Permit me to disagree. For starters, the CEO has control over the direction a company takes has been clearly indicated by Zeitz crapping on Levitech's "More Roads..." movement by taking Harley in an unprofitable direction. In this case, the CEO lowered shareholder value by reducing total sales numbers.

Let's say tariffs increase the COGS by 25%. It's the CEO's job to provide direction the company needs to take to decreases the presumed losses of sales from passing those tariff increases onto customers. For starters, how do you go around the tariffs? Well, source more of your materials in the US. But now every piece of equipment you source here will be inherently more expensive simply because the cost of labor is much higher in the US than it is in all those tariff-afflicted countries... You see where this is going?

Regardless of what you may think, the CEO isn't some brainless NPC for the company. They're a hero if things go up, and a scapegoat if things don't. Also, it ain't checkers, it's chess.

 

That makes you perfect for the job!

 

You're right, I guess we should just stick with Zeitz. His "how" has served the company wonderfully and has made Harley investors rich, the company is powerful and gaining market share, and Zeitz has your and my best interests at heart.

/S

Now, back on earth, I say when you're in a hole, stop digging! Zeitz has the world's largest auger and he's dead set and determined to eradicate fossil fuels, and he thinks he's saving the planet. Doesn't give a damn about Harley, or their customers, or their riders.

So the how is -- ANYONE ELSE. Literally anyone. Nobody could be worse for the company than someone who has an innate conflict of interest with the company's core business. Harley is in the business of selling motorcycles. Zeitz's core interest is in eradicating fossil fuel vehicles from the planet. That's not exactly a good fit, now is it?

At least with H Partners, they have extreme interest in the company's success. They know the company reasonably well, since their founder sat on Harley's Board of Directors for a few years. And their investment philosophy is along the line of Andrew Carnegie's:



If you listen to what they say, H Partners only invests in a couple of companies, and they get intensely involved. They've got $300 million invested in Harley. They want it to turn around. That's a hell of a lot better than Zeitz and his "climate at all costs" team.

Oh, and about Zeitz -- HE'S NOT LEAVING. Under his plan, he is retiring from being CEO, but he still intends to stay on as Chairman Of The Board. HE WILL STILL BE IN CHARGE! Under H Partners' plan, Zeitz and his ilk will be axed. They could put ChatGPT in charge as CEO/Chairman and it'd still do a lot better job than Zeitz.

But that's not their plan; here's what H Partners says they're looking for in a CEO for Harley:



Lastly, I should point out that it's not H Partners's job to come up with the "how". That's what the new CEO is supposed to figure out. What they list here are attributes they think will qualify a candidate for consideration, and then it's up to those candidates to come up with the specifics on "how" they're going to get the job done.

 

Simple, if you care:
If you support the current board, then buy shares of the stock (HOG) and vote to keep Zeitz et al.
If you support H Partners, then buy HOG and vote with H Partners to remove Zeitz et al.

 

"Tariffs are going to do this, tariffs are going to do that." Everybody thinks they know what "new" tariffs are going to do but nobody is talking about what current Tariffs in Europe and Asia are currently doing.

Tariffs on Harley across the globe are currently 10 to 100 percent. Now for Harley to survive they need to get into those markets.

The tariff negotiations are creating a lot of confusion in the market, but in the end will be a boon for American manufacturing.

 

BMW and Triumph are thriving. Their is no Tariff for them to import into the US, but Harley has like a 28 percent Tariff added to their bikes to import to Europe. How is that fair?

 

First, I never once suggested they should keep Zeitz.

Second, it absolutely is HPartners job to arctulate the how. When you hire someone at that level, you need to understand exactly what their strategy is - the "how" - before you hire. Recent Harley history shows that hiring a "smart guy" who can "figure it out" has not worked out very well.

I'm sure in the discussions we are not privy to they are having substantive conversations, but as a board member, if I'm voting for someone it's absolutely reasonable to understand more of the details of that person's plan, vs just being satisfied that they can "figure it out"

 

Yes, of course I see where it's going. Everything is going to cost more, and companies are going to want to build their products in the US so they don't get hit with tariffs, which will increase jobs and increase wages, and people will have enough money to then buy what they want, even though it's more expensive. That's the circle we go through. That's what it was like all throughout the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's, before "globalism". Globalism outsourced manufacturing and jobs, which led to lower wages here, so people could only afford cheap imported stuff like from Wal-Mart or Amazon, etc. Many households are only afloat because of the Dollar Store and Wal-Mart. It's atrocious and even criminal what has happened to American households! And it's unsustainable. And it's a national security issue, since those other countries can shut off their exports at any time, and we are at their mercy. Globalism has destroyed the middle class, which is the exact market that Harley (used to) serve.

Globalism is the disease, and the Dollar Store and Wal-Mart and cheap non-tariffed imports are the painkillers. Tariffs and trade deals are the cure. Chemotherapy (in many cases) kills and cures cancer, but the side effects you have while you're on it are horrible. Tariffs and equal trade are the chemotherapy here, and yeah, things are going to get ugly for a while. Like they say, if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs.

(note: whether you believe in the above stuff or not, that's the path that the leadership of the country has set and will presumably stay on for at least the next four years).

Dumbed down/TLDR: businesses go where the parts and labor and taxes are the cheapest, to make their product cheaply. The goal of tariffs is to make imports so expensive that it's actually cheaper for the business to make the products here. And it is expected that the increased manufacturing and all associated trades will need to hire competitively, which will create jobs and higher salaries, such that the citizens actually have enough wages to buy the products they need, and if that takes high tariffs, then high tariffs will be used, and constitutionally the federal government was established to be financed off of tariffs instead of taxes.

Here's why I say that the present tariff situation is irrelevant to whether it'll make the CEO's job harder or not: yes, of course any CEO candidate is going to have to manage those waters. But that has nothing to do with H Partners and their proxy fight! That's not their job. It's the job of the Board of Directors to choose a CEO, and it's the CEO's job to navigate those waters. H Partners isn't going to be the CEO, and they're not going to be the Board. They're trying to rip the cancerous Zeitz regime out by the roots, and they've laid out their hopes for what qualities the replacement CEO should have.

Not sure I understand why you're saying this. Do you think I think the job of CEO can be done by any old brainless NPC? Maybe I didn't make it clear what I was saying. I was saying that Zeitz (and his team) are so toxic to Harley's success that practically anyone else would do less harm to the company than Zeitz has already done and will continue to do. He must be replaced, today. Even ChatGPT would do a better job than he and his team have. But the goal is to have a qualified, visionary leader; that's how you really re-establish Harley as the dominant force it used to be.

RANKING OF THOSE WHO CAN SAVE HARLEY DAVIDSON:
(ranked from best to worst)
1. A qualified experienced visionary CEO, who exhibits the traits illustrated by H Partners' proposal and as quoted in my last post.
2. A qualified experienced CEO who wants to grow the company and who loves motorcycles
3. An qualified experienced CEO who wants to grow the company, but doesn't know anything about motorcycles.
4. An experienced CEO who wants to grow the company.
5. An inexperienced CEO who wants to grow the company.
6. Logan Paul
7. ChatGPT
8. Any member of Harley Davidson Forums who thinks s/he has great ideas
9 A random instagrammer
10. A sentient, talking anus
...
...
666: Hillary Clinton
...
...
999. Jochen Zeitz (or anyone of any qualifications who has a direct conflict of interest against Harley's core business)

You're right, it isn't checkers, it's chess. But it also isn't rocket science. Love him or hate him, 4D chess or raving idiot, Trump stopped the illegal immigration free-for-all at the border, by taking simple common steps to enforce existing law. If you want to get somewhere, you should take the steps that lead you there. Zeitz has demonstrated where he wants to get to and has taken the steps to get there, by cancelling product lines, cancelling models, closing dealers, and raising prices, all in a quest to see fewer gas-engine bikes sold, while pouring all available money into endless money pit LiveWire. Those steps he's taken have led the company to the state it's in, a perilous pit with no obvious way out. He, his team, and his vision are all exactly wrong for Harley. That's why I said ChatGPT (or even Hillary Clinton) would be a better CEO than Zeitz! Zeitz might be a great CEO for Greenpeace, but he is an active virulent agent of destruction for Harley.

The right choice for Harley is going to be a bread and butter, nuts and bolts, A to Z leader who wants to grow the company and expand its business and its profits. Obviously any other suggestion is hyperbole to contrast how horrid a choice a climate activist like Zeitz is for an internal-combustion motorcycle company.

 

The above post by @FatBob2018 is 100 percent correct. I couldn't have said it any better.

 

LOL