Doosan Bobcat

Doosan Bobcat Repays US$ 100 Million Ahead of Schedule, Following Repayment of US$ 250 Million Early in 2019

On August 2, 2019, Doosan Bobcat announced that it had repaid its debt of US$100 million in advance of the due payment date, the second early debt repayment in 2019 alone. After raising some US$1.7 billion through refinancing back in 2014, the company has since repaid US$920 million earlier than scheduled on a total of eight occasions thus far.
As a result, Doosan Bobcat's total debt has decreased by about 57% from US$1.7 billion in 2014 to US$730 million (as of the end of July 2019), with its debt ratio dropping from 105% at the end of 2014 to 68% at present.
Doosan Bobcat began expanding its investment in future growth engines in 2018. In June 2019, it announced its plans to increase its dividend per share for 2019 to 1,200 won. While enhancing new investments and shareholder returns, Doosan Bobcat continues improving its financial structure based on a stable cash flow.
“The latest early repayment is significant in that it shows that Doosan Bobcat has succeeded in strengthening its financial structure through efficient cash management while increasing investments and dividends based on its strong sales performance,” declared an official of Doosan Bobcat. “Based on our robust financial structure, we will expand our business portfolio not just in North America but also in emerging markets; and we will continue to improve our global product competitiveness as a way to lay the groundwork for sustainable growth in the future.”
Meanwhile, Doosan Bobcat has also made great strides in its cash management: On the basis of its high credit rating, the company has acquired a credit line* for the first time since its founding.
*Credit line: A credit line is an arrangement between a financial institution and a company by which the maximum loan amount the latter can borrow repeatedly from the former can be set at any time for a given period without providing any collateral.

2019-08-02

Doosan Bobcat Repays US$150 Million Early, Further Strengthening Its Financial Stability

On 20 July 2019, Doosan Bobcat announced that it had repaid US$150 million of debt before the due date, adding to the combined total of US$820 million paid ahead of schedule on seven occasions since 2014.
Doosan Bobcat's total borrowings fell by more than 50% from US$1.7 billion in 2014 to US$830 million as of June 2019, with its debt ratio estimated to fall by around 7.2% from 80.1% by the end of March 2019. Net income is also expected to increase on lower interest expenses.
Doosan Bobcat continues to generate a stable cash flow on the back of sales increases in the North American market, in particular, combined with its efficient cash management efforts. With the resources, Doosan Bobcat has expanded its investments aimed at securing future growth engines since 2018; and earlier this month the company announced that it would be paying 1,200 won per share as the dividend for the fiscal year of 2019, representing a 33% increase over the 900-won share price of a year earlier, further enhancing the company’s shareholder return policy.
“Despite our increased investments in new businesses to secure future growth, and our larger shareholder dividends, we were able to execute our latest early repayment based on our confidence in the prospect of a stable cash flow,” said an official of Doosan Bobcat. "Based on our stronger financial structure, we will continue to expand the investments required to strengthen our business portfolio, including compact tractors for North America and backhoe loaders for India, and to consolidate our market leadership in the global compact equipment market.”

2019-06-20

Doosan Bobcat Holds Southeast Asia Dealer Conference

Doosan Bobcat Asia & LA recently held the second Bobcat Dealer Conference in Seoul from May 8-10, 2019. The event was attended by more than fifty people including representatives of the company’s dealers in eleven Southeast countries including Indonesia and Thailand, as well as executives and managers from Doosan Bobcat.
During the three-day program, Doosan Bobcat Asia and the LA Team strengthened the company’s partnerships with its channel partners by sharing the key performance achievements in 2018 and this year’s strategic direction with the aim of boosting MEX sales.
Southeast Asia’s mini excavator market has grown rapidly over the past ten years to more than 5,000 units at present. As such, Doosan Bobcat plans to sell more than 1,000 mini excavators per year in Southeast Asia within five years by enhancing the competitiveness of its sales channels and launching new products customized for the region.



During the conference, Doosan Bobcat shared its mid-to-long term strategies for expanding its presence in the Southeast Asian market with the dealers and discussed ways of improving its parts and service support and enhancing their sales competitiveness in the market. This was followed by a session in which a successful financing case achieved through Doosan Bobcat’s financing program was introduced, and dealers with outstanding sales records presented their successful sales stories. Additionally, the representatives of IPW from Indonesia, Leadway from Thailand, and Gelec from Hong Kong shared their stories about boosting MEX sales. At the end of the session, the dealers had an opportunity to discuss ways of applying the success cases to their respective areas.

The official dinner began with the screening of a video produced by Bobcat. The Bobcat video emphasizes that the drive to boost MEX sales in Southeast Asia is one of the company’s major strategic tasks and that Bobcat is offering various forms of support to its overseas dealers.
During the dinner, awards were presented to dealers from Indonesia (IPW), Taiwan (TMEC) and Hong Kong (Gelec) in recognition of their excellent performance in 2018 in terms of key performance indicators (KPIs). Most notably, the Hong Kong dealer (Gelec) won the “Dealer of the Year” award for posting the biggest increase in market shares among all the companies’ dealers in Asia, Latin America and Oceania, by achieving impressive increases of 3 percent and 9 percent over the previous year in the SSL and MEX markets, respectively, with current market shares standing at 92 percent and 67 percent.
Leslie Mak, the Hong Kong dealer, said that he would do his best to win the award again in 2019. At the end of the official dinner, the overseas dealers pledged to do their utmost to increase the sales of MRX. They reported that the conference was a valuable opportunity to discuss and communicate with other regional dealers. Taeick Kim, SEA/Japan Part Leader, said that it was very meaningful in the sense that the conference helped to establish common goals and confirmed the exceptional passion of the dealers in the region.


The Dealer of the Year Award. From left to right, HW Park, Executive Vice President Doosan Bobcat Asia & Latin America; Leslie Mak, Division Manager Gelec Hong Kong; Benito Wong, Assistant Sales Manager Gelec Hong Kong; Soyeun Park, General Deputy Manager Doosan Bobcat SEA/Japan Part; Taeick Kim, Part Leader Doosan Bobcat SEA/Japan Part

2019-05-01

North American Bobcat Dealer Meeting has been REIMAGINED

This year’s North American Bobcat Dealer Meeting will be held Feb. 25-28 in Orlando, Fla. The event, which takes place every three years, is boasting the theme “REIMAGINE,” which will be incorporated throughout the event’s key messaging. The three-day event has an expected attendance of 648 dealers and key objectives to inspire, pivot and advance the dealer channel. More than 180 Doosan Bobcat employees are also involved in the big event.

“The meeting is a great way to connect with our dealers and share our business strategy as well as advance the commercial strategy," said Brianne Hill, Dealer Communication Manager. “We look forward to generating enthusiasm about the future of the Bobcat brand and the compact equipment industry.”


REIMAGINE Bobcat
Throughout the course of the meeting, dealers will hear from external speakers who are experts in their field. The keynote speaker topics include enhancing the customer experience, using data analytics, better business management and how to prepare for a future that is rapidly approaching.
Doosan Bobcat North America executives will also take time to lay out the company’s business strategy and introduce a wide variety of innovative new products and services that will be launched over the next two to three years.


Bobcat Expo
When they aren’t listening to industry experts or Bobcat executives, dealers will have a chance to learn the specifics of how they can reimagine their businesses by hearing directly from Bobcat employees at the Bobcat Expo. Bobcat staff will be available to discuss the topics that are most important to dealers, like dealer marketing, facility branding and merchandise, product design and development, financial services, Dealer Performance Review and more. Dealers will also attend four Bob-Talks, which are 18-minute TED Talk-style presentations covering sales, attachments, rental and parts and service.
“We set out to create a very different dealer meeting experience than what we’ve done in the past,” said Laura Ness Owens, Vice President of Marketing. “We recognized that we had a unique opportunity to bring our dealers together at a time when the compact equipment industry – and the world in general – is rapidly changing. Our goal is to use this meeting as a chance to join together with our dealers and boldly reimagine the future of the compact equipment industry.”

2019-02-01

Doosan Bobcat Holds Dealer Conference in India

Doosan Bobcat India Pvt. Ltd. (‘DBIN’) conducted the first Bobcat Dealer Conference at Chennai, Jan. 23-25, 2019. It was attended by more than 90 participants from 23 dealers from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and our management team with Area Sales & Service Managers. During the three-day program, DBIN strengthened the Partnership with channel partners by sharing key achievements in 2018 performance and this year’s strategic direction and BHL launch plan.

The three-day program started off with a visit to our new BHL Factory at Gummudipoondi. HW Park, Executive Vice President Doosan Bobcat Asia & Latin America and BS Ahn, Vice President of DBIN Operations were present. A tour of the state-of-art factory and production line of Backhoe Loader was given by Praveen Kumar B, head of manufacturing. The product demonstration of SSL, MEX was done by Sinto John and commentary by Arun Joshua. The BHL demonstration and commentary was by Pushparaj G.



The second day program started with a video welcome message by Scott Park, CEO & President of Doosan Bobcat. He highlighted India being one of the major focus countries for Bobcat business and how our channel partners are crucial to the strategic success and growth. In the morning session, the focus was to share about Doosan Bobcat Global Vision & Strategy in terms of Product and Geographic diversification by Mr. Daewang Kim. It also included, the DBIN Growth Strategy to become the market leader in Indian Compact construction equipment industry with product bundling, stronger channel network, and supportive commercial packages by Mr. HS Kim. DBIN introduced the progress of Bobcat BHL product development & BHL Commercial & Aftermarket launching plan.



The afternoon session started with Gaby Rhayem, MEA Director, presenting the successful launch of Bobcat BHL in Middle East Africa and the various initiatives, marketing activities, and strong channel network presented. His presentation was followed by Samir Bansal’s Off-Highways Research presentation on the Indian Compact Market Potential and Growth. From the dealer side, Marwell Enconn presented the success story of becoming a sustainable Compact dealer through sales, AM/PS, rental, buyback, refurbished used machinery sales, annual O&M contract with Government and Corporate, SSL operator training school and more.
At the closing session, HW Park, Executive Vice President Asia & Latin America, emphasized how the introduction of BHL will play an important role in India business success. He asked for their continued collaboration, passion and dedication from channel partners to become the number one company in Compact products in India.



During the conference, HS Kim, Director of DBIN Commercials, said, “We took this opportunity to highlight to our channel partners about Doosan Bobcat’s commitment to India region and our full support for successful BHL launch in this year with our reliable product.”
After the conference Mr. Prabodh Ahuja, HTE Engineers from Indore of Madhya Pradesh, stated, “The whole dealer conference program has been designed and put together with a clear idea of helping us understand the approach of Doosan Bobcat for India market. After the walk-around of factory, followed by a spectacular demonstration of BHL proto machines, I was convinced about the quality of product as well. Later during conference session after hearing about Bobcat’s strategy and commercial launch plan with respect to BHL, it leaves me without a doubt about the strong intent of Bobcat to become the Leader of Compact segment in India. Now it has become clear that we as Bobcat Channel Partners need to think the same direction to that growth and start putting our focus in place to achieve the goal together.”
During the Gala Dinner Mr. Sanjay Singhania of Gauri Enterprises, our dealer in Pune, Maharashtra, said, “It is always a good feeling to be pleasantly surprised. I have dealerships for other construction equipment brands and visited several abroad manufacturing facilities, one of the examples like Atlas Copco facility in Germany and was impressed with their amazing state of the art factory. Today after visiting Bobcat facility in Chennai, I have the same feeling. It makes me proud that Bobcat has created this amazing facility in our own India. With the kind of emphasize on quality of the process explained during the factory tour, I am absolutely confident of the quality of the BHL product and its success in the market”
The last day was one-on-one interaction with the Channel Partners accompanying DBIN management and Area Managers on the annual business KPIs and Strategic Initiatives for the year of 2019.
The combined and dedicated effort from all the departments at Doosan Bobcat India made this conference a huge success.

2019-01-01