Titan Machinery Inc. (TITN) Earnings Call Transcript
January 14, 2025
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Okay. Welcome, everybody, to our next presentation is Titan Machinery. My name is Jeff Sonnek, Investor Relations. And with me today is Bo Larsen, CFO. Bo?
Good morning.
Thanks for being here with us today. Obviously, Titan has been a big consolidator within the agriculture equipment dealership industry for a number of years. But this last kind of cycle, I think, kind of capped a rather active period for you. Maybe just kind of take us through what you've been up to lately? How the business kind of looks globally? Just so people have an appreciation for what we're talking about today.
Yes. So today, we have 4 business segments: North America Ag, North America construction, Australia and Europe. North America Ag makes up about 70% of our business. And the other 3 segments make up about 10% each. We added Australia most recently. We've had them now for about a year. Dave Meyer, one of the founders of Titan Machinery has been at consolidation within this space really since the late '70s, but in earnest on the mid-2000s. So today, we do about $2.8 billion in revenue. And through the last cycle, we continue to drive more efficiencies, leverage our scale, learn lessons from the past, continue to get smarter and position ourselves for additional M&A opportunities.
So we're talking a little bit about the cycle, and we'll talk about inventory in a moment. But the Ag cycle has kind of turned into a more kind of contraction -- contractionary phase. Maybe you can just kind of talk a little bit about what's different this go around versus last and just kind of how -- where we are in the process?
Yes. So each cycle has its own complexities and uniqueness. If we go back about a decade and 2014 time period, that was a period of a significant increase in demand, driven by global commodity prices and net farm income. We saw a significant increase in industry production levels as well because supply chain was basically unconstrained. So if you look at the last 20 years, the 5 highest years of production were 2010 through 2014. Following that, commodity prices soften, you move down through the Ag cycle and there was a significant amount of late-model used equipment that was really weighing down on the industry, and we saw a longer bottom as we move through the cycle for about 4 years until we kind of positioned back towards the mid-cycle. If you look at where we've been at more recently, 2022, 2023 is record years for net farm income, really strong profitability, great balance sheets. But because of the global supply chain driven constraints, driven by the pandemic, what we saw was constrained supply. So there's -- demand was outpacing supply significantly. Production really only ever got to sort of mid-cycle-ish levels until this past year, right? So calendar 2024, we started to see moving downward in the cycle, and that's when the OEMs could finally catch up on production. So this past year, as we sort of framed up last March, was going to be the year of receiving in the backlog of the equipment that we had ordered sometimes a couple of years ago and just needing to manage through that, dialing back the order activity and positioning ourselves to work through the cycle and to manage down to targeted inventory levels.
So yes, so let's pick some of that apart here. I mean I think going all the way back a decade ago to the last cycle, we were still talking about replacement demand and kind of this underbelly of demand that existed as we kind of moved into this cycle, maybe you can just talk about was the industry able to meet demand? Just kind of how did that shape up? You talked about some production issues at the OEM partners.
Right. Yes. So I mean, overall, if you look at 2019 through 2023, on average, it was producing a little bit below long-term historical averages. So that would suggest to you that we weren't quite meeting that replacement rate. We had talked about this past year, getting to the spot where obviously, production was catching up, that fleet age was getting from old to average, but we weren't getting to that young spot. So relatively -- relative to the prior cycle, we're fairly well-positioned. But we still have our work cut out for us in terms of managing down to those inventory levels. The process for us is kind of a couple of fixes, right? Number one, your order activity. We dialed that back down in 2023. Number two, you receive in the equipment, and that's what happened a lot in 2024 as they were able to catch up on production. You sell through that new equipment. When you sell the new equipment, it generates a used trade-in. So back in July, after the end of our second quarter, we kind of talked about, hey, inventory has peaked for us globally at about $1.3 billion. And from here, we project that we want to target decreasing that by about $400 million over the course of the next 6 quarters. One quarter into that after Q3, we reported $100 million decrease. So certainly moving in the right direction. So I think we see it pretty clearly. But for us, it's just managing that as efficiently as we can ensuring that we're being as aggressive as we can to bring in incremental buyers off of the sidelines but at the same time, not pushing harder than the market wants to receive inventory.
And so I mean, I think one of the comments you just had was just talking about the inability to get the inventory you wanted back when the cycle was hot, and now we kind of have this catch-up dynamic, which is kind of exacerbating some of the inventory challenges we have in the very near term. Is that a fair characterization?
Yes. And that's what the uniqueness was this cycle, was that global supply chain constraints, along with some labor strikes that the OEMs were facing. The demand was there. The equipment couldn't get produced fast enough. Order backlog was building up. And then as we go through the transition now all of a sudden, they can produce whatever they want. Luckily, the industry itself is also getting smarter over time. All of the OEMs have talked about the fact that they're going to underproduce to retail demand until we really catch up and get to a healthy spot. So the CNH and the AGCOs and the dealers have been active in doing that and kind of talked about underproducing through the first half of calendar 2025.
Maybe help give us some comfort on the complexion of the inventory. It seems like the new stuff is good, but we're really worried about this trade-in dynamic that's going to unfold here at this calendar year, relative to past cycles or past years, is a newer, better or worse, just help kind of shape that?
Yes, for sure. So going back to the prior cycle, there were significantly more that was produced, there was a lot more late-model used equipment. If you just kind of look at the numbers anecdotally, we've got about half the number of units as we did in the prior cycle, given the underproduction that there was. And generally speaking, again, as we moved through the last cycle, there were a lot of things that the business did improve itself. We centralized inventory control. We optimized our footprint. We took some costs out. And we really doubled down on our customer care strategy, which is driving our parts and service, which I'm sure we'll touch on. But that centralizing of the inventory control was absolutely critical, and that's something that we have a team that's just focused on making sure that we're managing that inventory, keeping it fresh, keeping the trends where they need to be. So the profile of our inventory is definitely much better than it was in the prior cycle. And again, it's just a matter of playing this out over several quarters to get to where we would be.
How do you guys operationalize that at the store level, the sales person dealing with the customer? You just talked about inventory control, but help kind of bring that to life. What are you doing operationally?
Yes. Well, first of all, visibility has to be there. If you're going to be more efficient and leverage your scale and not have one of everything everywhere, everybody has to be able to see what you do have in inventory at your finger tips. So one thing we did complete in this last year, and it was a multiyear journey, it was to actually get all of our U.S. locations on the same ERP. The next step that we're working on additionally is adding the CRM, that's something that we're going to take on this calendar year. So over time, we've been increasing that visibility. So with everybody across our U.S. footprint knows exactly what we do have in inventory. And that really kind of takes care of it, right? Then the rest of it is just good communication amongst our org structure and our region managers and our GMs to understand what we're trying to achieve, what inventory we're focused on trying to move and then as a collective effort amongst that footprint. One thing we didn't touch on earlier. So our U.S. footprint is pretty well consolidated in Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota. There are other locations, but the vast majority of ours are there. So we have the density that makes a lot of sense as well, right? So it's not that we're asking somebody in Iowa to sell a unit that's sitting in Arizona. It could just be an hour down the road.
So speaking of density, right? That's something that really informs your ability to action the customer care initiative or the service platform as it exists. Maybe just talk a little bit about the importance of that, not just strategically, but financially.
Yes. So parts and service is an important part of our business. It's about 25% of revenue, but in today's time, it's more than 50% of our gross profit. And we've been growing that parts and service over time. And it's taken a lot of work. There's 2 parts of the equation, right? You need to have the labor and you need to have the demand. So from a labor perspective, that's something, again, through the last cycle, branding customer care in 2019, really focusing on that pipeline of talent. So it would start with relationships with all of the schools in the area. We even have Diesel Camps for junior hires so that they can understand and appreciate the opportunities that are there for them in the rural communities. Then we have apprenticeships. We've got our internship program, of course, scholarship tools and the like. And that's really been benefiting us in the last several years. And this year, we're going to finish with high single-digit growth in our service business domestically. On the demand side of the equation, right, you think about extended warranties, you think about preventative maintenance agreements. And then you just think about providing the best-in-class parts and service. So we have the parts in stock. We have the density that we can get a tech out to them and make sure that we're maximizing uptime. And then there's other programs that we have as well, including open inspections of equipment, so that they know with confidence that it's ready to go when the time is there.
How does your service offering or strategy kind of fit part and parcel with your broader goals alongside your main OEMs, CNH to try to achieve market share gains and growth and things like that? How is that tied together?
Yes. So I mean, ultimately, I think the service business is the center point, right? The whole goods is really the park of equipment that you're serving. If you're truly going to have long-term sustainable market share, it's going to be because of that uptime that you're providing customers and the confidence that they have in you to do so. And again, that is where our density in that customer care strategy comes into play.
One of the thesis the management team kind of laid out, several years prior to this up cycle, was talking about some of these operational improvements. You guys get kind of action in kind of saying, hey, as we kind of move into the next cycle, we would expect higher highs as measured by KPIs like pretax income, you guys achieved that. But maybe also just talk about perhaps higher lows kind of through a cycle and just how some of those actions you guys have taken at the corporate level are really -- have kind of manifested for investors to see?
Yes. So if you -- again, going back to the prior peak about a decade ago, margins were at about 4.5%. This last cycle, about 6.5% at the peak, kind of showing some of those structural improvements. As we -- we've had different stages of the company, and it was early on, it was a couple of stores, then they got consolidation idea, then they go public in 2007 and ramp from $300 million in revenue to $2.2 billion by 2012. And then we optimize the footprint. We went through that cycle. We centralized all of our inventory management. This time around having that taken care of for us, it's about leveraging that footprint as much as we can to be as efficient as we can. And that's what Bryan and I are focused on going forward. That's how we take the company to the next level. That's how we beat the recent peak margins and how we continue to drive higher margins at the low point. It's leveraging our scale and consistently growing that part of the service business, which we feel good about doing. If we focus on our initiatives and execute on that playbook, we feel good about mid-single digit growth in that parts and service over the next 5-year period of time. And when we map that out, we're pretty excited about what we're going to be able to accomplish.
As you look across your business segments, that would be Domestic Agriculture, Europe Ag, Construction, Domestic and then the newest big business you acquired into in Australia, is there anything that is structural that people should think about in your ability to achieve similar margin profiles across each segment?
Yes. So there are -- that's a good question. There are some structural things to do. But also I guess just talking a little bit about that in general. So construction pretty well overlays our footprint in the U.S. with our Domestic Ag stores. And there's a lot of synergies there just from an infrastructure of people perspective, tools, trucks, et cetera. Construction also benefits from a rental business that has some nice margins there. So in terms of ratio, 70% of the business is Domestic Ag, 10% is Construction. So it's still in a little bit different phase in life. But as that continues to grow and leverages that Domestic Ag footprint, there's good things to happen there. From an Australia perspective, there's so many similarities to the U.S. that it's kind of funny, similar KPIs, targets, even the opportunity for a 24/7 service center, all English speaking, of course, similar legal systems. So we definitely see the opportunity to leverage the best ideas and practices from the U.S. and Australia vice versa to continue to raise both of their profiles. Europe also has the opportunities to continue to grow and mature. It is the one that is the most different. It is Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Ukraine. So it's also not just one country. Plenty of opportunity there and, of course, some synergies. And we've spent plenty of time talking about their strategy with the leadership team. So there's the synergies there. But yes, excited about each of them and what we're going to be able to continue to do as we move the business forward.
Can you talk a little bit about the relationship you have as the largest CNH dealer in the world with your OE partner? How does that work? We have some financial tie-ups with things like the floor plan financing line, but just kind of bring that to life.
Yes. No, it's been a great long-term relationship since Dave got into the dealer business in the late 70s. You were mentioning financing. CNH Capital is great to work with. They provide, of course, floor planning on any CNH products that we're purchasing. And CNH makes up roughly about 80% of our whole goods. So you can imagine just the conversations that we have with them. We are on advisory boards. We get the opportunity to help them trial some things out. It's a good collaborative relationship as we both ultimately want to achieve long-term sustainable market share growth. And they're supportive of our initiatives and how we're going about it. And so yes, we couldn't -- it's a good relationship.
How does that manifest through the lens of M&A? You guys have been very acquisitive, largely picking off kind of mom-and-pops and being a key industry consolidator. But can you maybe talk about how that dynamic works with the OE partner? And then even more broadly, where is CNH and its kind of trajectory relative to other OE competitors?
Yes. So I mean I won't speak to exactly what their target is. But certainly, if you look at the CNH profile versus, let's say, the distribution channel, they're significantly under consolidated. And we see that as a continued opportunity to be one of those players to help them to continue to consolidate to get -- you don't also have to compare and contrast and get exactly like dealer is, right? But at the end of the day, there's a lot of smaller dealers in the CNH channel that maybe aren't as well capitalized or aren't as well situated, certainly don't have the density that we do that they can't afford to invest in the same amount of trucks, tooling, people, scholarships and the like. That really is a flywheel for us, again, back to that customer care strategy.
When you guys acquire a new asset or a dealer, what is the primary kind of strategic synergy when you do that? Obviously, you want the footprint, but it's more than that. You can maybe talk a little bit about the service dynamics post-acquisition.
Yes, exactly. And that's what it's all about, right? If you think about that density in those 5 primary states, there's still plenty of dealerships that we don't have. To the extent that we have the dealerships that do exist, right, just that much closer we all are to all of those customers. That's that much more efficient we can be with our parts to make sure we have all the parts on demand for people and get those to them in real time. That's more service trucks that we can afford to invest in. That's more service techs that we can have on hand and shift around if we need to. And that's really the secret sauce, it's that density and leveraging that density against our playbook.
Not to box you, right, but -- because I know we're not finished with our quarter. But as you kind of think about how the next series of quarters kind of play out, we just talked about kind of higher highs, higher lows but we also have this kind of more aggressive inventory action happening as we speak. So maybe just help the audience understand the approach and kind of where we're making concessions in market to help achieve your inventory goals?
Yes. So kind of back to that cycle, right? We kind of talked about you slowing the order activity, you sell through the new, you generate that, you use trade-in, and we continue to do so and trade-in quite a bit as we finish the year here. So then as we set the table back in July, one of the primary focuses we have is the reduction in used equipment. We're going to be aggressive in doing that. What does that mean? That means more programming, right? And you get creative to see what is interest? Is it an interest rate buydown? Is it just a straight decrease in the price? But the team is out there every day, every week kind of figuring out exactly where to turn those dials in order to generate incremental demand in the near term, that's absolutely providing compression on the P&L in 2 ways. Number one is equipment margin. We've seen that already. I've alluded to the fact that we're not done yet, and there's plenty of work to do next year as well. So our equipment margin is quite a bit below what that long-term average would be. And in the near term, for us as long as inventory is moving in the right direction, and we can accelerate that process, that's a trade-off that we're willing to make. The other area that, that helps relieve is the floor plan interest expense. We -- in the fiscal year that we're just finishing up on a global basis, we're going to be paying north of $40 million of floor plan interest. And on a normalized basis, with good turns and targeted levels, that should be more like $12 million, $15 million. So a lot of value to unlock as we get through that. But yes, that is the name of the game. That is what we're seeing on the P&L. That's what we'll continue to see in the short term. And that is the uniqueness again to this cycle, just the confluence of factors that led to so much equipment being delivered after sort of the cycle that already turned.
Maybe touch on the floor plan just one more time. Do you see relief on the floor plan interest every time you turn a unit? Just help us appreciate how that dynamic works on the balance sheet?
Yes, sure. So as we buy equipment from OEMs, we typically get an interest-free period. That can vary from a couple of months to a year. So sitting there on your lot, you're not paying interest. If you sell that unit before the interest period is up, you can typically roll the use and continue to use that interest free. But then ultimately, right? It does become interest-bearing. And we -- given the dynamics and the elevated inventory levels, we do have quite a bit that is interest-bearing today. So as we sell that through, ultimately, the first dollar is going to pay-off interest-bearing inventory. As we progress through next year, we should really start to chip into that and specifically in the back half of the year, start to see that chip in the right direction.
Great. Well, we're kind of coming up on time. Any closing thoughts that we didn't cover?
No, I appreciate the time around all day today. I would say that we feel like we're very well positioned to manage through the cycle here and really excited about what we're going to be able to execute on over the next several years. So if anybody has any questions, feel free to run me down.
Any questions from the audience? All right. Bo, thanks for joining us. And everybody, have a great day. Thanks.
Thanks.
Read the full transcript via the API
You're viewing the first half of this call. Get the complete Titan Machinery Inc. transcript - plus 252,000+ transcripts from 12,000+ companies, speaker segments and full-text search - through the EarningsAPI REST API or hosted MCP server.
Get an API key View API docs →For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to Titan Machinery Inc. earnings transcripts and 252,000+ others is available through the
EarningsAPI REST API and the hosted MCP server.
Quarterly plans from $105 - full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search,
and the /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.