Brunswick (BC) Risk Factors

We intend to continue to expand our international operations and customer base as part of our growth strategy. Sales outside the United States, especially in emerging markets, are subject to various risks, including government embargoes or foreign trade restrictions, foreign currency effects, tariffs, customs duties, inflation, difficulties in enforcing agreements and collecting receivables through foreign legal systems, compliance with international laws, treaties, and regulations, changes in regulatory environments, disruptions in distribution, dependence on foreign personnel and unions, economic and social instability, and public health crises. In addition, there may be tax inefficiencies in repatriating cash from non-U.S. subsidiaries, or changes to tax laws that affect cash repatriation. Instability, including, but not limited to, political events, civil unrest, and an increase in criminal activity in locations where we maintain a significant presence could adversely impact our manufacturing and business operations. Decreased stability poses a risk of business interruption and delays in shipments of materials, components, and finished goods, as well as a risk of decreased local retail demand for our products. In addition, political and economic uncertainty and shifts pose risks of volatility in other global markets, which could affect our operations and financial results. Changes in U.S. policy regarding foreign trade or manufacturing may create negative sentiment about the U.S. among non-U.S. customers, employees, or prospective employees, which could adversely affect our business, sales, hiring, and employee retention. If we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these and other risks, which could materially impact international operations or the business as a whole.

Over the past several years, we have made strategic capital investments in capacity expansion activities to successfully capture growth opportunities and enhance product offerings, including expansions at our Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and Ensenada, Mexico facilities. We also continue to implement manufacturing efficiency enhancements that are important to our success. Conversely, we may make decisions to decrease production at existing facilities or reduce our manufacturing footprint in accordance with our business strategy. We must carefully manage these capital improvement projects, expansions, efficiency enhancements, and any consolidation or decrease in capacity utilization to ensure the projects meet cost targets, comply with applicable environmental, safety, and other regulations, uphold high-quality workmanship, and meet our business goals. Moving production to a different plant, expanding capacity at an existing facility, and decreasing or ceasing production at a facility involves risks, including difficulties initiating production within the cost and timeframe estimated, supplying product to customers when expected, integrating new products, and attracting and retaining skilled workers. If we fail to meet these objectives, it could adversely affect our ability to meet customer demand for products and increase the cost of production versus projections, both of which could result in a significant adverse impact on operating and financial results. Additionally, plant consolidation or expansion can result in manufacturing inefficiencies, additional expenses, including higher wages or severance costs, and cost inefficiencies, which could negatively impact financial results.

The talents and efforts of our employees, particularly key managers, are vital to our success. Our management team has significant industry experience and would be difficult to replace. We may be unable to retain them or to attract other highly qualified employees. Failure to hire, develop, and retain highly qualified and diverse employee talent and to develop and implement an adequate succession plan for the management team could disrupt our operations and adversely affect our business and our future success. We perform an annual review of management succession plans with the Board of Directors, including reviewing executive officer and other important positions to substantially mitigate the risk associated with key contributor transitions, but we cannot ensure that all transitions will be implemented successfully. Our ability to continue to execute our growth strategy could potentially be adversely affected by the effectiveness of organizational changes. Any disruption or uncertainty resulting from such changes could have a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Much of our future success depends on, among other factors, our ability to attract and retain skilled labor. If we are not successful in these efforts, we may be unable to meet our operating goals and plans, which may impact our financial results. We continually invest in automation and improve our efficiency, but availability and retention of skilled hourly workers remains critical to our operations. In order to manage this risk, we regularly monitor and make improvements to wages and benefit programs, as well as develop and improve recruiting, training, and safety programs to attract and retain an experienced and skilled workforce.

The introduction of lower-priced alternative products or services by other companies can hurt our competitive position in all of our businesses. We are constantly subject to competitive pressures in which predominantly international manufacturers may pursue a strategy of aggressive pricing, particularly during periods when their local currency weakens versus the U.S. dollar. Such pricing pressure may limit our ability to increase prices for our products in response to raw material and other cost increases and negatively affect our profit margins. In addition, our independent boat builder customers may react negatively to potential competition for their products from Brunswick's own boat brands, which can lead them to purchase marine engines, boat systems, parts and accessories, and marine engine supplies from competing manufacturers and may negatively affect demand for our products.

Our dealers require adequate liquidity to finance their operations, including purchasing our products. Dealers are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could unfavorably affect their liquidity positions, including, among other things, continued access to adequate financing sources on a timely basis on reasonable terms. These financing sources are vital to our ability to sell products through our distribution network, particularly to boat and engine dealers. Entities affiliated with Wells Fargo & Company, including BAC, our 49 percent owned joint venture, finance a significant portion of our boat and engine sales to dealers through floor plan financing to marine dealers. Many factors continue to influence the availability and terms of financing that our dealer floor plan financing providers offer, including: - their ability to access certain capital markets, such as the securitization and the commercial paper markets, and to fund their operations in a cost effective manner;- the performance of their overall credit portfolios;- their willingness to accept the risks associated with lending to marine dealers;- the overall creditworthiness of those dealers; and - the overall aging and level of pipeline inventories. Our sales could be adversely affected if financing terms change unfavorably or if BAC were to be terminated. This could require dealers to find alternative sources of financing, including our direct financing to dealers, which could require additional capital to fund the associated receivables.

We believe that our brands, particularly including Mercury Marine, Boston Whaler, Lund, and Sea Ray, significantly contribute to our success, and that maintaining and enhancing these brands is important to expanding our customer base. A failure to adequately promote, protect, and strengthen our brands could adversely affect our business and results of operations. Further, in connection with the divestiture of the bowling and billiards businesses, we licensed certain trademarks and servicemarks, including use of the name "Brunswick," to the acquiring companies. Our reputation may be adversely affected by the purchasers' inappropriate use of the marks or of the name Brunswick, including potential negative publicity, loss of confidence, or other damage to our image due to this licensed use.

Our manufacturing operations and the products we produce could result in product quality, warranty, personal injury, property damage, and other issues, thereby increasing the risk of litigation and potential liability as well as regulatory fines. To manage this risk, we have established a global, enterprise-wide program charged with the responsibility for reviewing, addressing, and reporting on product integrity issues. Historically, the resolution of such claims has not had a materially adverse effect on our business, and we maintain what we believe to be adequate insurance coverage to mitigate a portion of these risks. However, we may experience material losses in the future, incur significant costs to defend claims or issue product recalls, experience claims in excess of our insurance coverage or that are not covered by insurance, or be subjected to fines or penalties. Our reputation may be adversely affected by such claims, whether or not successful, including potential negative publicity about our products. We record accruals for known potential liabilities, but there is the possibility that actual losses may exceed these accruals and therefore negatively impact earnings.

Our provision for income taxes and cash tax liability may be adversely impacted by changes in tax laws and interpretations in the U.S. or in other countries in which we operate. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) included various tax provisions, including a 15% minimum tax on global adjusted financial statement income. While we do not believe the IRA will have a material negative impact on our business, it is possible that future interpretations or additional tax law changes could have a material impact on the Company's tax rate. In addition, many non-U.S. jurisdictions are implementing local legislation based upon the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's base erosion and profit shifting project. These changes could negatively impact our tax provision, cash flows, and/or tax-related balance sheet amounts, including our deferred tax asset values, and increase the complexity, burden, and cost of tax compliance.

We believe that our customers look for and expect quality, innovation, and advanced features when evaluating and making purchasing decisions about products and services in the marketplace. Our ability to remain competitive and meet our growth objectives may be adversely affected by difficulties or delays in product development, such as an inability to develop viable new products or customer solutions, gain market acceptance of new products, generate sufficient capital to fund new product development, or obtain adequate intellectual property protection for new products. To meet ever-changing consumer demands, timing of market entry, pricing of new products, and satisfying customers are all critical. As a result, we may not be able to introduce new products that are necessary to remain competitive in all markets that we serve. Furthermore, we must continue to meet or exceed customers' expectations regarding product quality, experiences, and after-sales service or our operating results could suffer.

We regard much of the technology underlying our products as proprietary. We rely on a combination of patents, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws; employee and third-party non-disclosure agreements; and other contracts to establish and protect our technology and other intellectual property rights. However, we remain subject to risks, including: - the steps we take to protect our proprietary technology may be inadequate to prevent misappropriation of our technology;- third parties may independently develop similar technology;- agreements containing protections may be breached or terminated;- we may not have adequate remedies for breaches;- existing patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws may afford limited protection;- a third party could copy or otherwise obtain and use our products or technology without authorization; or - we may be required to litigate to enforce our intellectual property rights, and we may not be successful. Policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult, particularly outside the U.S., and litigating intellectual property claims may result in substantial cost and divert management's attention. In addition, we may be required to defend our products against patent or other intellectual property infringement claims or litigation. Besides defense expenses and costs, we may not prevail in such cases, forcing us to seek licenses or royalty arrangements from third parties, which we may not be able to obtain on reasonable terms, or subjecting us to an order or requirement to stop manufacturing, using, selling, or distributing products that included challenged intellectual property, which could harm our business and financial results.

We manage our global business operations through a variety of information technology (IT) and operational technology systems which we continually enhance to increase efficiency and security. We depend on these systems for commercial transactions, customer interactions, manufacturing, branding, employee tracking, and other applications. Some of the systems are based on legacy technology and operate with a minimal level of available support, and recent acquisitions using other systems have added to the complexity of our IT infrastructure. New system implementations across the enterprise also pose risks of outages or disruptions, which could affect our suppliers, commercial operations, and customers. We continue to upgrade, streamline, and integrate these systems and have invested in strategies to prevent a failure or breach but, like those of other companies, our systems are susceptible to outages due to natural disasters, power loss, computer viruses, security breaches, hardware or software vulnerabilities, disruptions, and similar events. In June 2023, Brunswick disclosed an IT security incident that impacted some systems and global facilities. We activated our response protocols, which included pausing operations in some locations, engaging leading security experts and coordinating with relevant law enforcement agencies. Normal global business operations resumed over the course of nine days following the incident. However, if a similar event occurred, and if legacy systems or other key systems were to fail or if our IT systems were unable to communicate effectively, this could result in missed or delayed sales or lost opportunities for cost-reduction or efficient cash management. We exchange information with many trading partners across all aspects of our commercial operations through our IT systems. A breakdown, outage, malicious intrusion, breach, ransom attack, or other disruption of communications could result in erroneous or fraudulent transactions, disclosure of confidential information, loss of reputation and confidence, and may also result in legal claims or proceedings, penalties, and remediation costs. We have numerous e-commerce and e-marketing portals and our systems may contain personal information of customers or employees; therefore, we must continue to be diligent in protecting against malicious cyber attacks. We have been the target of attempted cyber attacks and other security threats and we may be subject to future breaches of our IT systems. We have programs in place that are intended to detect, contain, and respond to data security incidents and that provide at least annual employee awareness training regarding phishing, malware, and other cyber risks. However, because the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems change frequently and may be difficult to detect, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or implement adequate preventive measures. Moreover, the rapid evolution and increased adoption of artificial intelligence technologies may intensify our cybersecurity risks. If our security measures are breached or fail, unauthorized persons may be able to obtain access to or acquire personal or other confidential data. Depending on the nature of the information compromised, we may also have obligations to notify consumers and/or employees about the incident, and we may need to provide some form of remedy, such as a subscription to a credit monitoring service, for the individuals affected by the incident. For example, we provided certain affected individuals credit monitoring as a result of the June IT Security Incident. This or future events could negatively affect our relationships with customers or trading partners, lead to potential claims against us, and damage our image and reputation.