Brunswick Corp (NYSE: BC) Q3 2025 Earnings Call dated Oct. 23, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Steven Weiland — Chief Financial Officer
David M. Foulkes — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Ryan M. Gwillim — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
James Hardiman — Analyst
Craig Kennison — Analyst
Anna Glassigen — Analyst
Jian Xu — Analyst
Amanda Douglas — Analyst
Jamie Katz — Analyst
Joe Altobello — Analyst
Joseph Nolan — Analyst
Tristan Thomas — Analyst
Noah Zatzkin — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good morning and welcome to Brunswick Corporation’s Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer period. Today’s meeting will be recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.
I would now like to introduce Steven Weiland, Senior Vice President and Deputy CFO, Brunswick Corporation.
Steven Weiland — Chief Financial Officer
Good morning and thank you for joining us. With me on the call this morning is David Foulkes, Brunswick’s Chairman and CEO and Ryan Gwillim, Brunswick’s CFO. Before we begin with our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that during this call our comments will include certain forward-looking statements about future results. Please keep in mind that our actual results could differ materially from these expectations. For details on the factors to consider, please refer to our recent SEC filings and today’s press release. All of these documents are available on our website at brunswick.com.
During our presentation we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial information.
Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are provided in the appendix to this presentation and the reconciliation sections of the unaudited consolidated financial statements accompanying today’s results.
I will now turn the call over to Dave.
David M. Foulkes — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Thanks, Steve. Brunswick delivered strong third quarter results with each reporting segment generating revenue growth over the prior year quarter and overall financial performance exceeding expectations and guidance for the quarter, the sales growth reflected strength across all our businesses despite a challenging, albeit improving macro environments and industry backdrop. Our market leading propulsion and boat portfolios outperformed their respective markets and our recurring revenue parts and accessories and other aftermarket focused businesses along with Freedom Boat Club continued to benefit from healthy boating activity.
Brunswick’s third quarter boat retail sales were flat year-over-year, a notable relative improvement from the first half of the year driven by resilience in our premium and core categories. We continue to drive forward with financial and operational efficiencies through the announced margin accretive footprint actions in our boat business, continued enterprise wide tariff mitigation initiatives, prudent pipeline management and excellent capital Strategy execution. Our third quarter sales of $1.4 billion were up 7% versus prior year. Our adjusted earnings per share of $0.97 were impacted by the reinstatement of variable compensation and tariffs but were up year-over-year excluding those items and we had another quarter of outstanding free cash flow generation providing us with the flexibility to simultaneously invest in our business, return capital to shareholders and strengthen our balance sheet.
With $111 million of free cash flow in the third quarter we have generated $355 million year-to-date, an exceptional $348 million improvement over the first three quarters of last year. For the first time since the first quarter of 2022, revenue grew in all our segments. The propulsion business delivered significant sales growth with revenues in each of its three businesses, Outboard, Sterndrive and controls, rigging and propellers up over prior year as OEM order strength continued later into the boating season.
Mercury continues to be the clear US outboard market share leader with 49.4% share of outboard engines sold in the quarter. Given the volume of Mercury competitor engines shipped into the US in advance of the tariffs on Japanese imports, we have not yet seen the full potential impacts of those tariffs on competitive product pricing, but we continue to be well positioned. Strong boater participation in our core markets continues to benefit our high margin annuity, engine parts and accessories business which posted strong sales growth over the prior year.
With sales in both the products and distribution businesses up solidly and segment operating margin also up sequentially from the second quarter reflecting the strong operating leverage in the business. In the US our market leading distribution business gained 140 basis points of market share year-to-date. Over the same period last year.
Navico Group reported modest sales growth and steady adjusted operating margin over prior year. Growth was led by strong performance in marine electronics product lines that continued to benefit from investments in technology and new product introductions, while strong boating participation drove aftermarket sales that represents 60% of Navico revenue.
Continued restructuring actions, a leaner, more focused organization and new product investments are bearing fruit and Navico Group’s strategic importance to the Brunswick portfolio was recently reinforced by the introduction of the Simrad AutoCaptain autonomous boating system developed by Navico Group in collaboration Mercury Marine and Brunswick Boat Group.
Lastly, GAAP operating earnings were impacted by $323 million of non cash intangible asset charges for Navico Group. These impairment charges reflect the impact of the current trade and economic environment. Despite our plans for continued growth and margin improvement in this important part of our portfolio that is an increasing source of integrated solutions and differentiated innovation. Our boat business grew both revenue and adjusted operating margin over prior year as our premium brands continued to perform well and our aluminum boat businesses delivered a very strong quarter. Dealer inventory remains historically low and coupled with flat retail allowed for steady wholesale shipments.
In September, we announced the strategic rationalization of our fiberglass boat manufacturing footprint, exiting our facilities in Reynosa, Mexico and Flagler Beach, Florida by the middle of 2026 and consolidating production from these facilities into existing US facilities. Moving on to external factors the US Fed cut the fed funds rate by 25 basis points in September with expectations for several additional cuts through the balance of 2025 and or in early 2026. Lower interest rates have a compound benefit in reducing the cost of both dealer floor plan financing and consumer retail financing, which will be a tailwind for both wholesale stocking and the 2026 main selling season.
Additionally, while we’re still analyzing how best to take advantage of the tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill act, the cash flow benefits will most likely be realized in 2026. We continue to actively manage our tariff exposure in what is still a dynamic situation and are slightly increasing our estimate to approximately $75 million of net tariff impact for the year, mainly as a result of the expanded scope of Section 232 tariff. I will again highlight that because of our primarily US based tariff, vertically integrated engine and boat manufacturing base and predominantly domestic supply chain, and the fact that we manufacture almost all our boats for international markets within those markets, we remain competitively well positioned in an environment of persistent tariffs.
We also stand to potentially benefit from the tariffs of our engine competitors who import their engines from Japan now subject to a 15% tariff. Dealer sentiment remains stable with historically low and fresh dealer inventory and boating participation has increased considerably during the third quarter, benefiting our aftermarket businesses and driving Freedom Boat club trips up 2.5% year-to-date versus prior year. OEM build rates have remained solid and in combination with lower inventories have supported strong wholesale engine shipments. Retail incentives remain elevated compared to historic levels, but are lower than in the same period last year.
Looking now at industry retail performance, which has steadily improved in recent months after the macroeconomic shocks from early spring. As of the latest SSI reporting for August, US Main powerboat industry retail was down a little more than 9% year-to-date with Brunswick boat brands continuing to outperform the industry and Brunswick’s internal retail performing better than SSI. Despite a US Outboard engine industry that is down slightly year-to-date, Mercury market share remains stable with a 49.4% share in the third quarter. Even in the face of significant competitor promotional activity. Internationally, Mercury drove strong share gains in the majority of its markets.
From a global boat retail perspective, our core and premium brands outperformed the market during the quarter and our valued brands performed steadily. Overall, Brunswick’s boat retail was down mid-single digits in the first half of this year compared to prior year, while this quarter overall we came in flat to prior year, a significant relative improvement. While still down we saw notable strengthening in our value segment as we took actions to streamline our model lineup and improve profitability through manufacturing consolidation, which we’ll discuss on the next slide.
Lastly, we continue to drive healthy and very lean daily inventory Pipeline Levels. Global pipelines are down over 2,200 units compared to the third quarter of 2024 and down over 1,500 units sequentially from the last quarter.
In the U.S. Pipelines are down over 1,200 units compared to the third quarter of 2024 and down over 700 units sequentially from the last quarter. While the performance of our fiberglass value brands improved in the third quarter, this has remained our most challenged category. Last quarter we reported that we streamlined our value fiberglass model lineup by 25% for the 2026 model year, which began in July. And in September we announced a strategic consolidation of our Reynosa, Mexico and Flagler Beach, Florida facilities into existing US Locations. This consolidation will reduce fixed costs, drive improved profitability in our boat segment and generate a strong return on investment.
The transition is expected to be complete in mid-2026 with some inefficiencies during the transition, but with anticipated run rate savings of over $10 million a year upon completion even at current volumes, and with the benefits increasing when the industry rebounds and production volumes increase. This quarter Brunswick has again delivered outstanding free cash flow with $355 million year-to-date. We have delivered $1.6 billion of free cash flow since 2021 and a record $635 million over the last 12 months, in very dynamic and challenging market conditions with a significant contribution from the recurring revenue components of our portfolio, but also with diligent focus on working capital reduction and we expect this strong performance to continue into the fourth quarter and next year.
Our investment grade balance sheet remains very healthy with no debt maturities until 2029, an attractive cost of debt and maturity profile and net leverage that continues to improve. We are therefore again increasing our debt reduction guidance for 2025 by $25 million to $200 million for the year, up $75 million since the beginning of the year. By year end we’re on track to retire approximately $375 million of debt since the beginning of 2023 and are committed to achieving our long-term net leverage target of below 2 times EBITDA. We are accomplishing this while maintaining significant financial flexibility and at quarter end we have $1.3 billion in liquidity including full access to our undrawn revolving credit facility. We also anticipate retiring $200 million or more of debt next year while continuing to return capital to shareholders.
I’ll now turn the call over to Ryan to provide additional comments on our financial performance and outlook.
Ryan M. Gwillim — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Dave and good morning, everyone. Brunswick’s third quarter performance came in ahead of expectations with sales growth in each of our segments versus the third quarter of 2024. On a consolidated basis, sales were up almost 7% reflecting strong orders from OEMs and dealers, pricing actions taken in recent periods and steady boating participation driving P&A and other aftermarket business strength which was helped by favorable late season weather in many regions. Adjusted operating earnings and EPS also exceeded expectations but were down versus the prior year due to the enterprise wide impacts of tariffs and the reinstatement of variable compensation which were partially offset by the positive earnings generated by the increased sales.
Lastly, as Dave highlighted, we continue to drive robust free cash flow up 166% from the prior year. On a year-to-date basis, sales are down 1% primarily due to planned lower first half production levels in our propulsion and boat businesses, mostly offset by P&A and aftermarket stability throughout the year and third quarter sales growth in all of our businesses. Year-to-date, adjusted operating earnings and EPS are also ahead of expectations but remain below the prior year as expected due to the previously mentioned enterprise factors and lower first half production.
Year-to-date, free cash flow of $355 million remains a continued strength of the entire enterprise reflecting the overall steady performance of our higher margin aftermarket businesses and our focused inventory and other working capital initiatives. As noted, while sales were up 7% this quarter versus the prior year, adjusted EPS was down $0.20.
However, outside the impacts of tariffs and the variable compensation reinstatement, we would have shown strong adjusted earnings growth in the quarter. The aggregate third quarter EPS impact of reinstating variable compensation back to target levels and incremental tariffs was approximately $0.70. These costs were partially offset by the earnings benefits from the higher sales and positive absorption primarily in our propulsion business along with lower discounts in our boat business.
Now we’ll look at each reporting segment, starting with our propulsion business which grew sales by 10% in the quarter reflecting increases for each of its product categories of outboard, sterndrive and controls, rigging and props mercury saw strong OEM orders in a low field inventory environment together with continued robust market share resulting in their second straight quarter of strong sales improvement. Operating margin was down compared to prior year due to tariffs and the variable compensation reset, but benefited from improved absorption driven by higher production in the quarter. Healthy boater participation continues to drive strength in our engine parts and accessories segment with sales up 8% overall compared to the prior year.
Sales were up solidly for both products and distribution, benefiting from favorable late season weather in many regions, helping to make up for a slower start earlier in the year and market share gains in our distribution business. Operating earnings were down slightly compared to the prior year solely due to the enterprise impacts already discussed. I’m delighted to share that the Navico Group sales increased by 2% in the quarter, led by growth in its electronics portfolio with adjusted operating margins decreasing only slightly as compared to the prior year.
As Dave mentioned earlier, GAAP operating earnings were impacted by a $323 million non-cash intangible asset impairment charge for the Navico Group.
As we have previously discussed, driving improved performance in this segment is a key focus for management and the entire Navico team and while we still have more work to do, we are starting to see the benefits from these efforts and our investments in new products as reflected in Navico’s consistent sales and earnings performance throughout the year.
As compared to the third quarter of last year, gross margins improved significantly as we took out almost $5 million of cost from Navico facilities and continue to execute a multi year initiative to consolidate and optimize our global network of warehouses and distribution centers. This strategic program is designed to deliver meaningful improvements across customer experience, operational performance and financial outcomes. We also continue to improve the balance sheet with lower inventory and increased turns.
Lastly, our boat segment reported sales growth of 4% over prior year with growth in both boat sales and the business acceleration portfolio. Our aluminum boat brands led by our premium fishing brand Lund, had an especially strong quarter and drove strong top line and earnings performance and Freedom Boat Club continued its growth journey contributing approximately 13% of the segment’s sales.
With low dealer pipelines, flat third quarter retail pulled through steady wholesale performance as we ended the quarter with lower pipeline inventories as Dave discussed earlier, segment adjusted operating earnings benefited from the increased sales, a lower discount environment and focused cost actions which resulted in greatly improved segment gross margins which more than offset the enterprise factors and flowed through into a 65% increase in adjusted operating earnings compared to the prior year.
My last slide shows our full year guidance which remains unchanged for revenue of approximately $5.2 billion, adjusted operating margins of approximately 7% and adjusted EPS of approximately $3.25. We remain comfortable with our full year EPS guidance despite the slightly increased estimated net tariff impact as we believe we can carry forward our slight third quarter beat and continue to drive sales and earnings growth as we close out the year.
Given our exceptional free cash flow generation year-to-date, we are increasing our full year free cash flow estimate to in excess of $425 million and our debt reduction target to $200 million which will continue to progress our goal of lowering our debt leverage to under 2 times.
I will now pass the call back to Dave for concluding remarks.
David M. Foulkes — Chief Executive Officer and Director
Thanks, Ryan. I always like to highlight some of our exciting product launches, Freedom Expansions and Awards. During the quarter we enjoyed strong momentum at the European fall boat shows which provide positive indicators for next year’s retail season and reflect the strong market position of many of our brands. In addition to Mercury’s strong showing at the Cannes and Genoa boat shows, two of our most recently launched boats earned notable awards with the Bayliner C21, named the 2025 Motorboat of the Year in the very competitive under 7 meters category and the Sea Ray SDX270 Surf collecting the Motor Boat Magazine Innovation Award.
These two prestigious new accolades add to many previous product awards this year. Amongst the many new boat models introduced this year during the quarter, Lund introduced its all new Explorer model lineup which combines Lund’s legendary fishability with smart functional features. Powered by Mercury and equipped with Lowrance technology, the Explorer lineup is another embodiment of the power of Brunswick’s synergies. Lund continues to be the leader in the premium aluminum fishing market.
Navico Group’s integrated and connected solutions continue to drive OEM penetration and the team worked with several large OEMs to introduce a full turnkey, cloud and mobile app solution designed to enhance the boating experience. This end-to-end platform unlocks powerful information for OEMs and their dealers by using real time telematic data to gather valuable insights to serve their customers. In addition, Lowrance launched the all new Ghost X trolling motor in September as the next evolution in the Ghost lineup. Ghost X delivers 20% more thrust with ultra quiet operation, GPS anchoring and seamless sonar integration.
FLITE debuted the FLITELab brand which leverages the same innovative flight product design and technology to provide foilers with unmatched versatility to customize their ride. And finally, Freedom Boat Club recently reached 440 global locations and announced a new franchise location in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Freedom continues to be a key contributor to Brunswick’s growth, allowing more people to get on the water through its unique, convenient subscription based boating model. This quarter though, we took a genuine step forward into the future of boating with the official commercial launch of the SIMRAD AutoCaptain autonomous boating system we have showcased development versions of this technology at some previous events, but formally launched the production system at the International Boatbuilder’s Exhibition and Conference in Tampa a few weeks ago and conducted demo rides for the media and nine OEMs. We have scheduled additional OEM demo rides at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show next week.
At launch, AutoCaptain offers fully autonomous and dynamic docking, undocking and close quarter maneuvering delivered with precision and reliability. The integrated sensor suite counts as wind, waves and current and with 360 degree awareness, recognizes and reacts to its surroundings, avoiding obstacles and hazards such as passing boats to safely execute maneuvers. Post launch, we are working on expanding the capabilities and features offered by AutoCaptain with the intention that these additional features will be delivered via software upgrades, AutoCaptain reflects innovation only possible through the combined power and capabilities of our Navico Group, Mercury Marine and Boat Group divisions working together to deliver this seamless integrated solution.
It’s also a milestone in representing the first commercialized solution under the autonomy pillar of our ACES strategy and the final pillar of ACES to be commercialized. Docking is routinely cited as one of the most stressful aspects of boating, and our comprehensive, capable and intuitive system was reported by the media and OEMs who experienced it to be clearly the most advanced and capable system available.
Before wrapping up, I’d like to share some preliminary thoughts on guidance for 2026, which I know is top of mind for many investors, especially given the multiple headwinds and tailwinds. While the trade and economic environment remains extremely dynamic, we believe that we are well positioned to benefit from any industry recovery due to the operating leverage inherent in our businesses.
Our tariff mitigation strategies are working to reduce our net exposure, and we believe that our substantial vertically integrated US manufacturing base positions us relatively well in an environment of persistent tariffs. Interest rates are coming down with further cuts expected, reducing the cost of financing for both end consumers and dealers as we approach the fall boat show season and the restocking cycle for what we anticipate at the moment to be a modestly stronger 2026. This is a very early look subject to change embedded in these initial thoughts is the assumption of a US retail bulk market that is flat to slightly up versus 2025, driven by relative macroeconomic stability, no material negative changes in the tariff environment and continued interest rate improvement.
In this scenario, we believe that we can grow revenue by mid-to-high single digit percent, resulting in more than 25% growth of adjusted EPS with continued significant free cash flow generation.
That is the end of our prepared remarks. We’ll now turn it back over to the operator for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] One moment, please. We’ll poll for a first question. Thank you. And the first question comes from the line of James Hardiman with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.
James Hardiman
Hey, good morning, guys. So, I don’t have to tell you guys that sort of over the course of the quarter a big topic of debate was sort of how you’re thinking about retail and what’s showing up in the SSI numbers. I don’t really care to go down that rabbit hole, I feel like we’ve been there before, but maybe if you could give us an indication of where you think we are now in sort of a — from a run rate perspective, most notably, as we think about — how you’re thinking about 2026, if the expectation is that 2026 is going to be flat to up where are we today relative to that and how do you see sort of the building blocks to us getting to that positive inflection? Thanks.
David M. Foulkes
Hi, James. Yeah, thank you for the question. Yeah, we obviously had the kind of shocks in early Q2, the tariff announcements and the subsequent kind of capital market impacts that have progressively stabilized that significantly affected early Q2 particularly, and then towards the end of Q2, we began to see some recovery and stabilization. Through this whole process as we’ve noted, the kind of premium and core parts of our product lines have performed better than the value parts of our product lines and that continues to be the case. In Q3, we’re essentially flat year-over-year with premium and core still outperforming and value catching up a bit, but still underperforming.
We’re obviously now in a part of the season where we’re talking about hundreds of units and not multiple thousands of units. But that strength has continued through the first couple of weeks of October, was slightly up through the first couple of weeks of October. So I think, last year, the end of last year, we were commenting that we thought the shape of the year would be slightly weaker in the first half, strengthening in the back half we did not know about tariffs at that time, but that has turned out to be the shape of the year.
And with interest rates improving and impacting positively both end consumers and our dealers and obviously their willingness to take stock, we don’t see any reason why that can’t. That momentum can’t continue into next season. So that’s really the background. Obviously, if there are currently unknowable exogenous issues, that may change. But just based on a feeling that we’re kind of at a bit of an inflection point at the moment in a positive way and that we do have a retail momentum, we’re feeling that next season should be at least flat and most likely at least slightly up.
James Hardiman
Got it. But just to clarify, as we think about sort of flattish for 3Q, that’s you guys. It seems like the more relevant number might be the industry, do you think the industry is flattening out for 3Q and then I think just a quick follow up. Yeah, I’m sorry, go ahead.
David M. Foulkes
Yes, I think is the answer. SSI, yeah, I know you appropriate like, I think probably we always have this process of reconciliation with SSI. SSI typically comes up. It typically under reports the upper Midwest states early on where we have strength, typically because of brands like our Lund brand, which is very strong in the upper Midwest. So, there is a process of just reconciliation because of partial reporting. I do get a sense, though, that since we have a broad range of brands that participate in pretty much every sector that we should be, our performance is probably representative of a generally improving market.
Ryan M. Gwillim
And I would say in some of our premium areas, including Lund, James, we are probably taking a little share as well. So you may see the end of the year where the industry, we may outperform the industry by a point or two in certain places where share continues to be good for us.
James Hardiman
Got it. And then just the inventory question. Seems like you guys are encouraged with where you are. How do we think about sort of the wholesale to retail ratio into 2026? A lot of other industry participants not only talking about maybe weaker trends, retail trends than what we’re hearing today, but elevated retail levels. How do you think about that heading into next year?
David M. Foulkes
Yeah, James, I mean, we have the benefit of having our joint venture with Wells Fargo, our VAC venture, and we get to see a lot of good inventory data. And we’re seeing pretty much what we’re reporting, which is people being thoughtful about inventory levels not increasing and certainly as Brunswick inventory is about as Low as it’s been in any non COVID year since the GFC. So we’re going to end the year somewhere about 18,000 global units and probably below 12,000 in the US and again that is when you look at kind of on a per rooftop basis that is about as low as we’d want to be to make sure we have representative samples of our products in the places we need to sell retail.
So, we’re really comfortable with our own inventory and frankly I’m not seeing any heavy pockets outside of ours either.
Ryan M. Gwillim
Yeah, inventory freshness continues to be really good more than 80% of our inventory is less than a year old, which is very fresh and healthy level. And just on the outboard engine side, we are — we have been under shipping retail for a long time now and feel like our outbound pipelines are in extremely good shape.
James Hardiman
That’s helpful. Thanks Dave. Thanks Ryan.
David M. Foulkes
Thanks, James.
Operator
Our next question is from the line of Craig Kennison with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.
Craig Kennison
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions as well. I just wanted to unpack the impact of US tariffs on your competitors in Japan, especially on your engine franchise, of course. Have those competitors attempted to offset those tariffs with price increases and have you heard from any boat OEMs that are interested in sourcing engines domestically?
David M. Foulkes
Yeah, I think yes to both. Yeah, we are beginning to hear about some price increases, but, we hear these things secondhand at the moment. So I think that’s the developing situation. We’ll probably hear more if anybody intends to implement pricing at the beginning of next year, any of our competitors, then we’ll likely hear about it in some way over the next few weeks or certainly a month. I think, probably with the challenge to the IPA tariffs in at the Supreme Court at the moment, there may be some of our competitors kind of waiting to see what happens with that.
I’m not really sure before implementing pricing. But yeah, we continue to gain share and convert OEMs. In fact, probably in the last six months we converted to European OEMs. So yeah, I think Mercury continues to have very strong momentum, I would say that the Mercury product pipeline is continuing to churn and there are going to be some really exciting new and very differentiated products coming out for Mercury over the next couple of years, which will only drive forward that momentum. We really are moving very quickly on Mercury product development just as we have in the past.
I do think as well, maybe we’ll talk about things like AutoCaptain later though. But that feature set, which is genuinely innovative and adds a lot of value is only available with Mercury propulsion. So, we have not just on the propulsion side but also on the integrated system side. There are a lot of reasons to suggests that we should be converting more OEMs over time.
Craig Kennison
Yeah, thanks Dave. And Ryan, you mentioned cash flow and. other benefits from the new tax policy. I’m just wondering if you can help us frame or quantify some of those key drivers a little better.
David M. Foulkes
Yeah, I mean Craig, we have a lot of optionality under the new bill obviously in terms of bonus depreciation and some other things. And it’s a bit of a P&L vs cash flow analysis that you have to take a look at as to when you take some of the, when you take some of the goodness. I think for the end of the year, obviously you’ve seen our free cash flow guidance this year. It’s extremely strong. It’s guiding to the top what two or three years ever in Brunswick’s history at three, at 450 plus, next year you saw — you’ve seen in our deck that 125% free cash flow conversion would imply that we’re getting some of that goodness next year but we also have some headwinds that go along with that.
So, we’ll see how we get there, I think we’re not making any distinct decisions right now on, how we’re going to attack some of the benefits in the bill benefit will depend on how we finish the year and the cash needs early in 2026 but it’s clear that our ability to generate cash and to generate working capital has become a strength that really differentiates us really from any other company in our space.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Anna Glaessgen with B. Riley. Please proceed with your questions.
Anna Glassigen
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking your questions. I’d like to turn to Navico shifting gears a little bit. Nice to see the top line inflection during the quarter. Understand operating earnings were impacted by tariffs and the variable comp, but could you confirm that excluding those items you would have seen margin expansion and if so should we start to see more expansion as we roll over those or as we lap those headwinds towards mid next year? Thanks.
David M. Foulkes
Yes. Hi Anna. Good morning, yes, I can confirm that absent solely tariffs and variable comp reset, the Navico’s margins would have been up in the quarter.
Anna Glassigen
Got it.
Ryan M. Gwillim
Yeah. And on the broad.
Anna Glassigen
Go ahead. No, you go ahead.
Ryan M. Gwillim
I Just thought you would say that. You go, Anna.
Anna Glassigen
I was going to skip to the next question, so if you want to stay on this topic, please.
Ryan M. Gwillim
Yeah, I just, I wanted to say that we don’t talk very much in these calls about technology, but over the last three years, we’ve invested a lot, if you look at the Navico, I mean, we have the strongest gross margins in our business, in the low 30s gross margin across the portfolio but we’re spending a lot on new product development. We just introduced AutoCaptain, which took us 3.5 years to develop we introduced Fathom recently, we introduced a new connected platform that I just discussed, none of our competitors have anything like that out there at the moment.
So our path here is to basically do what we did with Mercury, which is to invest in differentiated innovation in a way that other people can follow or match. And it does take investment up front, but we will begin to see the benefits of that as we move forward. So I just wanted to add that context.
Anna Glassigen
Got it. Thanks, Dave. Turning to boat units, maybe asking the question in a different way, we’ve seen pretty notable outperformance year-to-date industry running down the high single digits, you guys putting up a flat 3Q, maybe expand upon the degree to which that outperformance is being driven by market share gains and how we should expect you guys versus the market in 2026 and what’s embedded in that guidance? Thanks.
Ryan M. Gwillim
Sure. I’ll take this, Anna. Yeah, I think there’s some share in there. I do think that as Dave mentioned earlier, as the end of the year comes, you’ll see SSI probably get closer to where we think the end of the year will be, which is kind of down mid-single digits, but with us probably outperforming a bit in premium and in core, as we look to next year, I don’t know if we believe any of those trends are changing. Our pipelines in all three of our segments are down. So premium, core and value pipelines are all down year-over-year, as we enter 2026 with good fresh inventory ready for the winter boat show season.
I do think you could see some goodness on the value side, should we get a little interest rate help here in November to October ’29, December and February. So, we have an opportunity for three rate reductions here, really before the key part of the season that could help value but our premium customer continues to be very strong and I think certainly looking forward to a Fort Lauderdale Boat Show next week where we anticipate a really nice show where our premium buyer should be out and looking to get a boat for the end of the year.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jian Xu with BMP Baribas. Please proceed with your question.
Jian Xu
Hi, thanks for the question. Can you think about next year? I was wondering if you’d expand a bit more about propulsion. I think you kind of mentioned it like, a bit of a destocking. So I’m just kind of curious how much do you think that could be a benefit? And how do we think about market share growth for Mercury over the next year?
David M. Foulkes
Yeah, I think a steady trajectory on market share growth. I think we are just seeing really we introduced the new 350 and 425 horsepower engines only in or July, August I think something like that. So, if you think about that, usually people incorporate those things in at a model year changeover. So, we would expect the some tailwinds from those new products coming through into next year and continued steady gains. We talked quite a bit obviously about US market share which is in the quarter was very close to 50% but the reality is the momentum for Mercury continues in pretty much all its markets.
We’ve had a really strong year in Asia, a strong year in South America, strong year in Europe. So, we would continue to think about Mercury on a global basis increasing share. And maybe Jian, let me just order of magnitude some of these pipeline numbers for engines, these are US numbers which is where we have the best information. But versus the first day of 2024, so a two year stack by the end of this year, under 175 horsepower pipeline is going to be down about 25% and if you go same time period, over 175 horsepower, our pipeline is going to be down 33% since December — January 1st of 2024. So, we’ve put ourselves in a really nice position with our dealers and our OEM to capture the upside on growth should the market rebound like we believe it will.
Jian Xu
Yeah, that’s super helpful. And maybe just on the 4Q guidance, I think it seems to imply a bit of a big nice recovery on margins for boats. At the same time I think the revenue implies not too much, maybe mid-single digit growth. So, I’m just trying to understand, I guess how are we thinking about boat margins, the evolution in 4Q and then maybe beyond?
David M. Foulkes
Yeah, I think a bit of Q3, remember is always saddled with some of the summer shutdowns and fewer production days and so that often means Q3 is kind of the lowest margin quarter of the year, they’re going to be producing kind of at a normal rate here in fourth quarter and if you remember versus Q4 of last year where they were really taking production days out to ensure pipeline didn’t inflate before the year, this year they’re simply just at a more steady state. So those are the two main drivers.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator Instructions] That next question comes from the line of Matthew Boss, JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question, sir.
Amanda Douglas
Great, thanks. It’s Amanda Douglas on for Matt. So, Dave, following the actions that you’ve taken to streamline the value boat segment, do you see the model lineup into 2026 as right size today or are there any further changes required ahead? And how would you assess dealer inventory levels across value and premium segments as we look ahead to the 2026 season?
David M. Foulkes
Thank you for the question. Yeah, I think the focus on value and kind of scaling back of the model lineup, I think we’ll obviously evaluate through the balance of this season and early next season to see if we should take any additional actions. I think we still have a very comprehensive portfolio, but given volumes in that segment, we had too much complexity and we need to take that down. I think we’ll be very dynamic about it. I don’t foresee a substantial additional change at the moment. We’ve introduced new products, including the award winning C21 from Bayliner this year, which is going to help us a lot, helps us focus our product development efforts to make sure that the model lineup that we do have is fresh.
But of course we could trim and make adjustments as we go forward, I don’t see the same level of rationalization that I saw for this model year, though. And then in terms of inventory levels, I think we’re healthy everywhere. Typically, our premium inventory levels in terms of weeks on hand are lower than our kind of value. Typically, our premium inventory levels in terms of weeks on hand will be in the typically mid-20s somewhere and that’s exactly where we are right now. So, I really feel like our inventories are right sized across all of our segments and I believe that we’re extremely well positioned for 2026.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is in the line of Jamie Katz of Morningstar. Please proceed with your question.
Jamie Katz
Hey, good morning, guys. I just wanted to go back to Navico. I think in the prepared remarks it was noted that there was more work to do and you guys have done a ton of work already, so maybe can you elaborate if there’s been maybe some new issues found that need to be remedied and then what does the roadmap look like to a steady state in that segment? Thanks.
David M. Foulkes
No, thank you for the question. Yeah, there are no new issues. There’s just always more work to do and we try to make sure that we prioritize our actions and make sure that, we do the biggest, most impactful things as far as we can first, but there’s a continued march forward in all aspects of the business. If you think about the fact that Navico Group is not just Navico, Navico that we acquired in 2021 was about half the business and still is about half the business. It really is the product of a lot of acquisitions over time.
And so we’re continuing to make sure that operationally, those previous acquisitions are all now working together on the same IT platforms for example, making sure that we don’t have excess distribution, we consolidate distribution, that we have the same systems, that we can manage our SIOP processes. So, yeah, this is really a multi year effort to kind of wring the last bit of operational efficiency out of the business. And we’ve done a lot of work, but we have more to go. There’s still a good roadmap there of work that will help our operating margins, help revenue growth, and to be honest, free up some more cash.
Because I think there are more turns in that business than that we have right now, inventory turns in that business than we have right now. So, the roadmap includes all of those things and it’s very detailed, Aine Denari, who runs that business now, is a very detailed and strong operator who is working extremely systematically through all of the aspects of the business, all of the processes, all of the systems, and making sure that we continue to progress forward. So, a lot of heavy lifting done, particularly on the product development side, it just takes a while to get that flywheel turning.
But now it really is turning with a lot of differentiated product, we have rationalized quite a few facilities even I think earlier this year we moved European distribution to a 3PL. Those kind of actions individually might not move the needle, but collectively can be multiple points of operating margin expansion. So, yeah, we’re not in any way complacent on Navico now. It’s great to see the business stabilized, but there is such a lot of potential in that business, we are anxious to make sure we move it even further forward.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Joseph Altobello with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Joe Altobello
Thanks. Hey guys, good morning. Just wanted to give some more clarification on 2026 and the initial outlook here. So, obviously as you mentioned, you guys have been under shipping demand significantly on the on the edge side and I think a little bit on the boat side as well. But as we think about the mid-to-high single digit potential revenue growth for next year, how much of that is simply lapping that destock, if you will, and how much of that is actually potentially coming from a restock?
David M. Foulkes
Hey Joe, I’ll go ahead and take this one. Yeah, maybe there’s a little bit in the first part of the year that is lapping a bit of a slower Q1, maybe half a Q2, but really it’s going to be a combination of a little bit of market, not much relying on the market, maybe a point or two, some pricing throughout the various business units, some share gains which continue not only at Mercury but in the boat business and as Navico Group takes back share in some of their product lines and also probably a bit of a betterment in discounting, right? The discounting environment we’ve already seen come down here in the back half of the year and we intend that likely that will continue with P&A obviously being very stable part of the business that continues to trolley along.
So, you can get yourself depending on what you assume there from mid to high pretty easily but I would say the lapping of destocking is probably a small part and really just a kind of first quarter, maybe first four or five months phenomenon.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Please proceed with your questions.
Joseph Nolan
Hey, good morning, this is Joe Nolan on for David, you talked about the plant consolidation inefficiencies during the transition. Just wondering if you could talk about the fourth quarter impact and maybe give a sense of what the net impact might be for 2026 from that.
David M. Foulkes
Yeah. So fourth quarter we’re probably talking about a couple of million. That’s right. Yeah. Just checking with Ryan here to make sure I give you the right, a couple of million, essentially we’ll be operating four facilities and at least two at lower efficiency and productivity as we as we begin to exit them and we move towards fully consolidated by hopefully a little bit earlier than the middle of 2026. So, by the time we get the transition completed, we’ll begin to see that kind of annualized run rate saving of $10 million ish plus. So overall I would say through next year we’ll see net positive, but it won’t be the full $10 million of run rate savings.
There are some elements of this transition that we can take X items and some like just running at lower efficiency that we can and a little bit of a drag in the short-term, but the price in the long-term is well worth it. That $10 million or so run rate is just that current production rates, the benefit increases substantially as we move to higher production volumes. So we’re anxious to get it done as fast as we can. We’re very appreciative of the work of all the people who are transitioning and those who are working to help us with the transition. And yeah, we’ll be a much leaner production organization when we finish with a lot of benefits to the entire book group.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is in the line of Tristan Thomas with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Tristan Thomas
Hey, good morning. I just wanted to look maybe a little bit past next year and just maybe get an update on how you guys are thinking about normalized boat industry retail demand and kind of how long and what’s needed to get us there? Thanks.
David M. Foulkes
Normalized industry. Yeah, when we think about the kind of normalized in a number of different ways, I would say we had a year this year that was heavily disrupted by the second quarter which was unexpected as you know, prior to those announcements I think otherwise we would probably have had a year that was probably flattish. I’m not really sure Q1 was a drag. I would say that elevated interest rates have been a headwind in the past several years versus where we were before COVID when retail loan rates are in the 4% to 5% ish and we’re currently in 7.5% to 8% range.
So, that is a headwind that has been present for the last couple of years and then we frequently also refer to replacement rates in our — if you look at the boat park or the number of registered boats out there that are relevant to the product lines that we produce, it’s in the kind of 7 million range. And if you look at a typical boat life it implies annual replacements in the 200,000 to 250,000 range, which is obviously well above the 130,000 to 135,000 we’re at the moment. So I would say a number of factors suggest that we will that there should be macro factors that increase the boat sales over time and that’s what we’re anticipating.
But we’re obviously hesitant to bake all of those things into our near term forecast. So we think flat to slightly up is a prudent forecast at this point in time for next year.
Operator
Thank you. Our final question today is from the line of Noah Zatzkin with Keybanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Noah Zatzkin
Hi, thanks for taking my question. Maybe on the tariff front, I think. The expectation ticked up a little bit to $75 million for this year. So just maybe any updates on how mitigation is going and then any early, thoughts on the expected impact embedded in, kind of the initial thoughts around ’26? Would be helpful. Thank you.
David M. Foulkes
Sure. Noah, thanks. Good question. Yeah, listen, the real change from our July call to today was the 232 impacts on aluminum and steel, really three parts. The rate went from 25% to 50%. The list of applicable HTS codes expanded significantly which really now involves us looking at any metal contact that’s contained in parts or goods that are coming in, and I think most people know it was applied retroactively meaning it applied to inventory sitting in free trade zones or other bonded warehouses, if you would. So that was really the only change from the guidance.
And in fact I would say that our mitigation efforts are continue to outpace our expectations. We continue to do better than we thought kind of month in and month out. And so that is good and that gives us good visibility into next year. It’s a bit hard to say exactly what the impact is next year. I do think the incremental over this year would be much smaller than the incremental from ’24 to ’25 and certainly as we continue to get smarter on mitigation techniques, we will continue to work that number down. So yeah, we’re actually pretty happy that we’re able to hold EPS for the year. Obviously it’s an extra about $10 million of tariff impact that we didn’t anticipate and that we’re going to go ahead and cover and we believe we can cover in the quarter and look forward to then moving over to ’26.
Operator
Thank you. At this time we would like to turn the call back to Dave for some concluding remarks.
David M. Foulkes
Thanks for your questions, everyone. Great questions. I think in a lot of ways this was a very encouraging quarter. We have improving retail revenue up across all our businesses, very solid earnings and continued exceptional free cash flow generation. We do, as a team, I think this just seemed like a bit of an inflection point, there’s definitely a more, a positive shift in momentum at the moment. We continue to take bold structural cost reduction actions though and continue to do that which will benefit our earnings in ’26 independent of the market. Our major brands and businesses are beating the market.
We continue to invest a lot in very well received and award winning new products across the portfolio. AutoCaptain was a notable highlight though really the first fully integrated autonomous boating system in the marketplace. A real differentiator along with a number of other platforms that we’ve recently launched in a way that I think only Brunswick can produce. So it’s very exciting, so, as we’ve said, while many things about 2026 are unknowable, I think late 2025 retail trends, very lean pipelines for the interest rate cuts all suggest the opportunity for top line growth and through our strong operating leverage, meaningful margin and EPS re-expansion.
All right, thank you everyone very much. Have a great day.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks].