Since being hit by the Great Recession, Brunswick Corp. has been getting back on its feet, due not to its higher-end offerings, but to its line of pontoons. Sales of its pontoons, which range anywhere from $15,000 to $70,000, are back to where they were before the recession. Other products in their line, like aluminum fishing boats, aren't far behind. They're doing well enough to expand the production of their high-end yachts, which can cost up to $3 million, even though sales overall aren't back to pre-recession levels.
Brunswick CEO Dustan McCoy says, "The market is in a very nice recovery. But it’s a recovery unlike anything we’ve seen before and it’s very uneven. The trick for us is making sure we’re participating well in the recovery. We are prepared to participate well in those [segments] that are recovering and we’re quite relaxed about that."
Brunswick's stock closed at $52.77 a share on July 17, which is close to its all-time high, and more than 25 times it's all-time low of $2.08 which it posted in 2008. As a company, they've had to downsize somewhat as well to make it through the transition. At the end of 2005 they employed some 27,500 people, but by the end of last year it had only 12,165.
“We made a bunch of very hard decisions,” McCoy says.
(H/T Trade Only Today)
