because it's probably where we haven't been in the past, but so we've got to cover that gap in addition to being very clear on what is our aspiration and what do we want to be in the context of our leadership in this sort of industry moving forward. So right now, it's more around making sure we've got the skills in place to understand where and what type of the things are that we need to. Sure, there's some low-hanging fruit, that's borne fruit already in regards to fixing some quick fixes, dealing with some inefficiencies that we've been working with our existing providers on. But the main areas that we are identifying will be realistically post this financial year because they're the bigger decisions that we need to work through over the next 24, 36, 48 months to get to where we ultimately need to go. So we're not going to rush and make stupid decisions. We are here to make sure we're very clear on where we want to be in addition to making up for some lost time over the last couple of years.

Okay. And then just in terms of, I guess, the retail business and the comment you made about the rate environment. Just curious, firstly, have you seen any impacts to date on consumer demand and how we should think about that going forward?

No. I mean I think it's just more -- as you do in retail, you got to make sure you've got an eye on these things. Opportunity or inquiry in the business is remaining pretty consistent. I think what those broader economic factors, rates are one; talent; people is certainly another. And we're seeing -- I think unemployment rate currently around 4%, 4.1% is always a telling factor and puts pressure on people resources in the business as well because generally speaking retail has a bit of a higher turnover of people than corporate and/or distribution. And making sure we've got -- we're doing our best to retain our existing talent, but also making sure we are attracting good talent in the business always gets harder as there's more pressure on the available or lack of available people out there in the workforce. So there's -- rates are one, always got to keep an eye on that, always got to keep an eye on activity and inquiry across the business. But certainly, it doesn't matter how strong that is if you haven't got the people to help drive and convert that into sales. So there's a few things there that we're keeping close to.

Okay. So it's safe to say that demand revenue across January and February has been kind of maybe flat to slightly up.

Yes, it's been consistent. It's been consistent. You normally see -- you see swings and roundabouts. You see a drop off in January in new, you generally see a bit stronger in used. But there are -- the normal swings and roundabout in retail are what they are. But generally speaking, it's remained pretty consistent so far.

[Operator Instructions] It appears there are currently no further questions. Handing it back to Matthew for any final remarks.

Thank you. I guess thank you, again, everybody. Thanks for taking the time to join us on the call. As I said, solid first half, we're taking a cautious approach as we work our way through the second half, and we look forward to undoubtedly discussing and meeting you -- a few of you over the next couple of weeks across the country. So thank you again and look forward to talking to you.

This concludes today's Evercall. A replay will be made available shortly after today's call. Thank you, and have a great day.