Harley-Davidson Inc (HOG) 2010 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, my name is Chrissy and I will be your conference operator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the fourth quarter 2010 earnings conference call.

All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

(Operator Instructions).

Thank you.

Ms.

Amy Giuffre, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you and good morning everyone.

Welcome to Harley-Davidson's fourth quarter 2010 earnings conference call.

Today's call is being webcast live on Harley-Davidson.com where you will also find slides containing supporting details.

These slides can be accessed by clicking on Investor Relations, then Events and Presentations.

Our comments today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different.

Those risks include, among others, matters we have noted in our latest earnings release and filings with the SEC.

Harley-Davidson disclaims any obligation to update information in this call.

This morning you will hear from Harley-Davidson's CEO, Keith Wandell; CFO, John Olin; and President of Harley-Davidson Financial Services, Larry Hund.

At the close of prepared comments, we will open the call for your questions.

We ask that each caller ask only one question and we appreciate your cooperation.

So, let's get started.

Keith?

Thank you Amy.

Good morning everyone.

Thanks for joining us on the call.

As you saw in this morning's press release, Harley-Davidson made great progress in 2010 on restructuring our Company to take advantage of the opportunities that we believe lie ahead.

First, let me say just how much our entire leadership team appreciates all of the extraordinary work by our employees to achieve these results and make this transformation possible.

We have dealt with a lot of change in a short amount of time, and our employees are truly doing a great job.

I would also like to thank our dealers for all of their hard work to bring a great Harley-Davidson experience to customers in what has continued to be a challenging business environment.

Let's take a quick look at where we are, what we have achieved and where we are going.

Through our strategy to deliver results through focus, which we rolled out in late 2009, we have been restructuring the business and focusing our investments in ways that will strengthen the Harley-Davidson brand, lower our cost structure, foster continuous improvement and promote growth in the US as well as globally.

While we feel good about all that we've achieved, we know it's crucial for us to stay fully on the throttle here.

In 2011 we will continue the important work of transforming our manufacturing operations, our product development capabilities to be more lean and world-class.

And these initiatives are key when comes to our ability to bring new innovative products to the market in a more timely manner and to grow.

In manufacturing, the transformational new labor agreements and structural changes in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin will, when completed, provide the seasonal flexibility, model mix flexibility and efficiency improvements that we expect will allow us to be more responsive to market demand and deliver greater returns.

This week we will begin labor negotiations in Kansas City to address these same issues of competitiveness, flexibility and efficiency.

And our overall goal is to have a world-class, team-based lean operating structure across all our production operations with continuous improvement in standardized processes at the center of everything we do.

Turning to product development, our new products are hitting the mark.

For example, more than two-thirds of the Super Low sales are to customers new to Harley-Davidson.

And we believe the new Blackline motorcycle unveiled last weekend will further bolster our market penetration among young adults, where we already hold the number one share position.

Our transformation in product development is focused on improvement in two key areas.

One is to reduce the time it takes to bring new products to market through lean engineering methodologies.

And the second is to increase our development capacity to simultaneously handle more product development initiatives through best in class planning systems.

Here, too, we have laid a lot of groundwork and are well on our way.

And over the coming years we will begin to see the fruits of these efforts.

So in summary, 2010 was a very busy year for us and I'm extremely proud of our accomplishments.

As we look forward, all of these changes will allow us to be more customer-led in everything that we do.

For 2011 we continue to have a measured outlook, while at the same time we are encouraged by indications of a strengthening economy and we anticipate further improvement in our performance.

So I will be back later in the call for questions.

Now I would like to turn it over to John Olin, who will walk us through the numbers.

Thank you, Keith, and good morning everyone.

I will review the financial results starting on slide nine and we will start with the fourth-quarter results.

During the quarter Harley-Davidson motorcycles and related products revenue was up 20% behind a 23.8% increase in shipment of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Our financial performance included significantly improved gross margin as we lap last year's fourth quarter, which included Buell exit costs.

In addition, restructuring spending was over $100 million lower in the fourth quarter of this year compared to last year.

Despite the improved performance in the fourth quarter from the motorcycles and related products segment, and another very strong quarter from HDFS, we recorded a loss of $42.1 million for the quarter.

The results were impacted by a one-time charge of $85 million on the repurchase of $297 million of high interest debt that we issued in February of 2009.

As compared to prior year, our fourth-quarter income from continuing operations improved by $105.1 million.

Moving on to retail sales on slide 10, worldwide retail sales of new Harley-Davidson motorcycles were down modestly in the fourth quarter.

We were encouraged by the fact that the quarterly retail sales decline moderated from prior quarters.

However, we remain cautious as we move into 2011 given the fragile global economic recovery which is characterized by high unemployment, low consumer confidence and depressed home values.

In the US, retail sales in the quarter were stronger than expected -- down only 0.2%.

For the full-year, US retail sales were down 11.7%.

However, our full-year market share strengthened by 1.6 percentage points to 54.9%.

In international markets, retail sales for the quarter were down 2.1%, which was in line with the full-year decline of 1.9%.

Fourth-quarter retail sales in the Europe region were down 8.9% compared to last year.

The year-over-year decline was partially driven by earlier availability of new model year motorcycles in Europe which, in effect, pulled sales up into the third quarter and drove a retail sales increase of 11.4% in the third quarter.

Through November our market share in Europe increased 0.6 percentage points to 12.7%, which moved us into the second place in market share for the Europe region.

Asia-Pacific region was up 3.4%, driven by incremental sales in our expansion markets including India.

All other international region results are noted on the slide.

For the full-year, worldwide retail sales were down 8.5% compared to 2009.

On slide 11, you will see wholesale shipments of Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the quarter were within the expected range of 41,000 to 46,000 units.

Shipments for the quarter were up significantly compared to last year when we slowed production during the fourth quarter.

Sportster as a percent of total shipments was 18.3% in the quarter, 5.4 percentage points higher than last year's fourth quarter when we shut down Sportster production to right-size Sportster inventory in the dealer network.

In 2010 international shipments were up as we continue to focus on growth in international markets.

As a result of reduced full-year shipments and stronger than expected fourth-quarter retail sales, US dealer networks' year-end inventory was down 11,800 units compared to last year, which you will see on slide 12.

This is the lowest level of dealer inventory in many years.

During the fourth-quarter retail inventory dipped below what we believe is an appropriate level and we expect that a portion of dealer inventory will be replenished as we continue to aggressively manage supply in line with demand.

The dealer networks have always been collectively managing their businesses through the downturn.

For example, many dealers have enhanced their revenue by increasing used bike sales.

Used bike sales to the dealer network were up double digits through November.

Despite dealer efforts to improve revenue and manage costs, the profitability has been impacted in the downturn.

Still, we believe the US dealer network in aggregate remains profitable.

In the US, 36 dealer points closed in 2010.

This contraction was expected and in line with our desire to modestly consolidate our US dealer network in response to lower overall volumes since the economic downturn took hold.

On slide 13 you will see revenue for the motorcycles and related products segment was up significantly for the fourth quarter and down slightly for the full-year compared to last year.

During the quarter, average revenue for Harley-Davidson units sold increased $326 from the prior year as a result of favorable product mix, lower year-over-year sales incentives and foreign currency exchange.

Turning to restructuring on slide 14, for the last two years we have been intensely focused on improving our cost structure and transforming the business to be stronger and more profitable in the future.

During the fourth quarter we incurred $18 million in restructuring expenses and $164 million for the full year, which was lower than anticipated.

We have adjusted our projected restructuring costs to reflect defined timing in 2011 and reduced our total expected program costs due to favorability to date.

We now expect costs in 2011 to be between $85 million and $95 million.

The total expected costs associated with our restructuring have been reduced $10 million to $25 million, and we now expect to be at $495 million to $510 million.

As of the end of the year, we realized that $172 million in annual ongoing savings, which is more than anticipated for the year.

We are very proud of the organizations focus on and execution of these highly critical restructuring initiatives.

We continue to expect total ongoing annual savings of between $290 million and $310 million upon completion of restructuring activities.

On slide 15 you will see gross margin in the quarter was 29.6%, 9.3 percentage points above the same quarter last year.

This was primarily driven by four things.

First, the absence of Buell exit costs that were incurred in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Second, a richer mix of products.

Despite a higher percentage of Sportsters the product mix overall was rich, driven by strong Touring and CVO sales and a high take rate for the Power Pack and ABS options.

Third, foreign currency exchange was favorable.

And fourth, manufacturing was favorably impacted by strong productivity; incremental margin on higher volumes, partially offset by temporary inefficiencies associated with the transition of non-core operations out of York.

For the full-year, gross margin was 34.2%.

Which was up nearly 2 percentage points compared to the prior year and exceeded our full-year guidance range of 32.5% to 34%.

We were pleased with the gross margin strength of the core business in 2010 despite motorcycle shipment declines of 5.6% from 2009.

On slide 16, operating margin as a percent of revenue for the fourth quarter was negative 0.7% versus negative 29% in 2009.

Operating margin was favorably impacted by increased gross margin and lower year-over-year restructuring costs.

SG&A in the quarter was largely flat to 2009 and was adversely impacted by the charges associated with our efforts to expand our presence and network of dealers in Brazil, the accruals for employee short-term incentive pay or STIP which did not occur last year, and the continued execution of our growth strategy.

Largely offsetting these costs was the fact that last year's fourth-quarter was negatively impacted by approximately $19 million of warranty and recall charges that did not repeat in 2010.

For the full year, SG&A increased $34 million from 2009, largely as a result of the charges associated with Brazil, STIP and future investment in growth.

Higher SG&A on a full-year basis, coupled with lower revenues, resulted in an increase of SG&A as a percent of revenue from 19.9% to 21.2%.

As we look forward, we will aggressively manage our expenses while continuing to prudently invest in our growth opportunities.

And, as we have previously stated, we expect our SG&A to decline as a percent of revenue between 2009 and 2014.

Now moving on to our financial services segment on slide 17, in the fourth quarter HDFS posted a $43.5 million operating profit, an improvement of $51 million compared to last year.

The key drivers of the fourth quarter 2010 results were -- net interest income was favorable by $48.7 million compared to last year, as a result of the increase in on balance sheet receivables and an improvement in the net interest spread as the cost of funds in HDFS decreased, which included the impact of transferring higher interest rate debt from HDFS to HD Inc.

in 2009.

Next, the provision for retail credit losses, which is associated with all on balance retail receivables, decreased by $12.7 million primarily due to improved credit loss rates as a result of favorable retail receivable performance.

Next, the impact of the provision for wholesale receivables was unfavorable by $5.5 million during the quarter compared to last year as we work out of certain dealer credit situations.

For the full year, however, the provision for wholesale credit losses was favorable by $7.9 million.

And finally, operating expenses were up in the quarter and full year by approximately $7 million.

On a full-year basis the operating expense increase was driven by the restoration of HDFS's short term incentive compensation as there was none earned in 2009.

On a full-year basis a HDFS posted an operating profit of $182 million, an increase of $300 million compared to last year.

We're very pleased with the improvements in HDFS's business which has benefited from lower cost of funds, significantly reduced credit loss rates and the fact that HDFS recorded $101 million of one-time items last year.

Now, Larry will provide more detail on HDFS's operations.

Larry?

Thanks Jon and good morning.

During the fourth quarter, HDFS originated $306 million in retail motorcycle loans, up 7.7% compared to the same period last year, primarily due to higher used motorcycle loan originations.

For the full year HDFS originated $1.88 billion in retail motorcycle loans, down 7.9% compared to last year primarily due to lower retail sales of new motorcycles in the US.

For the full year, 80% to 85% of our new loan originations were prime compared to our historical experience of approximately 75% prior to significant underwriting adjustments that were made in January of 2009.

At year-end, over 50% of the total portfolio was comprised of loans originated post-underwriting changes.

HDFS's retail market share of new Harley-Davidson motorcycles sold in the US was 47.9% for the full year of 2010, down approximately 1% compared to last year.

Regarding competition, we continue to see increased activity particularly in the prime rated customer segment.

At the end of the fourth quarter, of the approximate $6.2 billion of net finance receivables, $5.4 billion were retail and $814 million were wholesale.

Now, moving onto delinquencies and losses on slide 19, we continue to see good credit performance on loans originated after the underwriting adjustments were made in 2009.

The 30-day delinquency rate for managed retail motorcycle loans at December 31, 2010 was 5.07%, an improvement of 144 basis points compared to last year.

Annual retail credit losses improved by 75 basis points to 2.11% for 2010, driven by lower frequency of loss, the impact of changes in underwriting and improvement in the recovery values of repossessed motorcycles.

We are pleased with the progress at HDFS in 2010.

During the year we maintained a strong liquidity position, reduced our cost of funds and returned to profitability.

We remain focused on enabling retail sales of Harley-Davidson motorcycles while providing an appropriate return to Harley-Davidson Inc.

I'm also pleased to report that last week HDFS paid $125 million dividend to Harley-Davidson Inc.

So in conclusion, we're encouraged by the forward momentum at HDFS and I believe our employees have done a fantastic job managing the business in a difficult environment.

But we remain cautious given the continuing economic challenges with unemployment at over 9%, and as our book of loans declines as a result of lower wholesale shipments and retail sales in North America over the last couple of years.

Now, let me turn it back to John.

Thanks Larry.

We're pleased that HDFS returned to profitability in 2010 and continue to provide credit for our Harley-Davidson dealers and riders while delivering appropriate returns and profitability.

Now let's take a look at cash and liquidity on slide 20.

During the quarter we utilized $381 million of cash on hand to repurchase nearly half of the unsecured notes that were issued at 15% in February 2009.

You will see that at the end of the quarter we had $1.16 billion of cash and marketable securities, which includes the impact of a $600 million asset backed securitization transaction that HDFS completed during the quarter.

In addition, HDFS had approximately $1.16 billion of available liquidity through bank, credit and conduit facilities.

Earlier this month there were two transactions related to cash.

First we made a $200 million contribution to our qualified contribution plans which will reduce our year-end pension and post retirement liability of $537 million.

And second, as Larry mentioned, HDFS paid a dividend of $125 million to HD Inc.

This is the first-time HDFS has returned capital to HD Inc., which is reflective of HDFS's reduce capital needs based on lower finance receivable balances.

HDFS remain focused on delivering an appropriate return on equity and prudently managing its debt to equity ratio.

Our overall cash strategy continues to require maintaining a minimum of 12 months of projected liquidity needs in cash and/or committed credit facilities.

Now I will review the remaining Harley-Davidson Inc.

financials on slide 21.

I would like to highlight a few items on this slide.

First, with regards to continuing operations, the Company generated operating cash of $1.16 billion during 2010 as the motorcycle business continued to generate strong cash flows.

Of the total, the motorcycles and related products segments generated $622 million of operating cash.

And second, for the full-year our effective income tax rate from continuing operations was 33.5% compared to 16.5% in 2009.

The 2009 effective tax rate was unfavorably impacted by a one-time tax charge related to Wisconsin tax law change and a nondeductible goodwill charges as well as the impact of reduced earnings.

The 2010 tax rate was favorably impacted by the settlement of an IRS audit and an increase in the tax benefit related to domestic manufacturing, offset by tax impact of federal healthcare legislation.

In 2011 we expect the full year effective income tax rate will be approximately 35%.

In terms of discontinued operations, as most of you know we concluded the sale of MV Agusta in 2010.

During the year losses on discontinued operations, net of taxes, totaled $113.1 million.

The summary of the full year 2010 results are on slide 22.

While the global economies continued to struggle, we had net income of $259.7 million from continuing operations in 2010, which was up significantly from the prior year.

Earnings were impacted by improved operating margins for the motorcycles and related product segment and strong HDFS operating income, partially offset by a one-time charge on the repurchase of $297 million of debt.

We are pleased with the progress of our restructuring of the Company and we are encouraged by the moderation in the rate of retail sales decline from the third to fourth quarter of 2010, as well as the strength of our brand as evidenced by our increasing share in many of our markets.

We're also optimistic about the long-term as we execute against our strategies to transform and grow our business.

We do, however, remain cautious as we transition into 2011.

And we will continue to take a prudent approach as we manage the business throughout the year.

On slide 23 you will see that for 2011 we expect Harley-Davidson motorcycle shipments to be between 221,000 and 228,000 units, up 5% to 8% from 2010.

During 2011 we will continue to aggressively manage shipments in line with retail demand.

In 2011 we plan to ship more motorcycles to dealers than we expect they will retail, primarily in response to a stronger than expected fourth-quarter 2010 retail sales which resulted in the aggregate US dealer inventory level dipping below what we feel is an appropriate level.

We expect 2011 gross margin to be between 34% and 35% for the full year and we will continue to carefully manage capital expenditures.

In 2011 we expect full-year capital expenditures to be between $210 million and $230 million, which includes between $60 million and $75 million of capital related to restructuring.

As we look back on 2010, we're pleased to see progress on many fronts.

We increased our focus on Harley-Davidson brand as we exited Buell and MV Agusta.

We made great strides towards becoming best in class in manufacturing and product development by moving to common operating system, focusing on core competencies, negotiating a transformational labor agreement with our Wisconsin unions, reducing our time-to-market for new products and driving a continuous improvement mindset across the Company.

We focused on our international business by entering new markets such as India and positioning ourselves to add more dealerships in markets such as Brazil.

We also returned to HDFS back to profitability.

And finally, we improved our financial strength by increasing operating margins, reducing debt, increasing returns on invested capital and by continuing to deliver strong cash flows.

We believe by prudently managing the Company and remaining disciplined in the execution of our future growth strategy, we will continue to make progress along our journey to growth.

We are focused on delivering strong margins, strong returns and value our shareholders.

Thank you for your continued confidence and investment in Harley-Davidson.

And now let's open the call up to your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Ed Aaron, RBC Capital Markets.

Great, thank you.

Good morning everybody.

I just wanted to drill down a little bit more into the thought process behind shipping ahead of retail in 2011.

Inventory out there clearly is pretty low.

But you have been so focused on managing down supply to get pricing of new and used bikes to firm up and get the mix to shift back more in favor of new.

Is there anything to suggest that that mix shift is starting to happen?

Or should we interpret that based on your plans to ship ahead of retail in 2011?

Well, again as we looked at the fourth-quarter again, we exceeded expectations on retail sales in the quarter.

And at this point, given feedback from our dealers and all the data that we have internally, is that we believe that the inventories are too low as we exit the quarter.

And therefore, we'll look to replenish a little bit, consequently ship more than we retail, which will be the first time that has occurred in several years, to bring a little bit more balance to the inventory.

(inaudible) The other question that you asked is, are we making progress against our strategy to improve used bike pricing through holding inventories or managing inventories [are] very much in line with demand.

We feel very good about where we're at.

As we look across several data points including wholesale, retail and survey data we believe that Harley-Davidson used bikes have improved, used bike values have improved and are above year ago levels.

Okay.

And then just one follow-up to that and then I will pass it along.

But can we interpret that the inventory gap that you're trying to narrow is entirely a reflection of the upside to your own Q4 retail expectations?

Or is this something that you were maybe contemplating even before Q4?

Just some color on that might be a bit helpful for us to understand the magnitude of the gap that you're looking to kind of fill in 2011.

The primary driver of our decision to ship more than we retail next year was the very strong quarter that we had, a little bit above what we expected in the US.

Thank you.

Rod Lache, Deutsche Bank.

Good morning everybody.

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the margin outlook, both gross and operating.

Your gross margin in 2010 was a little bit over 34%.

You're talking about higher production volume.

It should be about 100 basis points of cost savings, based on your table, hitting the gross margin line.

I'm just wondering, first of all, is there any -- can you maybe elaborate on why the margin guidance is in the 34% to 35% range?

What are some of the headwinds?

And then also, how should we be thinking about operating expenses going forward?

On slide 16 you showed kind of a $3.8 million drag from higher SG&A in the quarter and $34 million for the year.

About 64% of your savings so far have been in the SG&A.

How should we think about that, the SG&A level, as we proceed net of some of the investments you're making?

Okay.

Let's start with gross margin.

Clearly during 2010 we're very pleased with gross margin.

Out of the four quarters, we improved gross margin for three of them.

I think the first quarter was down about 0.5%.

And then obviously the fourth quarter it was very strong, largely because lapped the Buell exit cost of a year ago.

As we look forward, Rod, our guidance is that we expect gross margin will fall between 34% and 35% of revenue.

As we look at that versus 2010, we believe that the gross margin will benefit from continued productivity and restructuring savings.

And again, the restructuring that we provide, I think the midpoints were somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million that will hit cost of goods sold.

We also think that will benefit from incremental margin from the higher production volumes behind our shipment guidance of being up 5% to 8%.

And then expecting very modest mix favorability.

So to your question as to the headwinds is, there are some.

We expect these to be partially offset by foreign currency exchange, temporary inefficiencies at our York facility as we continue to outsource non-core parts, and as we cut over our assembly operations to a new line later in the fall.

And then finally, we're expecting higher raw material costs.

Can you quantify those inefficiencies or the raw material headwinds for us?

No I can't, Rod.

Okay.

And then what about the operating expenses outlook?

There are some savings and there are some investments.

What should we be thinking about as a level on a dollar basis, or any kind of color can you provide for us on that?

As you know, we don't provide SG&A guidance.

But in terms of color, certainly on a full-year basis we were up $34 million or about 4%.

And that was driven by a three things primarily.

And that is Brazil, which we talked about.

STIP is the other piece of it.

And as we look into 2011, STIP is now back in our base spending.

So it was largely out of 2009.

It is back in, so we don't expect headwinds from SG&A -- or from STIP in SG&A.

And then the final piece of investment is future growth opportunities.

We believe there are a lot of opportunities and we're going to go after them.

As we look forward, we will aggressively manage our expenses.

But let's be very clear that we're also going to invest in the future.

And that future includes investing in such things as new products and technologies, our international infrastructure and expansion and our outreach marketing efforts.

And we believe that we're well-positioned for growth once the economy improves.

Finally, as we talked about, as a percentage of revenue for 2014 we expect SG&A to decline.

So would it be fair to say that it will go up on an absolute dollar basis from here, but as a percentage of revenue it will decline.

Is that what you're sort of guiding to?

We do not provide any guidance on SG&A.

Okay, all right.

Thank you.

Sharon Zackfia, William Blair.

Hi, just a follow-up on the gross margin question, John.

You talked about inefficiencies at York.

Is there any -- are there particular times of the year that we could expect those inefficiencies to be more apparent in 2011?

We're not going to provide quarterly splits.

But the transformation will continue throughout 2011 in York.

This is Keith, Sharon.

You know, this is -- when you think about what we're doing in our complete manufacturing transformation, we're sort of getting right into the middle of it right now.

So, in 2011 and on into 2012 a lot of change is occurring at York particularly.

But there will be a lot of changes occurring in Wisconsin and Kansas City as well.

So, there will be some cost inefficiencies, like when you think about all of the parts that are being outsourced, as an example.

Until we sort of get through that whole process there will be some inefficiencies.

But we expect coming out of the other side of that we're going to be much more efficient.

Okay, that is helpful.

Thank you.

Tim Conder, Wells Fargo.

Thank you.

I just wanted to follow-up on the first question.

You said, I think, in the third quarter conference call and then also at the analyst meeting that you are about halfway through your desire to get that used bike price gap narrowed with the new.

And that you had made progress, and that the implication was that you would undership the US market.

Again, I'm just trying to bridge those statements then versus now and how you're going to be shipping product more product into the US market.

If you can go over that again, John or Keith, and kind of bridge those statements, because again we're in the off-season here during the winter.

And it would seem kind of hard that things swung that much.

(multiple speakers) you were being excessively conservative originally.

(inaudible)

No, I think we had a very good fourth-quarter, higher than what we expected.

And based on feedback from our dealers and looking at all of the data that is available is we're a little bit low and we expect to replenish a portion of it.

I mean, Tim, we're trying just like everybody else here, we're trying to sort out what is going to happen in the economy.

And so we said in one of our earlier comments, we're going to continue to take a measured approach.

Clearly we look at our inventory across the system; some dealers are in better shape than others.

And there are some -- there have been some mix issues in terms of higher end products selling, so we're trying to take all of those things into consideration.

We're trying to make sure that we account for possibly a modest growth in retail sales and really get sort of the inventories back in line across the system and the entire mix across the product lines.

Okay, okay.

And then a clarification on your EU market share.

I think you said you are number two.

But do you have the actual percentage marketshare that it stands at year-end now?

For Harley-Davidson?

Yes.

It was 12 and --

12.7%.

12.7%, about six-tenths of a percent.

Okay, great.

Thank you all.

Craig Kennison, Robert W.

Baird.

Good morning, thanks for taking my question.

Following on Ed's line of questioning, as used bike prices rise, I would assume Harley owners have something more of value to trade.

Are you seeing more riders take advantage of the higher trade-in value?

And if so, is there a metric you could share that would illustrate that particular trend?

No.

Our data isn't that fine.

We've been very focused on closing the gap between new and used bike pricing.

We feel very good about where the total demand is for our bikes.

Actually, through November total demand was up 2.9% for Harley-Davidson and that was driven by used bike sales.

Used bike sales through November were up about 11.6%, and so we see a lot of used bikes clearing.

And with that we're seeing wholesale and used bike prices strengthening, closing that gap.

And a lot of the data is coming from various surveys and publications.

And also what you'd say is that it is better than it was one year ago and it has been improving.

So maybe a follow-on.

With HDFS data, are you able to say what percentage of customers used a trade-in for a sale this year versus last year?

Anything along those lines?

I don't have an exact percentage.

I would say we're seeing a fair number of customers who have a trade at the time they purchase their new motorcycle, so it's probably up a little bit.

But we don't have any exact percentage for you.

Great, thank you.

James Hardiman, Longbow Research.

Good morning.

Just wanted to focus a little bit more on the shipment guidance for 2011.

You're looking at shipment growth of 5% to 8%.

If you sort of just assume one to one wholesale to retail, it doesn't assume much growth at retail.

By my math I'm looking at down 1% to up 2% based on your guidance.

Am I looking at that the right way?

And is that basically what you're assuming, flat to down retail?

Obviously you don't have a crystal ball on what 2011 is going to look like.

But can you give us any sort of color on your thoughts for retail in the year?

James, we don't provide any forward guidance on retail sales.

But when you look at the year in 2010, we retailed 222,000 units and we shipped 210,000.

So we're at looking at 221,000 to 228,000 and also the fact that we're going to ship in a little bit more than we retail.

Right.

And so the lower end of your shipment guidance 221,000, if they sell that same amount of retail that is actually a retail decline.

Am I thinking about that the right way?

I'm not going to comment on the math.

Okay, fair enough.

And just real quick, the timing of the replenishment of inventory at retail, it sounds like from a lot of your comments that it was primarily a fourth-quarter issue.

Obviously you've got some seasonal patterns to your production and shipments.

How quickly do you think you will get caught up?

Do we think this will be a model year 2011 event?

Do you think you will be caught up by the model year crossover?

Or is this really a full-year type of an issue?

Well, James, we will certainly be caught up by the end of the year.

How quickly, it really depends on several things.

We provided first-quarter guidance which is down 5% to up about 4% or 51,000 units to 56,000 units.

Okay, and so there's no comment whether or not the first quarter will get you to sort of being back in a one-to-one sort of a mode?

No, all we can say is by the end of the year we expect to replenish some of the inventory and that is all I can comment on.

Okay, great.

Thanks guys.

Robin Farley, UBS.

Thank you.

I wonder if you could comment on your US retail sales in 2010.

(technical difficulty) how many (inaudible) your bikes were included in the retail units that sold?

In 2010?

I can talk to a couple of things, Robin.

Number one is versus where we were one year ago we feel much better about the mix of model years in our inventory.

And we're much cleaner, much more newer-model years and in line with where we have typically been at this point in previous years.

One year ago we had an inordinate amount of model year '09 carryover units.

Also can you give us a sense of what -- in your retail sales what was the mix of model years, even just a wide range, just a ballpark range to get a sense of how much what was of what was sold in 2010 was an older model year?

I don't have the overall number on a full-year basis.

We look at it in terms of what we had in carryover and we [carried] over in July and that was significantly lower than one year ago.

Right now we feel very comfortable that we have the right mix between model years and largely between families in the system.

While there is various imbalances at dealer levels, we feel overall very good.

I don't have in front of me what the overall split was between model year sales.

Okay, I guess I was just trying to get a sense of when we look at unit sales from 2010, and the older models probably selling at a discount to MSRP, to get a sense of what sales might look like in 2011 with the current model year MSRP base higher than maybe where the price levels where some of the over older models were sold last year, just how much that may impact unit sales.

All else being equal that units are at X percent more expensive if they're current model year versus the previous.

That's what I'm trying to get a sense of, that mix.

But --

From a new bike pricing standpoint our model year 2010 and 2011 are largely selling at MSRP as we exit the fourth quarter, Robin.

We have a very limited number of model year 2009 in the system and they are selling modestly below MSRP, but you're talking a few percentage points what we have an inventory.

So, as we go into 2011 we are very clean and we're not running any promotions at a corporate level to move motorcycles.

We feel great about where we are at and, as we have mentioned before, we feel that inventories are very tight out in the system at this point.

(inaudible) I wondered how much of what was sold last year was.

But okay, thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Greg Badishkanian, Citigroup.

I was just wondering, maybe talk a little bit about US retail sales.

From what we saw, it was a nice pickup in December.

If that was the case, what do you think was driving the sales?

And also, did the dealers come back to you and mention they could've sold more if they had more inventory?

So maybe sales could have been higher if you had the right inventory at the retail level?

On the question about the dealers, we get all kinds of feedback from our dealers.

It's a range of all those answers.

I think to sort of boil it, down the answer to that question is no.

Some of our dealers have sold, say, more Touring bikes as an example and are saying, hey, we could use some more Touring bikes.

But I don't think (technical difficulty) are saying, if I had more bikes we could sell more bikes.

I think that as John mentioned before, we feel pretty good about where our inventory levels are at.

We feel pretty good about where our mix is at.

We feel good about sort of the moderation of sales year over year, the fourth quarter.

And we are cautiously optimistic there might be some pent-up demand out there, but we'll see.

We just won't know at this point in time.

That is why we're taking the measured approach that we are taking here.

Great.

Did you see the pickup in December?

And if so, kind of what do you think drove that lift in sales?

Greg we don't split out the months within the quarter.

But within the quarter we are very pleased in particular with our share.

Our share was up significantly in the fourth quarter.

And we believe a lot of the share pickup was due to the success of our model year 2011 motorcycle that released in July.

Clearly our world-class dealer network, an incredibly powerful brand, but loyal customers and we had great success on outreach segments such as women and youth.

And finally we believe that the firming of used bike prices are also contributing to new bike sales.

Great, thank you.

Patrick Archambault, Goldman Sachs.

Hi, good morning.

A couple of quick ones.

You know, first of all, just on dealership closures, I think you said you had 36 this year.

Is there kind of an anticipated kind of a number for 2011 that you expect?

Are there sort of a number dealership points that you are sort of looking to reduce, to improve the throughput at some of your franchises there?

We're not providing a forward-looking number.

We do expect that we'll continue to see some contraction, Patrick, and we're always looking to balance the dealer profitability with availability of product proximity to our customers.

What we do know, Patrick, is we understand exactly which markets that we consider to be over dealer.

And so we have sort of a laser focus on how we're trying to work through the consolidation of those dealers in those markets, and we feel sort of good about where we are at in the process.

So would you say it is something you are fairly close to being done in terms of that footprinting?

Or it is still something that is kind of ongoing probably for the next couple of years?

We're not going to talk about how long it is going.

We're always looking to improve and tighten up our dealer network.

But we do expect some continued contraction due to the downturn.

Okay, great.

One quickly on raw materials; obviously steel prices have gone up a lot fairly recently.

Can you just give us a sense of -- just remind us again of what your steel contract price mechanisms look like?

How much has passed through?

How much is locked in?

If you do see that continued ramp up in hot rolled and other things like stainless, how long -- what is the cadence at which that is likely to impact you guys?

Let's broaden it to the overall metals complex.

There's not a whole lot of financial hedging opportunities available to us.

So we do try to protect prices at times through forward buys and working directly back with the mills.

And we have seen prices rise and we expect a continued flow through of prices that have already risen to come through our supply chain and increases in 2011 as well.

But when we look at aggregate, overall raw material costs related to metals are only about 7% cost of our goods sold in general.

So while we expect a rise, it is a manageable number.

Okay.

And I guess is -- in terms -- I know there is no -- like, as you said there's probably limited hedging.

But there are forward contracts I imagine that you lock in with suppliers that can at least delay these increases for a year or something like that.

Is that correct?

That is correct and we take advantage of some of that at different times for various reasons.

Okay.

Last one just a housekeeping one.

Provisions, can you just run us through the quick sort of provision levels and charge-offs for HDFS?

Sure.

We had -- our allowance at the beginning of the quarter was about $182 million.

We had -- $24 million was the provision this quarter, little over $32 million and charge-offs and therefore we ended up with an allowance at the end of the quarter, at the end of the year of a little over $173 million.

Great.

That's all I had.

Thank you very much.

Ed Aaron, RBC Capital Markets.

Thanks.

I just wanted to ask a quick follow-up on mix.

I think you said it sounds like it's going to be slightly favorable in 2010 versus 2010.

I guess I'm wondering why there may not be a bigger benefit given that the Touring seems to be the family where dealers are most under inventoried.

Then also, there is some intrafamily mix stuff going on that seems like it could continue to benefit you.

Are there any offsets to that or how should I be thinking about that?

We're very pleased with the performance of all of our new products.

And when you look at the low end in terms of margins, Sportster is doing very well, which will help offset some of the continued trading up that we're seeing.

And we're still -- 2011 we'll lap some of the opportunity that we have in the Power Pack and ABS options that have performed very well.

So again where seeing customers continue to trade up within family, but we're also bringing very exciting products to market such as the Forty-Eight and SuperLow 883.

And so, again, as we look at it we're expecting very modest increase in mix.

Thank you.

Your last question comes from the line of James Hardiman, Longbow Research.

Thanks guys.

Just a couple quick follow-ups here.

Is there any way you could quantify?

Obviously the SG&A number was the highest it has been all year.

And I think it was higher than the number for last year if you back out the one-time warranty expense from last year.

Can you give us the numbers behind, one, the renegotiation of the Brazilian contracts and, two, the accruals for employee comp?

Can you break those down at all or at least give us an indication of, ex those numbers, what the SG&A number would have looked like?

You know, James, I don't have the exact number for Brazil.

What we said in the 8-K we released was that it was an overall impact of about $0.05 to $0.06 a share.

On STIP we don't provide a breakout of our line items in SG&A, but again, it's a sizable number and it was not in the 2009 [base].

It is now in 2010 and as we move forward it won't be a headwind.

Okay and so -- how about this?

If you take those two numbers out, would it have been less than last year's number, excluding the warranty -- number cost?

Or do you even have that or know that?

That I have, but I'm not going to provide that.

Okay.

Fair enough.

Looking at slide 19 in terms of HDFS, looks like 30 day delinquencies are at their lowest point since it looks like before 2006 where you have sort of gotten back to 2008 levels in terms of annual loss rates.

Is the delinquency number sort of a leading indicator?

Does it indicate that maybe there is further room to go in terms of the loss rates and incremental income at HDFS?

Obviously you're a long way away from peak earnings power for the motor company, but in terms of HDFS you're not that far away.

But does this indicate that there is more room to go here?

Well, clearly we're not going to give any forward-looking guidance, I would say.

But is there a correlation between delinquency and credit losses?

Sure.

There is absolutely is some correlation there.

I guess the question is, but historically when you look at the change in those numbers, is it sort of a leading indicator?

Or should I not -- am I reading too much into that?

I would say there is correlation.

It is probably somewhat of a leading indicator for how you might do in the next quarter or two.

But once again we still have a tough economy out there with over 9% unemployment, so those numbers clearly can change.

Okay, great.

Appreciate it, guys.

Tim Conder, Wells Fargo.

Just two more besides congratulating Keith on the number one Ohio State Buckeyes.

(laughter) But Kansas City, I know those negotiations are just starting here.

But directionally would you anticipate savings as much as Wisconsin?

That would seem potentially aggressive, but just directionally any thoughts there?

And in Brazil with the changes there, is it reasonable within a year to 24 months expect that you would maybe double what you're doing currently in Brazil?

Well, first of all, the Buckeyes play tonight.

If they lose, Tim, it's going to be your fault.

(laughter)

Secondly, when you think about the plants, obviously the largest savings opportunity was in York.

Probably the next was Wisconsin.

The least would be the Kansas City just given sort of where we were already.

But, having said that, there are significant opportunities.

And we think that we're going to open negotiations here yet this week.

We think we have a great relationship with our employees.

And what we're really trying to do, first and foremost, is to get a consistent world-class lean manufacturing process in place with standardize manufacturing systems.

So not only can you look at the savings per plant, but then you look at the synergies right across the entire network and you know it's really exciting for us.

So, [does] the individual plant, though, Keith -- I mean probably -- this is from what I just heard, and anticipated it would be a little bit less than what you're getting out of Wisconsin.

But obviously it flows through the whole system with a collective umbrella benefit.

That's exactly right.

With regards to Brazil, we're obviously very pleased with the agreement that we reached in Brazil.

The agreement allows us to [point] new dealers.

I can't provide what we expect sales to do in Brazil, but again, it is a great market down there.

And we've got the opportunity to grow it like we have done a lot of other international markets and we're very pleased with where we're at in that market.

Okay, great.

Thank you again.

There no further questions at this time.

Mr.

John Olin, I turn the conference back over to you.

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