NXB NEXTBOAT INC
$2.01
NEXTBOAT INC Q F Earnings Call Transcript
AI Conference Call Analysis
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Conference Call Operator
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to NextBoat's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. With us today are Brian John, NextBoat's chief executive officer, Blake Phillips, the company's chief operating officer, and Chad Corbin, the company's chief financial officer. Jason Ruegg, founder and president, will join us for Q&A. Blake will begin the call with an overview of the business, followed by Brian who will discuss our performance and strategic initiatives. Chad will then review the financial results, after which we will open the line for questions. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching. Also on today's call, management will make comments referring to non-gap financial measures. Management believes that the inclusion of these financial measures helps investors gain a meaningful understanding of the changes in the company's core operating results. These measures can also help investors who wish to make comparisons between NextBoat and other companies on both a gap and a non-gap basis. The reconciliation to non-gap financial measures to the most directly comparable gap measures is available in today's earnings release. The company disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law. Please also note that all comparisons of our second quarter 2026 results are made against the second quarter 2025 results, unless otherwise noted. I'd also like to remind everyone that today's call is being recorded and an archived version of the call will be available on the company's website sometime after the call. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to COO Blake Phillips. Blake.
Blake Phillips
Chief Operating Officer
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. I want to start out with our team. Our brokers on the docks and out on the water, our buyers behind their desks working on our next acquisitions, and our closings, service, and support teams making it all happen. Because what they delivered this quarter is the story of this call. Transaction volume up approximately 138% year over year. Our transaction closing team tripled to keep pace while we continue to model our AI to work alongside them. The organization grew about 42% year over year to build the machine that makes all of this possible. That's not incremental progress. That's a company hitting its stride. I'm proud of what this team has built and grateful to everyone who helped to get us here. I'll walk you through four pillars, where we've been and where we're going. 1. In the past year, we've built the infrastructure to become the leading platform to buy, sell, service, and maintain pre-owned boats in the U.S., and we took that company public. 2. We are now scaling that company and that platform, and this quarter is proof that it scales. 3. Our NextBoat AI platform is the multiplier. The engine that takes us from over 100 million in revenue in 2025 toward what we believe can be a billion dollar revenue company. Four, we are focused on turning that scale into profitability, making every part of our business accretive on its own and driving down corporate level costs, including the cost of being a public company so that profitability shows up at the bottom line. Here's the backdrop for all of it. NextBoat has been profitable every single year since our founding, more than 13 years running. We didn't take this company public because we needed to prove we could make money. We took it public because we saw a fragmented, multi-billion dollar market ready to be rebuilt around a better platform, and we needed the capital infrastructure to go build it. That's exactly what the last year has been. And the opportunity is enormous. roughly three out of every four boat transactions in the U.S. involve a pre-owned vessel. That's the majority of this entire market, and it still runs largely on fragmented listings, opaque pricing, and paperwork that hasn't changed in a decade. We are building the platform that fixes that. The speed, the transparency, and the liquidity this market has never had. But there's something underneath the platform that we think is even more powerful. We sit at the intersection of two massive datasets. On one side, we know exactly what buyers and brokers are looking for, the demand. On the other, we have a constant inflow of boats coming to us for valuation, the supply. That puts us in a unique position to connect those dots off market, matching real buyer and broker demand against real available inventory before either side has to search for another. We're bringing that capability to market as its own offering, Match, powered by NextBoat. It's the connective tissue of this entire platform, and we believe it's one of the most valuable and most exciting pieces of what we've built. We're not just another dealership competing for the same customers. We are the market maker for pre-owned boats, the company on both sides of the trade with the technology, the capital, and the infrastructure to let thousands of people buy and sell from anywhere. This is a scalable, decentralized marketplace built for how boats will actually be bought and sold going forward, not a bigger version of the old model. In this quarter, the model proved itself. Record transaction closings, record quarterly sales, transaction volume up roughly 120% year over year, and it worked across both sides of our business, brokerage and company-owned inventory alike, extending the growth trajectory we set last quarter. We also landed two partnerships that validate the platform at a category level. Marine Max, one of the largest names in the marine industry, is now our preferred wholesale partner for pre-owned boats and yachts. New Coast is now our preferred finance and insurance partner. These are the kind of relationships that come looking for you once the platform starts working at a scale. We also kept building our physical footprint this quarter. The places where our brokers, service teams, and customers actually meet the water. In South Florida, we grew through the acquisition of Apex Marine Group, giving us a flagship operating location in the most active boating market in the world. In the mid-Atlantic, we acquired a property in Maryland capable of supporting nearly 200 boats from reconditioning to sales, and in North Carolina, we expanded our operations to complement multiple parts of the business, from company-owned inventory to brokerage to service and support. Taken together, this is a footprint that's growing deliberately, anchored by real operating hubs across three of the most important boating regions in the country. So today, for the first time, every piece is on the field at once. The platform, the brand, the partnerships, and the footprint. Which brings us to what's next. We told you on our first call that this would be a building year. It was, and now the building is done. The pieces are in place so our focus shifts. From proving the model to sharpening it. From adding scale to converting that scale into margin. Thank you for joining us.
Brian John
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Blake, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us today. As Blake mentioned, in the second quarter of 2036, we continue to execute on the plan we laid out, delivering record revenue of $59 million for the quarter, representing year over year growth of 88.41%. We also achieved record unit volume, selling 255 boats during this quarter, an increase of more than 138% year over year. Our brokers business also continued to grow rapidly. During the second quarter, we added 26 new brokers to the team, further expanding our ability to generate transactions across the platform. We continue to focus on broker recruitment and are also very much looking forward to the upcoming boat show season. Our order group has also had a very strong start to the year. In just eight months, the business has already surpassed the full year goal of $100 million in brokers transaction volumes. reaching $134 million already this year. We believe this demonstrates the significant opportunity we have to continue expanding our brokerage network and transaction volume. We are also excited to open an additional autograph sales location in Miami's famous Bayshore Landing Marina. As we discussed previously, our first quarter results were impacted by boat show expenses, costs associated with becoming a public company, and one-time expenses related to employee share issuances. After 13 years of profitability as a private company, we view our return to profitability in the second quarter on an adjusted EBITDA basis an important milestone as we continue to build NextBoat. We went public at the end of last year and made the conscious decision to invest upfront in the infrastructure, systems, people, compliance and technology required to operate as a scalable public company. Those investments increased our overhead in the short term, but they were intentional and necessary. Today, our focus is increasingly on leveraging that infrastructure to grow efficiently, improve margins and generate more revenue for each transaction. Our major part of that strategy is expanding into high margin level businesses, including finance, insurance and warranty. These are newly developed areas of our business that provide opportunities to generate additional revenue beyond the initial boat transaction. Much like in the auto industry, these F&I initiatives carry very much higher margins and will be the focus on how we increase our overall margins within the company. One of the most important developments during the quarter was our five-year strategic partnership with MarineMax, the largest recreational boat and yacht retailer in the United States. This agreement was signed June 25, 2026. At its core, this relationship connects Marine Max's significant retail trade-in pipeline with NextBoat's AI-powered valuation wholesale and transaction platform. This partnership is strategically important. It creates an opportunity for NextBoat to participate in additional revenue streams associated with transactions generated through the Marine Max relationship. In particular, NextBoat can participate in financing and insurance revenue through revenue sharing agreements with Marine Max's affiliated finance and insurance businesses. This creates an opportunity for us to generate revenue beyond the boat transaction itself and increase the amount of revenue we can generate from each transaction. For transactions involving off-the-hook owned inventory, our resort finance operators will focus on financing opportunities. Other qualifying transactions will be referred to New Coast, Marine Max's finance and insurance operation under the terms of our agreement. We also intend to launch a new warranty business this month. Warranty carries the biggest margins in our industry, and we will make warranty products available across eligible Nexpo transactions, creating another opportunity to not only increase revenue per transaction, but continue to focus on improving our margins. The addition of Apex and Bellhart will also allow us opportunities to sell warranted service customers. We are putting significant focus on these initiatives because we believe they can play an important role in increasing both revenue and margins over time. These acquisitions are strategically important because they add physical marine infrastructure to our technology platform. They provide established facilities, inventory storage and service capabilities, existing customers, skilled technicians, and additional opportunities to generate higher margin service parts and repair revenue. This is an important part of our strategy because technology can transform how boats are bought and sold, but there are certain parts of the marine industry that require physical infrastructure. Storage, service, shipping, and repair cannot be replaced by software. Our service locations give us the ability to store and service inventory in-house, which can reduce our reliance on rented facilities and outsource services. It also gives us a hub from which we can position inventory and move boats efficiently through our network. More importantly, the service business gives us an opportunity to participate in the ownership cycle beyond the initial sale. Instead of generating revenue only from when a boat gets bought or sold, we can also participate in service, maintenance, parts, and repair opportunities over time. By integrating Apex and Bellhart into the broader NextBoat ecosystem, we believe we can create meaningful cross-selling opportunities and build a more diversified revenue base. Let me emphasize the importance of the NextBoat platform. While brokers remains an important part of the business, we believe what differentiates NextBoat is the technology platform that empowers transactions across the network. The NextBoat platform is designed to enable buying and selling of boats at scale. It is already being used for boat valuations, deal structuring, offer generation, CRM workflows, and boat broker support Marine Max's decision to partner with us is an important indication of the value of this technology, and we are now working to employ the platform within the relationship as well. The platform continues to develop and improve as we add data, transactions, and automation. Our goal is to increase the number of offers and transactions we can process without requiring senior management to be involved in every individual deal. AI and automation are increasingly being integrated into closings, finance, warranty, sales, logistics, deal flow management, and customer follow-up. Over time, we expect these capabilities to increase productivity, reduce administrative work, and provide greater operating leverage as we grow. Another important driver of our growth is our broker recruitment. We added 26 new brokers this quarter, and broker expansion remains a key component of the off-the-hook growth strategy. One of the attractive aspects of our model is that brokers are primarily performance-based revenue generators. As productive brokers are added to the network, we can increase transaction volume without adding the same level of fixed corporate overhead associated with traditional dealership model. Our NextBoard AI system tracks the broker's structure and associated incentives automatically, allowing us to manage the program efficiently as the network grows. Ultimately, we believe the combination of technology, broker growth, physical infrastructure, and additional revenue streams give the next boat the opportunity to build a much more diversified marine platform. We are not simply focused on selling more boats. We are focused on increasing the number of transactions we can process, increasing the revenue we generate from each transaction, and increasing the portion of the revenue that comes from higher margin businesses. That is the opportunity we see ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Chad Corbin, who will walk you through our financial results in more detail. Chad?
Chad Corbin
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. Starting with revenue for the second quarter ended June 30th, 2026. We generated record revenue of 59.1 million, representing an increase of 88.4% compared to the 31.3 million in the same period of 2025. The increase was primarily attributable to the contribution of the Apex Marine and Bellhart businesses acquired in the quarter. An increase in our floor plan limit that supported higher inventory utilization throughout the period and the continued expansion of our broker network at Off the Hook and our premier brokerage yacht division, Autograph Yacht Group. All of these factors contributed to an increase in the number of pre-owned boats sold and brokerage deals closed during the quarter. New boat sales increased by $7.1 million or 189.3% to $10.9 million for three months ended June 30th, compared to $3.8 million in the same period of 2025. The increase is attributable to the new boat lines that were acquired through the Apex Marine and Bellhart acquisitions. Pre-owned boat sales increased by $18.5 million or 69.5%. to $45 million for the three months ended June 30 of 2026 compared to the $26.6 million in the same period 2025. For the three months ended June 30 of 2026, we sold approximately 230 pre-owned units compared to approximately 112 pre-owned units for the same period 2025. Average price per inventory pre-owned boat sale transaction was approximately $381,566 for the three months ended June 30th, 2026 compared to approximately 400,302 in the same period 2025. We sell a wide range of brands and sizes of pre-owned boats under different types of sales arrangements, which causes periodic and seasonal fluctuations in the average sales price. Revenue from arranging financing products, including financing, insurance, and extended warranty contracts to customers through various third-party financial institutions and insurance companies increased by $400,000 or 66.7% to $1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to the $600,000 in the same period of 2025. The increase was attributable to the high volume of units delivered, a greater proportion of finance-dependent buyers in the customer mix, and increased emphasis on financing solutions for customers purchasing pre-owned inventory. Revenue from service parts and other sales increased by $1.8 million, or 465.6%, to $2.2 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026. compared to $400,000 in the same period in 2025. The increase is attributable to the acquisitions of Apex Marine and Bellhart Marine. These acquisitions are expected to expand internal service capabilities for inventory and support growth in our retail service offerings. Gross profit increased by $4.8 million or 100.1% to $9.5 million for the three months ended June 30th, 2026. compared to the 4.8 million in the same period in 2025. The increase was attributable to a high number of boats transacted across our platform. Additionally, growth in our higher margin businesses, service and financial products contributed to the increase in gross margin. Gross profit for pre-owned boat sales increased by 3.0 million or 81.1% to 6.7 million for the three months ended June 30th, 2026, compared to the 3.7 million for the same period 2025. Pre-owned boat gross profit as a percentage of pre-owned boat revenue was 15% for the three months ended June 30th, 2026, compared to the 13.9% in the same period 2025. We sell a diverse mix of preowned boats across various price points, brands, and sales channels, including trade-ins, consignment, wholesale, and brokerage, which naturally contributes to fluctuations in gross profit margins due to varying transaction structures and sales dynamics. Moreover, the modest growth in gross profit as a percentage of pre-owned boat revenues can be attributed to our purchasing team's skillful buying decisions regarding our used boat inventory. Selling, general, and administrative expenses consist primarily of lease expense, insurance, utilities, and other customary operating expenses. SG&A increased $1 million or 250% to $1.4 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026. compared to the $400,000 in the same period, 2025. This increase was primarily attributable to operating cost base of the Apex Marine and Bellhart business acquired during the quarter, high indirect market expenses, and higher insurance costs related to increased inventory levels under the four planned financing arrangements, each in line with the company's planned business expansion for 2026. Salary and wages expenses increased $3.6 million, or 127.8%, to $6.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared to the $2.8 million in the same period of 2025. Leading into and following our initial public offering, salaries and wages increased as we aligned our compensation with public company market benchmarks, enhanced retention packages to ensure that we attract, motivate, and retain talent required to deliver long-term shareholder value. Further, company issued stock-based compensation to employees after the initial public offering, which was $1.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026. These equity awards have vesting conditions including services-based and performance-based requirements and vests between one and five years. Advertising and marketing expenses increased $400,000 or 700% to $400,000 for three months into June 30, 2026, compared to the $50,000 in the same period of 2025. The increase is due to expanding market share, enhancing corporate brand awareness, The cost increase were consistent with our established marketing strategy to support our company's planned public offering and the associated expansion of our sales organization. The company's floor plan interest expense increased $300,000 or 60% to $800,000 for the three months ended June 30th, 2026. compared to $500,000 in the same period, 2025. In 2026, the company incurred higher interest expense due to the increase in our core plan credit limit and our utilization in the line of credit. We are maintaining our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $165 million to $170 million while we focus on our margin improvements and profitability in the second half of the year. With that, I will turn the call back to Brian for closing remarks before we open the line for questions. Brian?
Brian John
Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Chad. As we expand our brokers, locations, partnerships, and capacity to buy and sell boats, we are very proud of the progress our team made across the business in the second quarter that has continued at a record pace into our third quarter that we are currently in. We delivered record revenue, record unit value, expanded our broker network and locations that position us for the next phase of our growth. Our growth, financial performance, and new relationship with REMAX further proves out our model works. We generally believe that used boat market is overdue for modernization. We now have the infrastructure, technology, capital relationships, and recruiting systems to scale in a way this industry has not historically been able to. We believe we are building something highly scalable that can fundamentally change how used boats are bought and sold globally. On behalf of our entire leadership team, I want to thank our employees, partners, and investors for their continued support. With that operator, please open the lines for questions.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question, and if you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Mark Smith from Lake Street. Please go ahead.
Mark Smith
Analyst, Lake Street
Hi, guys. I want to ask first a little bit about Marine Max and the acquisition there. Just as you think about it and look at it, you view this as, you know, is there any threat to the partnerships that you have? And then, you know, does this potentially create some opportunities that you guys can capitalize on?
Blake Phillips
Chief Operating Officer
Blake Phillips, Andrew Simmons, Kyle Ginthner, Paul Griffin, Kyle Ginthner We certainly think that's exciting as well. You're seeing significant institutional capital coming into the marine industry, which I think ultimately speaks to the opportunity ahead. So on both fronts, it's still early, but we're excited about the relationship, excited about the rollout, and really looking forward to seeing where it can go.
Mark Smith
Analyst, Lake Street
And then I wanted to ask just about your own acquisitions. You're close on to this quarter. I'm kind of curious where you guys are on integration of Apex and Bellhart, where you're at in that and then kind of how active the M&A pipeline is for the remainder of the year.
Brian John
Chief Executive Officer
This is Brian. I'll answer that second part if that's okay. Mike, can you hear me? Hello? Yep. Yeah. So, yeah, I was I was intimately involved with the acquisition of Apex. The company was on track to lose over a million dollars. They were trying to expand too quickly. And the gentleman running the company was a lot older. And we were able to go in there and instead of losing it March 15th, I think we showed a positive sign. Ruegg.
Blake Phillips
Chief Operating Officer
The Apex acquisition is highly complemented to our mission at being the world's largest buyer and retailer of used boats. So when that is the mission of the company, you've ultimately got to have... Land to utilize and allow for that to be a mission where the rubber meets the road per se. So Apex is our company in the most living, breathing form where boats are acquired into, reconditioned, and retailed. So for that matter, it's really a hub for us All right. Thank you.
Mark Smith
Analyst, Lake Street
Perfect. Thank you.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Albanese from Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Mike Albanese
Analyst, Benchmark Company
Yeah, hey guys, thanks for taking my question. Can you all hear me okay?
Brian John
Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I can hear you, Mike. This is Brian.
Mike Albanese
Analyst, Benchmark Company
Hey, Brian. All right, so just You know, inventory up here, obviously you pulled on the floor plan a bit. I mean, I guess, can you just help us understand kind of where your current inventory turns are and maybe where you see them going as the acquisitions are integrated here?
Brian John
Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. You know, we're still in the four to five times a year range. Obviously, we're growing very quick. So, you know, I expected to stay in that range. But, you know, as volume increases, obviously, those numbers may come down and it's not a bad thing. It's, you know, that's why people use us. It's because our accuracy when we're buying boats from dealers and things of that nature. You know, the fact that we can close so quickly on a boat and take a trade from a dealer is really our value to them. So I think, you know, I expect him to stay in that four to five times range for the foreseeable future.
Chad Corbin
Chief Financial Officer
Well, hey, Mike, this is Chad. I'll add on to that a little bit as well. You know, one of the things that we're going to be focusing on is our turns for our inventory. Actually, we're just talking prior to this call about it. So it's going to be a major focus of ours and Now having the two refurbishment centers to help manage that inventory and that workload, we're going to kind of be able to control it and ultimately get the quicker turns. Because a lot of times it's not necessarily finding the right buyer. It's a lot of times it's just getting the boat in condition, ready to sell to get it on the market.
Mike Albanese
Analyst, Benchmark Company
All right, great. And then if I can just kind of, you know, I guess this kind of takes this step further, but, you know, I guess I'm trying to get a sense of the level of working cap needs. You know, you put the infrastructure in place here, you built the platform, you know, it's a jumping off point where we can really start to grow this thing. But just think about kind of run rate your business as it stands today, or maybe as you integrate the most recent deals, working cap needs for this model. However you want to frame that, hopefully.
Chad Corbin
Chief Financial Officer
We usually put a higher emphasis on some of the boats in our sweet spot. We usually say that's between $200,000 and say $600,000 boats. So obviously those need a little lower working capital for carrying costs, whether it be repairs or interest expense. So I think in terms of the amount of working capital needed, I mean, we obviously... The quicker we turn, the quicker we can just roll that money right back into the floor plan for our equity payments. So it's us. It's just a matter of managing the size of the units and the turns and make sure that we have enough working capital to support the floor plan.
Mike Albanese
Analyst, Benchmark Company
Got it. Okay, that's it for me. Thanks, guys.
Operator
Conference Call Operator
at this time there are no further questions this concludes today's call thank you for attending you may now disconnect