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New Brutus ‘leverages Polaris’ strength,’ analyst says

The new line of Brutus commercial diesel utility vehicles co-developed by Polaris and Bobcat “leverages Polaris’ strength in utility vehicle engineering/manufacturing and Bobcat’s expertise in work vehicle technology/attachments,” according to a research note provided to Powersports Business by Wells Fargo Securities analyst Tim Conder.

With the following MSRPs — $15,199 (Brutus), $17,999 (Brutus HD) and $23,999 (Brutus HDPTO) — the Brutus lineup “is focused on the estimated 20 percent of the 350,000-375,000 unit SxS market comprised of commercial use diesel products currently dominated by Kubota,” Conder reports. “Given that the Bobcat dealer channel had bled down existing inventories ahead of this launch and Polaris dealer dealers’ limited availability of one diesel Ranger sku, we believe Q2 2013 will benefit from initial channel fill of Brutus product.”

Conder continues to rank Polaris stock as “outperform.”

“While we are not dismissing incremental Sxs skus from Can-Am, Arctic Cat and (to be seen) Japanese competitors in summer 2013 (MY 14), we believe investors are losing perspective of the following (1) Arctic Cat and Can-Am each have 5 skus or less in SxS vs. [about] 30 for PII (including Brutus), (2) even if Japanese competitors come with material incremental new SxS and ATV product for MY 14 (after a lack of innovation for the last 4 years) we believe it at most will be 3-4 skus, (3) PII is not standing still on innovation, and (4) PIIs shift from 6- to 4-week delivery cycles on SxS products (vs. 10-13 weeks for competitors) should be a significant advantage for PII to help dealers drive ROIC [return on invested capital].”

To read more about the Brutus, click here.

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