HappeCEO Michael Happe has turned around the RV giant by entering growing sectors – even acquiring a boat maker
Winnebago Industries may have been an iconic brand in the minds of the American public, but five years ago the venerable RV company wasn’t performing like a blue-chipper in the marketplace. In the midst of a decade-long boom for the RV industry overall, Winnebago held only a three-percent share in the market that remained practically synonymous with its name.
“That shocked people, because they associated the brand with a leadership position,” Winnebago Industries CEO Michael Happe told Chief Executive. “Winnebago didn’t have the share that it probably deserved and wasn’t participating effectively in most of the RV market. And it wasn’t providing a strong return to shareholders.”
All that began to change when the board recruited Happe to Winnebago Industries as president and chief executive in 2016 from a top job at Toro, the lawn-equipment maker where Happe worked for 19 years. The new boss reshaped Winnebago by acquiring companies in key and growing sectors of the RV market and even by going outside the industry to purchase Chris-Craft, a leading boat maker.
“We needed a stronger vision of where we wanted to be in the future,” Happe concluded. And already by 2020, Happe had secured the foundation for that future, boosting Winnebago’s revenues to $3 billion for fiscal 2021 from just $1 billion in fiscal 2015 and elevating the company’s market capitalization to more than $2 billion now from just $450 million in January 2016. Winnebago’s market share has risen to more than 12 percent.
Click here to read the full story from Dale Buss of ChiefExecutive.net.
