Harley Retrenching

[Zombie Master]

From Revzilla:

Harley retrenching


"It's easy to look at the headline number and think Harley's fourth quarter was a disaster, with fourth-quarter net income down 82 percent from a year ago, but that's partly due to a one-time charge because of the new tax law and costs for a brake issue. It's better to describe Harley's results as soft than as a collapse.

Those hit hardest by yesterday's news were the 800 people who work at Harley-Davidson's plant in Kansas City. By the middle of next year, the company will close the factory, which was built in 1998, and consolidate that production into the York, Pennsylvania plant. (A facility in Australia employing 100 is also being closed.) About 450 jobs will be added in York, Harley executives said (and both numbers are total workers, including full-time employees, casual workers and contractors).

The company doesn't need the manufacturing capacity because sales continue to shrink. For all of 2017, Harley-Davidson sales fell 8.5 percent in the United States and 3.9 percent internationally. Even more importantly, Harley-Davidson's leadership doesn't expect that to change suddenly"




https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/t ... 20Combined

[Steve in Golden]

So, 800 wage slaves are going to lose their jobs. Will the CEO, Mr. Matthew S. Levatich, take a cut in his $3.23 million per year salary?

I thought not.

His pay is peanuts though compared to the executive pay of the health care / health insurance company chiefs.

Life is good when you are the CEO.

[Rob]

Life is good when you are the CEO.

"Who wants to be CFO? Anyone?"
https://youtu.be/eT4bhNABlYM?t=45s

[Wobbly]

Harley used to make a good living making "limited editions" which they could charge a premium for, since there were only going to be XX thousand made. That all changed when they started believing their own marketing and swallowed the weekend bad boy, sawed-off leather jacket, tattooed, and chained wallet persona.

Compare this to BMW, who during nearly the exact same time period, invented the luxury touring and sport touring markets only to loose them to the Japanese. So they reinvented themselves as the king of off road adventure with the GS series.

Harley has so deeply invested themselves in the baby boomer "Easy Rider" mentality, that they cannot get young professionals to come to their show rooms and buy Buell motorcycles. Buell was every bit as inventive, sexy, and racy as any Ducati at half the price. Buell could have easily stolen that market from all the European bike makers, except that their sales floors and sales staff were so deeply immersed in the weekend bad ass image. Who wants to buy a sport bike from a person in chaps and black leather vest who has never knowingly used reverse lock steering ?

Their back is against the wall. They have very serious competition from Victory, Indian, and the Japanese. The EPA has now shut the door on their 2-valve potato-potato engine. Due to water cooling and fuel injection their old school sound and look is dead, which totally turns off their clientele... which they themselves trained !

What we're watching now is a long, slow death.... of their own making.