Brunswick Corporation Q2 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-07-31 04:05:39.0

Tags: Inventory, Call Transcript, Earnings, RBC Capital Markets, Dealer Network, Sales Strategy, Financial Accounting, Investment, Sales, Finance, Seeking Alpha, Brunswick Corp.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator instructions). Our first question comes from Ed Aaron with RBC Capital Markets. Sir, your line is open.

Ed Aaron -- RBC Capital Markets

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Dusty McCoy

Good morning, Ed.

Ed Aaron -- RBC Capital Markets

Dusty, I was interested in your comment about dealer pipeline inventories expected to be at 10-year lows after the end of this year, can you just remind us what that 10-year low number is historically?

Dusty McCoy

Ed, that's not a number I'm prepared to disclose. But it's obviously quite low.

Ed Aaron -- RBC Capital Markets

Okay. And (inaudible) I've been trying to figure out is, historically, the right level of inventory has been somewhere in the, I guess the low-to-mid 20s, that's kind of a good number for the dealer channel to be, but with everything going on there today, it seems like that right number might be lower going forward. And just was wondering if you have, what do you consider to be an appropriate reach the inventory target for this business, assuming really no change in the dealer floor plan, financing environment or really no change in demand from here.

Dusty McCoy

Ed, to be quite honest, that's not a number we know right now and I'll tell you why. We believe it needs to be substantially lower than we've seen in past times. The cost of the dealer network and our sales of maintaining lots of inventory in the field with the carrying costs that go along with it, probably signal that we, as an industry, need to work very hard to reduce the number of products that kept in the dealers’ show rooms. So we're engaged in a process with our dealer network to redefine what we think pipelines out to be at particular times in a year. Another thing, problem we have, we start talking about an absolute number, and it can be different at 12/31 versus 3/31. For instance, as dealers are getting ready to start the selling season, they may need a few more boats than they do at 12/31, as they're coming into the winter. So bottom line, Ed, we are focused on reducing it, we're beginning to have discussions with our dealer network about what their inventory turns out to be and they need to be substantially higher than what seen in the dealer network today and that of course were to pull down inventory.

 

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