Camping World Holdings (NYSE: CWH) announced a slew of executive management changes Wednesday, coming out of a year which saw the company lose 3/4 of its stock value and a class action lawsuit claiming certain executives made false statements inflating the stock price.
CWH over the last 365 days, as of Market Close on 1/2/19 | Yahoo Finance
CEO Marcus Lemonis touted the company’s Good Sam brand of recurring products and services, such as roadside assistance and extended warranties, as keys to strengthening financial health, saying that “over the years, we have created a unique business model that combines a comprehensive portfolio of high-margin recurring products and service.”
Camping World boasts 4.5 million active customers, but the press release alluded to cuts coming to the brick-and-mortar side of the operation, even as the company’s new Gander Outdoors retail and vehicle sales hybrid stores roll out.
“Our 2019 focus will be to better serve our customers, associates and shareholders while continuing to expand our RV market share with opportunistic RV acquisitions and completing the rollout of RV dealerships into newly opened retail locations,” Lemonis continued, then cautioned that the company “will also have an intense focus on dramatically reducing our retail inventory levels and aggressively reducing capital expenditures to maximize and drive free cash flow.” He said that the company has recently closed four unprofitable RV dealership locations in addition to eight other retail locations that were not projected to perform — and that he won’t hesitate to close more. The inventory reductions can’t be great news for RV manufacturers, who are already seeing big reductions in wholesale orders industry-wide.
The organizational changes announced today are entirely focused on inventory management, expense control, cash flow, and profit margins.
Mr. Lemonis added, “The organizational changes we have made and are announcing today should streamline our team and bring a new and heightened focus on inventory management, expense control, product margins, cash flow and asset deployment. As previously announced in September, Brent Moody was named President of the Company, and then, in December, Roger Nuttall resigned from his position as President of the Company’s dealership group. Nuttall’s responsibilities will be divided up between Lemonis and Divisional RV Presidents TJ Smith, Scott Jensen, Todd Nuttall and Josh Erickson. Matt Wagner has been appointed Senior Vice President of RV Inventory Management, Digital Marketing, Media Services and RV Dealership E-commerce; Brock Whinnery has been elevated to Vice President of Fixed Operations for the RV dealership group; and Randy Rahe will serve as a Vice President of RV Dealership Operations.
Finally, the Company announced the appointment of Thomas Wolfe to President of Good Sam and Melvin Flanigan to Chief Financial Officer. As President of Good Sam, Wolfe will focus on continuing to enhance the growth and development of the Consumer Services and Plans segment as well as improving the customer experience for its more than two million Good Sam Club members.
