Olympic Steel Inc

NASDAQ:ZEUS

Earnings Call Analysis

Olympic Steel's Resilience Amid Market Challenges

In the third quarter of 2024, Olympic Steel navigated challenging macroeconomic conditions, particularly in the heavy equipment sector, but all segments remained EBITDA positive, generating $15 million from $470 million in sales. Despite a decline in OEM demand and reduced stainless steel surcharges, the company’s diversification efforts into higher-margin fabricated products contributed to profitability. Looking ahead, they anticipate continued macroeconomic headwinds but remain optimistic due to strong credit availability of $304 million and planned capital expenditures around $30 million. Notably, net income fell to $2.7 million from $12.2 million year-over-year, signaling the need for strategic focus on efficiency and cost management.

Navigating Challenging Waters

In the third quarter of 2024, Olympic Steel faced significant macroeconomic challenges, particularly a decline in original equipment manufacturer (OEM) demand, especially from the heavy equipment sector. Due to these pressures, the company observed lower carbon pricing, which negatively impacted its carbon flat-rolled and pipe and tube segments. Additionally, reduced stainless steel surcharges further strained pricing in their Specialty Metals segment. Despite these headwinds, Olympic Steel managed to keep all three segments EBITDA positive, generating $15 million in EBITDA on $470 million in sales.

Strategic Diversification Proves Effective

Olympic Steel's focus on diversification played a crucial role in maintaining this positive performance. By shifting towards countercyclical steel-intensive end products and investing in higher-margin opportunities—such as flat-rolled coated products and expanding fabrication capabilities—the company demonstrated resilience. Their initiatives included recent equipment investments that are projected to increase efficiency and productivity significantly.

Cost Management and Financial Health

In the face of adversity, Olympic Steel's management through cost control and efficiency improvements has been commendable. They reduced their total debt by about $12 million to $197 million, while entering the fourth quarter with approximately $304 million in available credit, thus providing robust financial flexibility for growth initiatives. The company is also actively pursuing acquisitions that align with its strategic growth goals.

Segment Performance Insights

Each of Olympic Steel's segments posted positive performance metrics despite overall lower demand. The Carbon segment reported $4.5 million in EBITDA, supported by a strong performance from businesses like Metal-Fab, which specializes in HVAC components. Similarly, the Specialty Metals segment achieved $5.9 million in EBITDA by gaining market share in the challenging stainless steel and aluminum markets. The Pipe and Tube segment also delivered strong results, becoming an integral part of their business strategy following the acquisition of Central Tube & Bar.

Future Outlook Amid Uncertainty

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, Olympic Steel anticipates that macroeconomic challenges will persist, with ongoing monitoring of the political landscape and Federal Reserve decisions regarding interest rates. However, there is cautious optimism based on strategies targeting growth in countercyclical markets and continuous investments in automation and fabrication capabilities. The company aims to maintain EBITDA margins similar to what they experienced in the last quarter, focusing on operational efficiencies to adapt to demand fluctuations.

Ongoing Investment in Capital Improvements

The firm is committed to continuing capital expenditures, anticipated to reach $30 million for 2024, focusing on automation, fabrication, and processing advancements. New equipment is expected to arrive from 2025 to 2026, enhancing their operational efficiency and capacity. The installation of a new cut-to-length line and additional advanced machinery at existing facilities exemplifies this strategy.

A Proven History of Dividends

In a show of commitment to returning value to shareholders, Olympic Steel maintained its quarterly cash dividend at $0.15 per share during the third quarter. This dividend trend has been consistent since 2006, marking an increase in payment over the last three years. The company’s ability to sustain dividends while investing in growth underscores its financial strength and willingness to reward shareholders.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the Olympic Steel 2024 Third Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I would like to hand the conference call over to Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer at Olympic Steel. Please go ahead, sir.

[Richard Manson, executive]

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel's earnings call for the third quarter of 2024. Our call this morning will be hosted by our Chief Executive Officer, Rick Marabito; and we will also be joined by our President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Greiff.

Before we begin, I have a few reminders. Some statements made on today's call will be predictive and are intended to be made as forward-looking within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and may not reflect actual results. The company does not undertake to update such statements, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting such forward-looking statements. Important assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in the company's reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and the press releases filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

During today's discussion, we may refer to adjusted net income per diluted share, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, which are all non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is provided in the press release that was issued last night and can be found on our website. Today's live broadcast will be archived and available for replay on Olympic Steel's website.

At this time, I'll turn the call over to Rick.

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Thank you, Rich, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Olympic Steel's 2024 third quarter results. I'll begin by summarizing our results for the third quarter, and then I'll review how our strategies for diversification and overall focus on investing in and expanding in our higher-margin opportunities are helping to drive results in difficult markets. Andrew will then review our segment performance and highlight our CapEx growth initiatives, and following that, Rich will discuss our financial results in more detail. And then as always, we will open the call up for your questions.

Challenging macroeconomic trends during the third quarter resulted in lower overall OEM demand, particularly in the heavy equipment sector, which is a significant end market for Olympic Steel. Reduced demand resulted in carbon pricing pressures that affected both our carbon flat-rolled and pipe and tube segments. Additionally, stainless steel surcharges fell during the quarter, creating pricing pressure in our Specialty Metals segment.

Despite these market headwinds, Olympic Steel has demonstrated continued resilience, as all 3 segments were EBITDA positive for the third quarter of 2024, generating $15 million in EBITDA on $470 million of sales. The results reflect the success of our strategy to diversify into countercyclical steel-intensive end products and invest in higher margin opportunities such as flat-rolled coated products and the expansion of our fabrication capabilities.

Given the ongoing uncertainty in the political and macroeconomic environment, our team is working diligently to manage costs and build efficiencies into our business. This includes investing in new equipment, automation and processing capabilities that will drive safety, efficiency, productivity and future growth. We are closely managing our operating expenses and aligning our labor costs with customer demand. We believe the success of our acquisitions and capital investments in key organic growth areas has created a stronger, more resilient Olympic Steel. We are well positioned to continue to invest in these initiatives.

Andrew will review recent equipment investments in a moment and we remain active in our pursuit of acquisitions that meet our success criteria.

During the third quarter, we reduced our debt by approximately $12 million to $197 million, and we entered the fourth quarter with approximately $304 million of credit availability to fund these growth initiatives.

Looking to the fourth quarter of 2024, we expect the macroeconomic headwinds to continue while we await the outcome of the presidential election and the Fed's direction on future interest rate cuts. We remain optimistic for the long-term outlook for Olympic Steel and our industry. We are confident that our strategy, combined with our financial flexibility to continue investing in organic and acquisitive growth opportunities will make us even more resilient and create additional value for our shareholders.

Now I'll turn the call over to Andrew for his comments on our segment performance.

[Andrew Greiff, executive]

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. As Rick discussed, all 3 business segments were EBITDA positive during the third quarter, even as we continue to experience the significant industry-wide headwinds. Our sustained profitability is a testament to the strategies we have in place, the diversification, operational efficiency, enriched product mix and expansion of our fabrication capacity and capabilities.

Now I'll provide some detail on each segment's results. In our Carbon segment, volumes fell more than the normal seasonal decline for third quarter sales due to lower demand from our contractual OEM customers, especially in the heavy equipment sector. Even with this decline, the Carbon segment generated $4.5 million in EBITDA in the third quarter. We saw strength in our countercyclical end products companies with strong quarters for Metal-Fab, our manufacturer of HVAC inventing products and McCullough Industries, our manufacturer of industrial hoppers.

We continue to see gains for our fabrication business as OEMs continue to outsource more of their first stages of manufacturing. To serve this growing demand and improve the efficiency of our operations, we continue to invest in expanding our fabrication and processing capacity and capabilities.

We have also aligned our fabrication intensive facilities in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Mount Sterling, Kentucky and Buford, Georgia under the leadership of Max Fitzgerald, who has a strong growth-oriented background in metal fabrication.

Our Carbon segment continues to invest in automation, installing new stacking and material handling equipment on our Cleveland, Ohio temper mill, which is expected to improve throughput by up to 30%. Our pipe and tube segment posted adjusted EBITDA of $6.7 million in the third quarter of 2024.

Gross margins remained stronger and higher than previous years due to our value-added processing, which has been augmented by last year's acquisition of Central Tube & Bar. For our Specialty Metals segment, stainless surcharges fell to a 3.5 year low in September. Nonetheless, the segment had a solid third quarter, contributing $5.9 million of EBITDA. We accomplished this by gaining market share in stainless and aluminum. We also installed a new automated packaging line in our Streetsboro, Ohio facility to improve throughput and efficiency.

We remain committed to growing organically by investing in higher-margin opportunities. During 2024, we have ordered significant new pieces of equipment that will be delivered in 2025 and 2026 to further enhance our growth strategies. In the Carbon segment, we ordered a new cut-to-length line for our Minneapolis coil facility, which will support our continued growth in cold-rolled and coated products. We have ordered 2 new lasers and 2 new plasma cutting machines along with an automated material handling system to expand our fabrication capabilities in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

In the Specialty Metals segment, we have ordered a new cut-to-length line for our Schaumburg, Illinois facility to support our growing white metals distribution business, and we also ordered a new high-speed specialty slitter for our Berlin Metals operation outside of Gary, Indiana.

As I reflect on the third quarter and look at the fourth quarter, we think that macroeconomic headwinds are likely to continue. At the same time, we are benefiting from our strategy to expand into steel-intensive end products that are countercyclical to metals pricing and invest in equipment that makes us safer, more efficient and helps us grow our higher-margin fabrication and processing capabilities. We will continue to focus on what we can control and be mindful of and responsive to the things that we cannot control.

That concludes my comments, and I will turn the call over to Rich to go through the financials.

[Richard Manson, executive]

Thank you, Andrew. As you heard from both Rick and Andrew, all 3 segments contributed to our profitability during the quarter. Our third quarter results reflect the impact of our diversification strategy and our team's continued execution of our operating disciplines.

Before I discuss the results in more detail, I want to remind everyone that year-over-year comparisons are impacted by the October 2023 acquisition of Central Tube & Bar, whose results are included in our pipe and tube segment.

For the third quarter, net income totaled $2.7 million compared with $12.2 million in the third quarter of 2023. EBITDA for the third quarter was $15 million compared with $27.1 million in the prior year period. Both the third quarter of 2024 and 2023 results include $2 million of LIFO pretax income.

Consolidated operating expenses for the third quarter totaled $99 million compared with $91 million in the third quarter of 2023. Our third quarter operating expenses reflect the addition of Central Tube & Bar, which does not report tons sold. Therefore, operating expenses per ton at the consolidated level and for the pipe and tube segment will appear higher year-over-year.

As a reminder, we do not report tons sold for McCullough Industries, EZ-Dumper, Metal-Fab, Shaw Stainless or the entire pipe and tube segment.

Consolidated operating expenses for the third quarter included $3.3 million of CTB operating expenses and $1.2 million of lower incentive expenses when compared with the third quarter of 2023. Operating expenses for the third quarter of 2023 also reflect a $4 million cost benefit due to the employee retention credit that did not recur in the third quarter of 2024.

We ended the quarter with total debt of $197 million, a $12 million decrease from the second quarter of 2024. We anticipate increased cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2024 due to lower working capital requirements. We continue to have access to more than $300 million of additional borrowing availability to support our investments in higher return opportunities.

Our capital expenditures for the first 3 quarters of 2024 totaled $22.3 million compared with depreciation of $17.6 million. We estimate that 2024 capital expenditures will be approximately $30 million as we continue to invest in automation, our fabrication and processing capabilities and other higher-return parts of our business.

Our third quarter 2024 effective income tax rate was 30% compared with 27.7% in the same period last year. We expect our 2024 tax rate to approximate 28% to 29%. In addition, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share in the third quarter, and our Board of Directors has approved our next regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 per share which is payable on December 16, 2024, to shareholders of record on December 2, 2024.

The company has now paid regular quarterly dividends dating back to 2006, increasing the dividend in each of the last 3 years. Our ability to remain resilient and profitable in difficult markets is a testament to the success of our strategic investments. We will continue to execute our diversification strategy for the long term while continuing our near-term focus on expense control and working capital management. We are well positioned to weather market challenges and deliver sustained results for our shareholders.

Operator, we are now ready for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Dave Storms with Stonegate.

[David Storms, analyst]

So you mentioned in the prepared remarks that you're obviously doing a lot to bring new machinery into your operations. Just trying to get a sense of -- and I appreciate you laying out kind of the lead times we're getting them in those machines in-house. Just trying to get a sense of maybe what step 2 would be there between implementing those machines, getting employees trained on them. How should we be thinking about what it will take to get those machines up and running once they're in-house?

[Andrew Greiff, executive]

Dave, this is Andrew. I'll answer that. I would tell you that from the equipment manufacturers, the training will take place in some cases prior to the equipment coming in. They have some facilities that we can send our people to that have the equipment available that they could do some training.

But almost immediately, as the new equipment and the new automation comes in, we'll have people that will be ready almost immediately. So once the equipment is in and ready to get going, we would expect that in a very short time period, it will be up and operational and assuming the equipment performs the way we expected to we'll get it right into place.

[David Storms, analyst]

Understood. That's very helpful. So we could hopefully start seeing some of that in 2025. Okay. Perfect. And then just one more for me. Great to see that you paid down some debt, I know you've obviously been acquisitive in the past. Are there any M&A targets that you're kind of keeping your eye on? Maybe give a sense of what the market looks like and maybe as you're thinking about M&A targets, are you targeting -- would you be targeting more countercyclical type companies that have been so beneficial for you recently?

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Yes. Thanks for the question, Dave. It's Rick. Absolutely. We're very active, continuing to look at acquisitions. You know that it's part of our strategic growth is to actually do both. So Andrew outlined a lot of the internal growth through new equipment. But don't sell a short, we're actively pursuing acquisitions.

So if you look at our history over the last 5 years, we've made 6 acquisitions. So we're averaging around 1 to a little more than 1 a year. It's been about a year. And so my line internally always is, is if we don't find an acquisition in our strike zone each year, I'd be disappointed, and I share that with you.

So yes, very active. We've seen really good flow in terms of companies that would fit our strike zone. You are exactly right in terms of the strike zone. It's aside from being well-run companies where we believe we can add synergy together with a management team that's strong and continues you know that we're -- we've shown and will continue to seek out companies that are, a, in the end market, countercyclical category and industry. So that's very much at the top of the list; B, those that do higher margin, higher return fabrication, that's very high on the list, and service centers, right? We've -- you saw the last acquisition we did was CTB and the pipe and tube sector of the service center group. So we're looking at all 3 of those areas. And really, the keys are finding well-run, high-return, accretive, good companies. And so stay tuned, more to come, we're actively participating in that space.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Samuel McKinney with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

[Samuel McKinney, analyst]

The continued demand weakness from industrial machinery and equipment OEMs. Some of your peers have already spoken to it, and you talked about it to seasonally soft third quarter volumes. Any thoughts regarding the potential for a release of pent-up demand after we hopefully get past the election next week and gain some clarity on the next 4 years?

[Andrew Greiff, executive]

Yes, Sam, that's a great question. We do. We do think that there is some pent-up demand certainly on the spot side of the business. With the industrial OEMs, I'm not sure that we're going to see any big releases in the fourth quarter. I don't think we're going to see much of a trail off like we did in the third quarter versus the second quarter.

But I do think that there's opportunity certainly in the fourth quarter for a number of the spot players and those noncontractual customers to be more active than certainly than they had been. And I think going into next year, while they're still in their forecasting phase, I don't anticipate that we're going to see greater reductions from the heavy-duty equipment sector versus what we've seen at this point.

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Yes. And then Sam, it's Rick. The other thing I'd add is we've been really expanding our business. So I think offsetting any kind of -- as Andrew said, I'd call it kind of steadiness off of a kind of a down demand period in the last quarter.

I think you'll see Olympic Steel actually onboarding new business. We've been very active on the fabrication side with some of the large OEMs. So going into next year, our view is even if we have kind of stable demand from some of these larger OEMs in the heavy equipment sector, I think we've got the opportunity to increase our business.

[Samuel McKinney, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. I appreciate that. And then next, pipe and tube gross margin of 35% this quarter was the segment's best number of the year, but sales have fallen almost 10% sequentially in both the second and the third quarter. So a 2-part question here. Can you address how segment volumes behaved during the third quarter?

And then of that $79 million in sales in the third quarter, any way to frame up how much of that's coming from the higher-margin Central Tube & Bar?

[Richard Manson, executive]

Sam, it's Rich. Let me address the gross margin first. So remember, that gross margin includes $2 million of LIFO income. So that 35% is the LIFO number. I think when you take that out, you're pretty much back to the traditional low 30s that we've seen most of this year. I'll let Andrew address the question in terms of the falloff is basically the same industrial customers that we just talked about.

[Andrew Greiff, executive]

Well, that's exactly right, Rich. So a number of the customers that we talk about on the sheet and the fabrication side for carbon flat roll very similar to what we see on the pipe and tube side. Regarding Central Tube, we've been we've been very pleased with what we've seen. A big part of what Central Tube does is fabrication for the OEM, and so we are pleased to see the business there. There's a good focus on data centers. And so we really like that business and expect to see continued progress in fourth quarter and then certainly into next year.

[Richard Manson, executive]

And then, Sam, with respect to the value added, I think our pipe and tube segment is north of 40% in terms of value-added versus the distribution business.

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Yes. And then lastly, Sam, I think part of your question was on the CTB margins. And yes, you are correct. CTB's margins are north of our existing pipe and tube business, which, as you know, and commented on our very strong margins. So -- and we see that continuing.

[Samuel McKinney, analyst]

Okay. And then one last one for me. If Nippon is able to close on its acquisition of U.S. Steel, what do you think changes both in the marketplace and for Olympic specifically? And remind me, do you have any co-located facilities with U.S. Steel right now?

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Yes, Sam, we do. We are -- our Gary facility in Gary, Indiana, is on-site at U.S. Steel. We have great relationships with all of the vendors, including the 2 you mentioned. So I think for Olympic Steel, obviously, whichever way this deal goes, we would anticipate continuing to be a really good supplier of whoever the future owner is, whether it continues to be U.S. Steel or it continues to be Nippon -- a a good customer -- a good customer, sorry.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Chris Sakai with Singular Research.

[Joichi Sakai, analyst]

My question is that for carbon flat operating expenses. Are a lot of these fixed expenses that can't -- you cannot change? Or what can be done to reduce operating expenses?

[Richard Manson, executive]

Yes, Chris. So a couple of things. So when you look at the face of the operating expenses year-over-year, it looked like an $8 million increase, but there's really 2 items that make up almost the entire $8 million. One being that there was a $4 million reduction in operating expenses in the third quarter of 2023 related to the employee retention credit, that didn't occur in 2024. And then we had about $3.3 million of CTV operating expenses in the third quarter of 2024 that were not there in 2023.

So overall, we're kind of flattish in volume in those operating expenses when you adjust for the onetime items are essentially flattish. One of the things we have seen here in the third quarter, as Andrew noted, we're a little bit slower with some of the industrial OEMs. And in some cases, we've reduced or taken out some second shifts that in those areas where the sales were down a little bit.

Now most of that was not reflected in the third quarter, but we do expect to see that reflected in the fourth quarter once you take out severance and all those kind of things for some of the people that -- where the headcount was reduced.

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Yes. And the other thing I'd add, Chris, on the fixed versus variable, we talk about it a lot. We disclosed it in our our SEC documents. But we also have, in terms of our incentives, they're highly variable, and they do mirror profitability. So those things tend to -- on the compensation side also automatically adjust with the profitability up and down. So I'd add that as well. .

[Joichi Sakai, analyst]

Okay. And then a lot -- it sounds like you're doing a lot of internal investments. Is the main goal here to really increase profitability? Is that the main understanding?

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Well, obviously, yes. We believe those investments in terms of -- the return is -- are smart moves. But in addition to the increased profitability, they also enhance our quality, safety increased productivity. They expand our capacity on those pieces of equipment, so they open up those pieces of equipment to do new business. some of the new business is in areas that we're growing like coated product in the carbon. So it's really all that. But I think you know from following us, we're also stickers on the profitability side in terms of justification. So it's all of that. And yes, that obviously is going to lead to improved returns in those areas.

[Operator]

There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Richard Marabito for closing remarks.

[Richard Marabito, executive]

Thank you very much, operator. And thank you all for joining us on our call today. We genuinely appreciate your continued interest in Olympic Steel. And we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.

[Operator]

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines.