REV Group, Inc. (REVG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to REV Group 2020 Fiscal Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Drew Konop, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Sherry. Good morning, and thanks for joining us. This morning, we issued our fourth quarter fiscal 2020 results. A copy of the release is available on our website at investors.revgroup.com. Today's call is being webcast and a slide presentation, which includes a reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures is available on our website. Please refer now to Slide 2 of that presentation. Our remarks and answers will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our Form 8-K filed with the SEC this morning and other filings that we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings call, if at all. All references on this call to a quarter or a year are to our fiscal quarter or fiscal year, unless otherwise stated. Joining me on the call today are our President and CEO, Rod Rushing; as well as our CFO, Mark Skonieczny. Please turn now to Slide 3, and I'll turn the call over to Rod.

Thank you, Drew, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call this morning. I'd like to start by welcoming everyone back from what I hope was a healthy and happy holiday season. We are pleased to report improved earnings for the fourth quarter, where we achieved the high end of our guidance that we provided in our last quarterly call. Sales of $616 million were 6% sequentially or up 6% sequentially despite some lingering end-market challenges related to COVID-19, illustrating the benefit of a diverse portfolio of businesses as well as momentum that we're building operationally. Our fiscal fourth quarter EBITDA of $28 million grew 45% and our EBITDA margin increased 150 basis points on a year-over-year basis, despite a 6% decline in our revenue. Our business generated 31% more EBITDA this quarter than we did in the third quarter, and we were able to convert those earnings into cash, allowing us to reduce our net debt by over $40 million within the quarter. We fully participated in increased demand for recreational vehicles and showed market share gain in 3 out of 5 product categories. While our Fire & Emergency margins approved throughout the year, the Commercial segment was able to address an organic drop in sales of $120 million and limit our full year decremental EBITDA margin. Thank you, Drew, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call this morning. I'd like to start by welcoming everyone back from what I hope was a healthy and happy holiday season. We are pleased to report improved earnings for the fourth quarter, where we achieved the high end of our guidance that we provided in our last quarterly call. Sales of $616 million were 6% sequentially or up 6% sequentially despite some lingering end market challenges related to COVID-19, illustrating the benefit of a diverse portfolio of businesses as well as momentum that we're building operationally. Our fiscal fourth quarter EBITDA of $28 million grew 45% and our EBITDA margin increased 150 basis points on a year-over-year basis, despite a 6% decline in our revenue. Our business generated 31% more EBITDA this quarter than we did in the third quarter, and we were able to convert those earnings into cash, allowing us to reduce our net debt by over $40 million within the quarter. We fully participated in increased demand for recreational vehicles and showed market share gain in 3 out of 5 product categories. While our Fire & Emergency margins approved throughout the year, the commercial segment was able to address an organic drop in sales of $120 million and limit our full year decremental EBITDA margin. During the last 9 months, we faced difficulties and perhaps some unprecedented external challenges while delivering 3 quarters of sequential margin improvement. We still have much work remaining, and we continue to operate through the challenges with parts supply and absenteeism tied to the COVID matter. However, we believe we're in a position to continue to deliver year-over-year improvements throughout the upcoming fiscal year through our operational disciplines and capabilities that we are building. One important cornerstone that we are committed to establish at REV is to have aligned and unified leadership team that operates under the principles of timely, data-driven, fact-based decision-making with the highest sense of ownership and accountability. We have spent quite a bit of time in the last few months focused on leadership alignment and organizational structure. We have completed our review of the businesses, and we have implemented a redesign of our operating model. This was a thoughtful examination of how the business operates, where decisions are made and how we are structured to predictably deliver results, creating value for our customers and shareholders. The result aligns leadership and management on how we are going to run this business and where accountability sits within the organization while simplifying our business and optimizing our cost structure. There are many changes that were made to this process, but I will provide a bit of insight on a few examples. We made a decision to move our center-led parts business back to the business units. There was an initial hypothesis that growth would be achieved by implementing a consolidated centralized parts business, stemming from some end-market synergies. That growth did not materialize. Our businesses inherently know our customers and products and have the institutional knowledge to answer questions and deliver results to our customers more efficiently. Further, the realignment will create a $5 million annual structural cost savings. The combined outcome of reducing complexity for our customers, the unrealized growth and what ended up being creating a duplicate cost structure drove the decision to make this change. This decision was a result of a careful reexamination of how to efficiently serve our customers and simplify our operations. Conversely, there are a few aspects of our operating model where we move more firmly to a center-led operation and becoming an operating company. These include development of center-led activities related to operational excellence and commercial excellence, where scaling of capabilities and processes will yield value creation for our shareholders. Many of these capabilities have been discussed by management previously, but have lacked the commitment and rigor to yield sustainable improvements that create value. We are focused on changing that, and made investments in new personnel and technologies to our operating model to build the disciplines necessary to drive sustainable improvement in our performance. As part of our operational excellence, we are building capabilities to improve database decision-making, simplify operations and improve efficiencies on our balance sheet. This includes disciplined review and controls of corporate costs, manufacturing overhead, labor and direct materials. It requires increased capabilities focused on engineering, manufacturing operations, supply chain and purchasing. To accelerate the change process and created best-in-class operations, we have made several management changes. There are a couple that I'd like to highlight today. First, we've expanded the role of our Commercial President, Brian Perry, to include the role of Senior Vice President of Operations. In this role, Brian leads our manufacturing execution, operational excellence and supply chain. Brian is a Master Black Belt in Six Sigma, a Lean Sensei and has the extensive background in manufacturing operations and purchasing, making him the ideal person to build out our center-led operational efforts. He is well positioned to take on this dual role while continuing to lead our Commercial segment. In addition, we have hired Rob Vislosky as Vice President and Chief Supply Officer. Rob joins REV Group, having recently led Honeywell's Intelligrated global supply chain and was Honeywell's Corporate Chief Procurement Officer. As CPO at Honeywell, he managed an $18 billion annual spend to portfolio as well as leading 3,000 procurement -- global procurement specialists. Rob has a very broad industrial background from aerospace, automotive, paint and coatings, and it includes logistics. He has had executive leadership roles with XPO Logistics, Valspar, Reynolds Group and Alcoa. He brings to REV Group both the vision and the execution capabilities to build the best class global sourcing organization we're looking for and purchasing supply chain organization, combined with the sense of urgency to do this at a pace. Rob has only been in the position at REV for a few weeks, but he's taken an exhaustive look at our infrastructure and has quickly to identify a list of opportunities. I'm very pleased to have Rob join our team, and I look forward to the impact that he will have on our business performance. In my 9 months since joining REV, there have been challenges, some that were expected and some that weren't unexpected. We've implemented much change during that time. We began to see sequential improvements in our results. We have much work remaining in the months ahead, but I'm encouraged by the progress to date. I look forward to sharing more about the plans and the path forward with you during our Analyst and Investor Day that we're planning for April. With that, I'm now going to turn over to Mark for details on our fourth quarter segment performance. Mark?

Thanks, Rod, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Page 4 of the slide deck as I review our segment level performance. Fire & Emergency segment fourth quarter sales were $330 million, a 23% increase compared to prior year. This includes approximately $75 million of sales attributable to our acquisition of Spartan ER that occurred earlier in the year. Excluding Spartan, organic segment sales decreased 6% from the fourth quarter of last year. While organic Fire sales were relatively flat, we shipped fewer ambulance units due to lingering cut -- impacts of COVID. Although down from prior year, North American ambulance deliveries increased 21% sequentially and order trends continued to remain strong as municipalities and federal stimulus dollars prioritized health and safety needs. CARES Act stimulus dollars remain available for ambulance units delivered through the 2021 calendar year-end, continuing an important driver of demand for our F&E segment. Within the Fire division, throughput increased sequentially once again at our E-ONE plant in Ocala, Florida. Unit production was up 44% year-over-year, demonstrating the benefits of lean programs and operating disciplines that were deployed over the second half of the year. Bringing in lean, expertise allowed a dual-track of affecting immediate change while allowing time to develop leadership, train internal resources and build a pipeline of OpEx projects that will sustain continuous improvement. We plan to follow this model of deploying lean assistance where we feel there will be an immediate impact, while training our internal teams at all businesses through a lean academy that is designed to deliver annual throughput and cost out targets. F&E's segment adjusted EBITDA was $14.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to $7.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. The increase was primarily due to the improvements in E-ONE just mentioned and the acquisition of Spartan ER. Ambulance EBITDA was relatively flat with the prior year despite the decrease in sales due to productivity improvements that increased margins, most notably at our largest manufacturing location in Orlando. Spartan contributed $4 million in adjusted EBITDA to the F&E segment within the quarter, which completes 3 quarters of integration that exceeded expectations. The addition of this world-class chassis manufacturing business provides a center of excellence that will be leveraged across our Fire businesses and brands, creating further opportunities for manufacturing efficiencies within the segment. Spartan is now integrated into the F&E segment operationally, and we do not plan to call out its individual contribution in the future. Total F&E backlog was $966 million, up 16% year-over-year. This includes backlog acquired from Spartan and strong Ambulance order intake throughout the fiscal year, including the fourth quarter. A decline in legacy Fire backlog is largely the result of increased throughput at the Ocala plant and a decrease in fire industry unit orders that occurred from the onset to COVID through approximately September of 2020. Industry orders during that period declined over 25%. Since that time, and during the final 2 months of our fiscal 2020, our order rates improved to levels on par with fiscal year 2019. Fire backlog remains strong and now reflects competitive industry lead times, and Ambulance backlog is at a record-high, which provides a solid base for sales growth and conversion to earnings within the F&E segment. We currently expect year-over-year F&E revenue improvement versus this year's softness related to COVID absenteeism and inspection delays, which occurred primarily in the second and third fiscal quarters. At this time, absent another recurrence of the virus or additional government restrictions, we feel confident that we will convert to earnings more efficiently and with improved incremental margins. Turning to Slide 5. Commercial segment fourth quarter sales were $91 million, a decrease of $56 million compared to the prior period, which included approximately $57 million from the Shuttle businesses divested in early 2020. The organic decline in sales was related to lower sales at all businesses within the segment. Year-over-year school bus sales declined 14% in the fourth quarter, which is a significant improvement to the third quarter decline of 31%, and puts our fiscal second half 2020 sales ahead of reported declines in industry registrations for the same period. Municipal transit sales decreased 40% versus the prior year, primarily due to delivery schedule adjustment to a large order to accommodate the needs of our customer that we disclosed in our fiscal third quarter. The change extended the delivery time line through fiscal 2021, and there have been no further changes to that contract. Specialty markets remained depressed with sales down 40% versus last year. While this is an improvement from third quarter's decline of 50%, the sales were primarily existing stock units built-to-order cancellations or delivery -- or delays that needed significant rework to meet customer specifications. Turning to segment adjusted EBITDA for the Commercial segment. Commercial segment adjusted EBITDA of $6.4 million was down 61% versus the prior year period, which included a $1 million EBITDA related to divested shuttle bus businesses. The decline in EBITDA was primarily a result of the sales decline in all businesses as well as the inefficiencies related to the rework of stock units within the specialty division. Although the stock unit rework had a negative contribution to performance in the quarter, given the severe end-market declines in this business, we took the opportunity to rightsize what had become an inflated stock unit inventory. Within the Bus division, despite revenue declines in both school and municipal markets, these businesses were able to continue to flex production with demand and contribute high single-digit EBITDA margins. Commercial segment backlog at the end of the fourth quarter was $274 million, down 14% versus the prior year quarter, which contained $86 million of shuttle bus backlog. Excluding shuttle bus, an 18% organic backlog increase is a result of an increase in specialty division orders within the fourth quarter and timing of a large municipal transit order that entered backlog in the first quarter this year, partially offset by decreased school bus orders. The increased specialty orders were for both terminal trucks and street sweepers, and this quarter marks the best order intake since fiscal first quarter 2019. We have been aggressively pursuing new contracts and renewals in these markets, winning a large rental company contract for street sweepers and advancing in the bid process for terminal trucks at several national accounts. Last month, we were excited to announce a partnership with Hyster-Yale Group to develop electric and hydrogen-powered terminal trucks to reduce emissions and increase efficiency and productivity. We are targeting the end of our fiscal year to have the initial prototypes available for market testing. With momentum in our specialty markets and a longer cycle municipal transit backlog, we feel the Commercial segment is in a position to grow revenue despite uncertainty surrounding the timing of a full-time return to the classroom and impact on school bus demand. As COvID-19 vaccines become more widespread, there is reason to be optimistic that decisions reopen schools and districts will benefit our peak spring selling season for school bus. Given the cost out activities that we took this year across all of our Commercial segment businesses, we expect increased volume in specialty and potentially school bus to convert at solid incremental margins. We anticipate the overall variability of 2020's Commercial segment bottom line margin performance will dissipate in 2021. Absent any new government directives that may impact end-markets, employee attendance or delivery acceptance, the near-term potential for this segment remains in the high single-digit EBITDA margin profile. Turning to Slide 6. Recreation segment sales of $194 million were up 12% versus last year, reflecting strong wholesale shipments and retail demand for Class B, Class C and Towable units. Class A shipments were down mid-single digits versus last year as production was limited by supply chain constraints, primarily in gas units. We feel the backlog and production capacity are in place to support higher shipments once these bottlenecks clear. Despite shipping fewer Class A units, our award-winning product introductions continue to take market share, resulting in a higher retail demand, increased pricing and lower discounting and allowances. Recreation segment EBITDA -- or adjusted EBITDA was $20.5 million for the quarter, an increase of $12 million or 175% versus the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.6% reflects the higher sales mix of non-Class A products within the quarter as well as the impact of operating leverage and productivity improvements achieved across all categories with sequential and year-over-year margin gains. Despite lower Class A unit sales, profitability increased over 650 basis points versus fourth quarter 2019 and. And for our business that had recently struggled to break even, it was encouraging to see profitability reach levels that had not attained over the past 2 years. We expect to continue this momentum by driving efficient manufacturing practices and commercial activities focused on dealer wins and market share gains that would deliver sustainable performance, not only during this upturn in demand, but across all parts of demand and stocking cycles. Segment backlog increased 220% year-over-year to $540 million, which reflects strong order intake across all RV categories over the past 6 months. The past 2 quarters were historic highs were orders by a substantial margin, and our current backlog is nearly double that of any point in REV's Recreation segment history. We feel this supports the current industry thinking that wholesale shipments will be up 20% or more in calendar 2021, and that our product portfolio, niche market placements and iconic brands lands us in a strong position to participate in that growth. As we move forward, we expect the sales mix of products to normalize as Class A production and delivery schedules improve, and therefore, would expect segment margins in the mid-single digits versus 10% achieved in Q4. On Slide 7, consolidated full year net sales declined 5% year-over-year to $2.3 billion in a challenging year that included expansion of production activities at our Recreation segment at the onset of COVID and unplanned disruptions related to the pandemic at several other businesses. Adjusted EBITDA declined 34% compared to fiscal 2019 to $67.5 million. Nearly $50 million or 3 quarters of that total occurred in the second half of the year as revenue, throughput and margins improved sequentially through the period. Rob mentioned a number of restructuring activities related to rightsizing the organization. This included decentralizing the parts business from the corporate center back into the individual businesses and sunsetting less profitable brands and dealer relationships within the portfolio. The total structural cost savings executed through our fiscal year-end are expected to deliver a total of $10 million annually. Turning to Slide 8. Full year net cash provided by operating activities was $56 million compared to $53 million of net cash provided in the prior year period. Cash generated was primarily related to improvements in accounts receivable and inventory management as well as an increase in customer deposits received. We will continue to work all aspects of net working capital, including reinforcing the disciplines needed to reach optimal inventory levels, balancing accounts receivable and payable terms and aligning more of our businesses with a model that collects a greater amount of customer deposits. Net working capital at October 31, 2020, was $355 million compared to $373 million at the end of fiscal 2019. Net debt, as of October 31, was $331 million, including $11 million of cash on hand versus $377 million at the end of fiscal 2019. At fiscal year-end, the company maintained ample liquidity with $283 million available under our ABL revolving credit facility. You may recall that our term loan amendment effective in April of last year reverts to a net leverage ratio of 5.25x with certain add backs related to the Spartan acquisition in the fiscal first quarter of 2021. We are confident that we will obtain this target. You may also recall that our term loan expires in April 2022. We will be working with our banking partners throughout the upcoming months to optimize our capital structure. We do not plan to issue guidance today due to the recent recurrence of COVID-19 cases globally within our business across the country. The safety of our employees remains a top priority. Contact tracing, testing and measures to prevent the spread of the virus come with uncertain staffing levels that impact our businesses and supply chain partners. The CDC has issued and continues to update new directives that we follow. Under these conditions, our customers' ability to travel and inspect vehicles for acceptance creates uncertainty of delivery and revenue recognition timing. Until we can reasonably predict the potential impacts of these changes, we feel it would not be prudent to give a range of estimates. However, with the emergence of vaccines, we hope to have better clarity when we host our virtual Investor & Analyst Day in April that Rod referenced. Please save the date on April 15th, when we plan to provide a deeper look at our business and operating model and provide immediate term targets. If we feel that the operating landscape has become more predictable, we expect to also provide full year guidance. We will extend a formal invitation to this event soon. With that, I'll turn it back over to Rod.

So I guess, just a few closing comments then. So the fiscal year 2020 has been a challenging for the REV Group and our employees in many regards. We have gone through a number of internal changes as we move towards the future. We sold the business, purchased and integrated a business during the time, in which the external environment, as you all know, has been very, and often unpredictable. I'm pleased with the progress we have achieved in a short amount of time, given the amount of change we have experienced. Our businesses continue to have a relatively healthy backlog. And we believe they support revenue growth in the upcoming year. And most importantly, I'm very pleased with what our employees have done. Every day, they put themselves in a situation where they've delivered on -- they can to deliver on our commitments and deliver to our customers under some very adverse circumstances as we look to support the first responders in our country. So I'm very pleased. I want to thank them publicly for what they've done. And with that, I think we'll hold it over and have a Q&A with an open mic. So question and answers.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs.

Congratulations on a really strong performance here. What really stood out was the margin performance in the RV business, and you alluded to mix helping. I'm wondering if we just stepped through looking at the year-over-year margin expansion much of that was improved productivity. How much of that was pricing mix? And should we think about the mix tailwind as being sustainable from here?

Yes. Jerry, as I said in the -- my prepared remarks, the mix really helps us. And I think we've always said that outside of Class A, those are double-digit performing businesses. So when you look at the mix there, our mix was down on Class A. And we really had 2 things helping us from a tailwind perspective, the fact that we had a larger mix in those more profitable business of being the Class Bs, Cs and Towables, and Class A actually had a high concentration of diesel product within the quarter, which is more profitable than the gas product. So even though we say COVID, a lot of the furniture issues we've had that we talked about previously were on our gas unit lines. And so even within Class A, we had a margin pick up from the concentration of diesel within the quarter, which we would expect to more flatten out to a reasonable normalized rate going forward. And of course, as Class A continues to develop, it will get more to the 40-60 sort of split that we traditionally have seen within that group. So it really is just a matter of the amount that we sold within those other product categories, plus the mix benefit. And of course, as you saw, within RV itself, the productivity improvements that they had drove a significant part of that 650 basis point improvement. Their sales were actually down -- go ahead.

Sorry, please go ahead.

Yes. I am saying the sales were actually down year-on-year, right? So they actually were able to deliver a profit this quarter versus last. So that was -- majority of that benefit was from productivity.

Okay. And then Fire & Emergency, nice to see Ocala turned the corner. Can you talk about how the production rates have continued into December? Have you continued to ramp higher or was it 40% increase essentially get you through a normalized run rate? And when do we see, from an accounting standpoint, the lower per unit cost flowing through to the full extent?

Well, I do think -- this is Rod. We have made considerable progress in that location. But there's still opportunity for us to even do much better there. So we -- as Mark mentioned in his earlier discussion that we've gotten back to more of a standard industry lead times. We continue to work on throughput on both aerials and pumpers in that plant. And we believe there's opportunities for continued margin expansion through productivity. So while we're pleased with the path we're on and we're seeing this thing move and be able to look at our backlog and get to what we think is a more of a standard lead time, we still believe there's opportunity to improve our efficiencies in that plant and get margin expansion in that business. So that's just work in front of us.

Our next question is from Jamie Cook with Crédit Suisse.

I guess a couple of questions. One, I think you noted on the Commercial side, you expected to see growth year-over-year. Just a clarification, I'm assuming that's normalize for the divestiture, so look at sort of the $90 million quarterly run rate when you're talking about growth. And I guess, just my second question, can you just give more color, obviously, the outlook on the bus side or the school bus side is somewhat uncertain. As you talk to customers, can you just talk about how they're thinking about buying trends in the latter part of the year? What would be the major drivers? What would they need to see to come back in the market, and just sort of the overall age of the fleet?

Well, I think that -- this is Rod. The feedback we have from end-markets or from dealer partners is that the whole thing, uncertainty around school openings or schools that are open, staying opening, that's the driving factor. And right now, there's just tremendous uncertainty around that. The back half of this year is going to shape out definitely, obviously, with the emergence of the multiple vaccines. And I think what's a real drive for people to get back in school from the public, I think that's pretty clear that people want to go back to school. That makes promise. We've got a couple of things there, I think, could be tailwinds to help us get where we need to be. But we're going to know -- I think by the time we get to get together in April, we're going to know how that shapes out. But right now, they're just too much uncertainty for us to look forward and project what that school bus market is going to look like, not knowing what the impacts of COVID is going to be until we see the success rate on this virus and what that looks like, and then -- and further moving into the spring when our -- we typically see April, May being when we start getting significant orders and deliveries. So that will be a time frame we're going to know, but right now, it's not clear. It's just tremendous uncertainty. Everybody is kind of awaiting that time period.

Sorry. And then just the commentary on revenues for Commercial mix, assuming it excludes the divestitures, so look at the $90 million quarterly run rate. And then my last question, how to think about the corporate expense line as we look to 2021, any color there?

Yes. So you're right on the Commercial. Exactly right, excluding the $90 million. And then on the corporate, of course, parts was part of the centralized. So that $5 million drops right to the corporate line. So you could see that $5 million drop. That's where that was traditionally shown in our centralized parts of business.

Our next question is from Courtney Yakavonis with Morgan Stanley.

Just going back on the comment, I appreciate that there will be a mix shift in Recreation next year. I think you said, you expect in line with the industry wholesale shipments, up about 20%. But I think you had said that you were expecting mid-single-digit margins. And I think we've historically been seeing more high single digits out of that segment. So just wanted to make sure I fully understood what you were thinking the mix shift impact would have on 2021, given that Class A has been weak for some time now.

Yes. We've traditionally seen mid-single digits. So what we determine as mid, right, 5% to 7%, so that's probably in line with what we've historically done. But the mix shift really is what I referred to, with Jerry's question is, again, 40% of our sales being in the RV or our Class A business. Those, as you know, are depressed margins, so those bring down the ones that are at double-digit from a run rate perspective. So it's really the fact that RV are -- what we call RV, our Class A, was actually down from a mix. So as they come more to the 40% to 50% range, right, they were 40% in the quarter versus 50% in the prior year. So you had a 10% drop there from a mix perspective. And so it's really that simple. As far as looking at the other 3 businesses that we have in that portfolio at double-digit and bringing in a lower single-digit mix from the Class A will actually depress those 10% down to more of the 5% to 7% range.

Okay. That's helpful. And then any more specificity you could give us, just on Commercial and F&E margins, as we think about impacting next year? Obviously, appreciating that it's going to be dependent on your delivery schedule. But any high-level thoughts on the margin side?

Yes. I think we said high single digits on the -- from the whole Commercial side. But obviously, on the capacity, if you're talking about capacity, that's one we're still with the backlog here. So as I said in my prepared remarks, we took the opportunity to -- a lot of the units that we had developed coming into the -- what our normal selling season is, didn't develop. But exiting the quarter, we were very happy with some of the progress we made, and our backlog is now performing. So we should seize the variability get out of there. But when you look at the total Commercial segment, we would expect the high single sort of what we were expecting coming in the quarter if we wouldn't have had the issues that we experienced on the Commercial side and the liquidation that we did on some of those stock units. So we would expect it to get more -- like we guided to last time, more the mid or the high single digits for the Commercial segment.

Okay. Got you. And then I guess just lastly, you mentioned concerns about delivery schedules for next year. But if you were to just highlight, what are the 3 categories that has the most variability or you're most concerned about versus the ones that are -- or that you feel most confident in the delivery schedules for next year, just so we can get a sense of where the real risk is?

And by categories, you mean the business units or the product categories?

Yes, I guess I just meant within the business units, obviously, your Recreation, that clause is pretty strong. So do you feel like that's where you have the most certainty versus some of the product lines in F&E and Commercial?

I think that -- and I'll comment and then Mark can clean up what I say. I think that when you think about end-markets that are affected by the issues, I think primarily, obviously, end-market demand in the school bus business is the issue. All the businesses are subject to some level of supplier issues that we're dealing with. I think RV is probably the one that we've seen the most stock out, which is pretty consistent across the industry. The other element that we deal with a little bit, which is a timing issue, not an impact probably within the fiscal year. It's just the inspections that have to take place in Ambulance and Fire around getting a bus off the lot or -- sorry, a truck or an ambulance of the lot related to completing final inspections by getting people to the site. That's a real issue that we've been dealing with in terms of revenue recognition because that has to happen in order for us to convert the bus. So I think in school bus, it certainly is -- it's in market demand. There's some supplier issues that are spread throughout that we've been able to overcome for the most part. But they are -- they do pop up, and we have to work through that. And then the last thing would be, the businesses that are subject to inspections, which is your emergency segment is where we see that. And Mark, I don't know if you want to add anything.

I think that's right. I think as we said previously, one of the things that we thought would happen here with COVID as people converted, like people working from home, we expected that more people would adopt virtual inspections for our ambulance and fire trucks. And as exiting COVID, our customers have come back to wanting to see their trucks in person and which is resurgent here. We're hoping that they'll go back to virtual, but we have shifted back to wanting to do in-person inspection. So we haven't seen them going back to virtual. So obviously, there is some flux there if people would go back to virtual inspections, depending on what happens with the COVID environment. But we are back to our traditional, as Rob referred to, actually seeing the units before they leave the yard so that we can revenue them. And that's really the delays that I was speaking to. That's really our customers coming in and inspecting the units and approving them for shipment.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from [ Raj Patel ] with Jefferies.

Quick one on F&E margins. What's the anticipated F&E margin expansion once all the production inefficiencies are sorted out? What do you think the new margin profile looks like in a new normal?

Yes. From a fire perspective, obviously, as Rod has reiterated multiple times, we're still in a multiple inning journey here. So as he has referred to on E-ONE, we still have a lot of work to do. We're seeing progression. But of course, we have other facilities within the portfolio, too, that we're going to address, as I said in my prepared remarks. So we're still expecting to be in the double digits at the end of this journey, but we're still working through that, right? So of course, we're not giving guidance here, but again, it's still any multiple year perspective to get to that $10 million. So we're just happy to see the progression here that we've seen throughout the quarter. And obviously, our forward-looking will provide more guidance in April, in par with trajectory.

Yes. I think that -- there's -- when you think about operational improvements and how you've walked down that, what Mark referred a multi-year journey, when you come into the role, there are some quick things you can do to get pop and get improvement. And then it's about building capabilities. And I mentioned, from an operational excellence standpoint, standing up the lean capabilities and center-led type activities that get implemented in the plants around CI, around purchasing, building engineering capabilities to getting design costs through AEV, those are things that you got to do some capability building. But the good thing is that it's a continual improvement -- continuing improved process where you're going to be getting at that every day by building pipelines to go execute against. So we're in the process right now coming out of our operating model discussion of standing up those capabilities and building out those teams and doing the certifications that Mark talked about through leans that are going to yield benefit to us for a very, very long time, things that did not exist. Now we're standing up those capabilities. And bringing on Rob to lead our purchasing organization and get focused on that significant spend, I think it's going to yield a great benefit to us, too. So those will all contribute to a margin expansion story, not only in emergency, but across the business. And so that's -- but it does take work to stand it up. But it starts with organizing and aligning and then investing in those capability building, and then driving it through process rigor each day, each week, each month.

Our next question is from Mig Dobre with Baird.

A quick question on chassis. As you're looking at your current production planning based on your backlog, are there any portions in your business where you're getting a sense that you're having either challenges obtaining chassis, or the delivery time lines are extended? And look, I mean, I'm thinking specifically around ambulances and some of the stuff in Recreation as well like Class Bs and so on.

Yes. No, Mig, I'm glad to say, and we're not experiencing those. In fact, we've had a pretty good supply chain from that perspective. So I was happy this quarter not to be talking about chassis shortages for once, even though it's only my second one. So I know you've heard that consistently. So we've been very happy with that. In fact, in the RV side, especially, we took advantage of what the -- our run rates were going to be, and actually ordered ahead. So we're actually sitting with plenty of chassis from that perspective in that business. And then on the ambulance side, we haven't had any issues from a chassis perspective, and we've been getting our appropriate allocations from our OE partners.

Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe, my follow-up, sort of sticking with the steam. How do you think about steel prices and raw material inflation in 2021? What are some of the steps that you're taking to mitigate this, because obviously, historically, this has been an area where we've seen some trouble in prior years?

Yes. So I mean, obviously, on the parts of our business, which -- large part of our business is built out of backlog. There's always the issue you're trying to offset inflation with your efficiency efforts because your purchase price is established on a backlog-based business. So we're managing that. Obviously, a big part of what Rob's efforts is going to be is to look at new purchasing and be able to offset that within a fiscal year, so we can cycle through and get the margins that we need on a price cost basis. But -- so it's a lot around driving efficiency to make sure that we're doing everything we can to optimize our cost structure to have any leakage that does come through inflation into a backlog-based business, we can offset through other means. And Mark, I don't know if you want to add anything to that or...

No, I think that's right. And that's one of the things that I'm working personally with Rob on, make sure we understand those inflationary factors as we go through 2021 as well as our agreements with our supply base, and that's one of the things that Rob can acclimate it to. And there's obviously a heightened focus in those businesses where we don't have the longer backlogs. We obviously come out with some price increases as our competitors have. So we're managing that with the supply base as well as our customers.

I do think, one of the things we're working on is trying to get in front of how we think about price as a function of inflation and to make sure when you think about a price increase or sending a price in the market that you're thinking about the build cycle of when that vehicle will get built. So you reflect some inflationary characteristics in your costing in the business and invoice. Most of our businesses have done that to some degree, but that's something I think that we've got to get great around because when you're working on a backlog based business and you're doing -- selling forward projection on deliveries, you got to be thinking about the inflationary times that you're in and making sure that you're costing that vehicle such that by the time you're doing the build or you're shipping the vehicle that you've anticipated any inflationary cost in your pricing cost.

Yes. Absolutely. I understand that. I guess I'm just wondering based on what you know today, do you believe you're going to be in a position where you can be neutral from a price cost standpoint going forward or should we try to bake in some kind of a headwind?

Yes. I think based on the data we have now relative to price cost, the efficiency efforts that we've got in the business should yield us a minimum neutrality in our performance going forward in the fiscal year.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Rod for closing comments.

Okay. Great. Well, thank you again for joining. I appreciate the questions. It's -- again, I want to take a moment as we close out a fiscal year and a 9-month period for myself, and then think about the changes that we made, both in process and structure and people, to thank our team for what's been a pretty [indiscernible] year. Considering all the external situations that all of us have dealt with, on top of that, new leadership coming in and expecting to do things a different way and maybe change some thinking, I want to compliment our leadership team and also thank our frontline employees and what they've done to serve our customers and also serve this nation in getting these necessary vehicles out to our communities. So again, I appreciate your time today. I look forward to seeing you all in April when we'll have a deeper discussion around where we're taking this business going forward. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.