Olympic Steel - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered resilient results in a volatile metals backdrop: sales $496.5M, GAAP diluted EPS $0.45, adjusted EPS $0.50, and adjusted EBITDA $20.3M; all three segments posted positive EBITDA.
• Versus Wall Street consensus (S&P Global), ZEUS produced a revenue beat ($496.5M vs. $484.4M) and a Primary EPS beat ($0.50 vs. $0.46), while unadjusted EBITDA was modestly below ($19.6M vs. $19.8M); adjusted EBITDA rose 26% sequentially vs. Q1.
• Management highlighted strengthening pricing in stainless and aluminum post-June tariff action, rising fabrication inquiries, and an active M&A pipeline, supported by >$300M borrowing availability (CFO noted ~$305M).
• Near-term setup: typical Q3 seasonality implies 5–6% sequential volume decline; FY25 tax rate guided to ~28–29%; 2025 capex ~$35M focused on automation and new processing lines—ramp largely from late 2025 into 2026.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Sequential operating improvement: adjusted EBITDA increased 26% vs. Q1, aided by improved flat-roll margins and steady end products; “our team delivered a sequential increase in Adjusted EBITDA” (CEO).
• Fabrication momentum and specialty metals: management cited increased inquiries post-tariffs and sequential improvements in stainless/aluminum volume and profitability; specialty metals EBITDA +60% vs. Q1 (COO).
• Balance sheet and liquidity: debt reduced to ~$233M; revolver availability ~$305M; continued quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share approved.

What Went Wrong

• Year-over-year softening: net sales down to $496.5M (from $526.3M), GAAP EPS down to $0.45 (from $0.66), adjusted EBITDA $20.3M (from $21.3M) amid industry demand headwinds.
• Tubular & Pipe Products YOY decline: segment net sales fell to $79.2M (from $87.6M) and operating income to $3.9M (from $6.5M) as demand/pricing moderated.
• Carbon segment YOY mixed: tons sold decreased and operating income modestly up, but average selling price per ton fell (ASP $1,315 vs. $1,343) reflecting pricing pressure.

Transcript

Speaker 3

Good morning and welcome to the Olympic Steel 2025 second quarter financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. To access the queue, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to hand the conference over to Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer at Olympic Steel. Please go ahead, sir.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel's earnings call for the second quarter of 2025. 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 Form 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. Now, I'll turn the call over to Rick.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Rich, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Olympic Steel's 2025 second quarter results. I'll begin by providing some perspective on our performance in the second quarter and how we're navigating the current environment. Andrew will then review our second quarter performance, and following that, Rich will discuss our financial results in more detail. As always, we'll open the call up for your questions. As we all know, news around tariffs has been dominating the headlines and creating uncertainty throughout the manufacturing industry, the metal supply chain, and with our customers. Despite that uncertainty, our strategies and disciplined approach, combined with a strong foundation we have built for a more resilient Olympic Steel, resulted in solid performance in a challenging environment. In the second quarter, we reported sales of $496 million and net income of $5.2 million.

As we mentioned on our last call, we saw significant buy-ahead activity by our customers late in the first quarter as they reacted to the initial steel and aluminum tariffs and the potential for reciprocal tariffs. As a result, there was some sequential volume pullback in the second quarter, yet our flat-roll shipping volumes for the first half of 2025 remained slightly ahead of volume for the first half of 2024, while the industry actually experienced contraction for that period. While second quarter volumes were down sequentially, margins from our flat-roll business improved, and we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $20.3 million. That's a 26% increase compared with the first quarter. Importantly, all three of our business segments continued to deliver positive EBITDA. This performance is the result of our strategy to build a stronger, more resilient Olympic Steel.

Our efforts to diversify into higher value metal-intensive products, expand our fabricating capabilities, and lean into our operational disciplines have put us in a position to deliver profitable results, even when industry shipping volumes and pricing are falling. With a strong balance sheet and more than $300 million of borrowing availability, we are in an excellent financial position to make additional accretive acquisitions, as well as fund our organic investments to drive profitable growth, further efficiencies, and enhance safety in our operations. As we previously announced, our robust 2025 CapEx plan, which includes new processing and automation equipment, continues to proceed as scheduled. Andrew will share more specifics in a few moments. Our track record on the M&A front has been highly successful, completing eight acquisitions in the last seven years. The integration of our most recent acquisition, MetalWorks, has gone seamlessly, and their results have been accretive to earnings.

As we look ahead to the second half of the year, we expect the environment will remain challenging. We do, however, see a few positive emerging trends, like resolution of reciprocal tariffs and the new tax legislation that reinforce our optimism for the longer-term outlook for the steel industry and especially for Olympic Steel. Andrew will have more to share on that in his comments. As always, I'm proud of our team for their hard work and dedication to Olympic Steel. I'm confident that together we continue to build on our strengths and ensure Olympic Steel continues to deliver profitable results no matter the market environment. I'll now turn the call over to Andrew. Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We continue to navigate an unprecedented environment for the metals industry.

As previously noted, the 25% sequential increase in first quarter 2025 volume was generated by purchasing ahead of anticipated price increases. Shipping data from our trade association indicates that for most products, service center shipping rates in 2025 are below 2024. Despite this negative trend, our first half 2025 flat-roll shipments remain above our first half 2024 shipping levels. As Rick discussed, our team has done an excellent job positioning Olympic Steel for success in even the toughest markets. During the second quarter, we improved margins for our flat-roll products. This improvement, combined with the steadiness of our end products businesses, helped to drive a 26% sequential increase in adjusted EBITDA, showing once again our ability to be profitable in the face of challenging conditions. This was an outstanding effort by our team to stay focused on controlling what we can control.

Second quarter activity in our carbon segment reflected the overall metals industry sentiment. Profitability remained solid with second quarter EBITDA of $12.5 million, with strength from our manufactured product companies. The pipe and tube segment recorded adjusted EBITDA of $6.7 million. The pipe and tube team continues to focus on fabrication with the goal to grow this business and drive margin improvement. We expect improved second half 2025 demand for data center work related to pipe and tube. Business conditions for both stainless and aluminum products began to improve during the second quarter, resulting in sequential improvements in both volume and profitability for the specialty metals group. EBITDA was $5.9 million and more than 60% improvement from the first quarter. We also gained market share across our stainless and aluminum product lines.

We are seeing momentum in the market for the second half of 2025 following the doubling of Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50% and subsequent domestic mill price increases. Our robust CapEx plan for 2025 includes $35 million of spending, primarily on organic growth opportunities, which include a new cut-to-length line in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a new white metals cut-to-length line in Schaumburg, Illinois, the automation of our warehouse in Chambersburg, PA, and the expansion of Action Stainless's presence in Houston, Texas, along with a new high-speed stainless slitter at our Berlin Metals operation outside of Gary, Indiana. With the exception of the slitter, the other projects are expected to be operational by the end of 2025 and will help fuel our growth in 2026 and beyond. The Berlin slitter is expected to be operational by the end of the first quarter of 2026.

While we expect market uncertainty to remain in the near term, we are encouraged by the emerging trends and opportunities for the steel industry. For example, we are seeing increased inquiries for fabrication services, especially amongst OEMs looking to onshore, outsource, or expand their first stages of manufacturing in the U.S. Olympic Steel is well-positioned to capitalize on the trend to increase U.S. manufacturing in the months and years to come. We are a resilient organization with the right strategy to lead us into the future, drive our growth, and help us deliver profitable results under all market conditions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rich.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Andrew. As you've heard from both Rick and Andrew, our team did an excellent job delivering solid results during the second quarter, despite significant macroeconomic challenges and uncertainty. The benefits of our focus on controlling what we can control are apparent in our results. Before I discuss the results in more detail, I want to remind everyone that comparisons are impacted by the November 2024 acquisition of MetalWorks, whose results are included in the carbon segment. Second quarter net income totaled $5.2 million compared with $7.7 million in the second quarter of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $20.3 million compared with $21.3 million in the prior year period. These results include $750,000 of LIFO expense in the second quarter of 2025 compared with $1 million of LIFO pre-tax income in the second quarter of 2024.

Adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter of 2025 was 26% stronger than the adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2025. Consolidated operating expenses for the second quarter totaled $110.4 million compared with $104.6 million in the second quarter of 2024. Our second quarter 2025 operating expenses reflect the addition of MetalWorks, which does not report tons sold. Therefore, operating expenses per ton at the consolidated level and for the carbon segment will appear higher year over year. As a reminder, we do not report tons sold for McCullough Industries, EZ Dumper, MetalFab, Shaw Stainless, or the entire pipe and tube segment. Second quarter consolidated operating expenses included $2.5 million of MetalWorks operating and acquisition-related expenses and $200,000 of lower incentive expenses when compared to the second quarter of 2024.

We reduced debt during the second quarter, bringing our total debt to $233 million, which is $39 million lower than year-end levels. We have approximately $305 million of availability under our asset-based revolving credit facility, providing us with an excellent source of flexible, low-cost capital to fund our strategic growth initiatives. Total capital expenditures totaled $17.5 million in the first half of 2025, compared with depreciation of $13 million. We estimate that 2025 capital expenditures will be approximately $35 million. The investment is higher than historical levels as we focus on supporting our automation and additional organic growth initiatives, as Andrew noted. Our second quarter 2025 effective tax rate was 29.1% compared with 28.4% in the same period last year. We expect our 2025 tax rate to approximate 28% to 29%. In addition, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share in the second quarter.

Our board of directors approved our next regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share, which is payable on September 15, 2025, to shareholders of record on September 2, 2025. The company has now paid regular quarterly dividends dating back to 2006. Before we open the call for your questions, I would like to thank the entire Olympic Steel team for all their efforts in the second quarter. We know there are challenges and uncertainty, but we also know our business, our markets, and our customers very well. Our team is executing in a consistent and strategic manner that enables us to deliver these results and to continue to build shareholder value. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Speaker 3

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Samuel McKinney with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 2

Morning, guys.

Speaker 0

Morning. Hi, Sam.

Speaker 2

Thanks for the color earlier, Andrew, on some of the new equipment that you're getting in. Wanted to dive a little more into the new processing and automation equipment that's beginning to arrive. Just maybe talk a little more about the benefits that you'll see once those pieces start to contribute, and, if possible, quantify some of the benefits that you'll glean from those.

Speaker 0

Yeah, great question. Thanks, Sam. This has been a project that has been years in the making. The equipment is a combination of things, including high-speed lasers, in addition to a whole CASTO system that allows us to move product throughout the building with very little touch from employees. Part of the automation will be, number one, to improve safety so that we're touching the product less. It will, at some point, reduce the number of employees that we have in that specific location as the automation gets going.

Speaker 2

Some of the other CapEx that Andrew talked about also really will enhance productivity. Maybe you could talk about some of the new cut-to-length lines and the slitter also. I think those are.

Speaker 0

Yeah, sure. We have, as you know, we have two cut-to-length lines. One is going into our Minneapolis facility. The other is going into our Schaumburg facility. The Schaumburg facility cut-to-length line will be primarily for aluminum. It's a very fast-growing product line for us, as you know, Sam. The Minneapolis line is going to be a light gauge line, going to be focusing a lot on galvanized and other tandem products, as well as the new slitter that's going to be going into our Berlin Metals operation. That won't be operational until the beginning of next year, but that is a very light gauge. Somewhere in the, call it in the 0.010 range, is what that will end up doing for us.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Sam, in terms of kind of quantification, obviously, as Andrew said, most of the equipment is just becoming operational, I'll call it in the fourth quarter, with the exception of the Berlin Metals slitter, as he mentioned. Really, the ramp-up in terms of seeing the results in our results will be more towards next year. As you know, we do a pretty rigorous process in terms of justification on CapEx and acquisitions. We're pretty excited about the return profiles of all five of these big projects. You'd start to see them phasing in early next year.

Speaker 0

Thank you, guys. That was very helpful. It was great to see pipe and tube gross margins stay safely above that 30% mark. I know a component of that segment's profitability transformation over the last few years has been the OEM outsourcing fabrication work. Any more detail you can provide on the work you're doing for those OEMs? The incremental increase in interest since the tariff announcements, or if some of that increase has also been on the carbon side. It has been a continuation of the customer kind of as on the flat-roll side, Sam, where instead of supplying the tube, they're now looking for something else to be done. We have 19 high-speed tube lasers that are very active and going into a variety of industries. Very strong in the industrial OEMs. Where we're really seeing an increase in that business has been in the data centers.

We've seen significant growth on that side of it. Whether it's in the carbon side or even in the stainless side for the pipe and tube, the growth has been pretty extraordinary on the fabrication.

Speaker 2

Okay. Last one for me. Obviously, first quarter demand with some pull forward, and then coming off the second quarter volume decline in carbon flat. How were trends in July, and how do you think things are shaping up for August?

Speaker 0

Hey, Sam. It's Rich. I think what we typically see is this is a typical seasonal year, right? What we've seen historically, say, over the last five to six years, is third quarter is typically down 5% to 6% sequentially from Q2. That's really all due kind of to the July holiday. The first two weeks of July typically are very slow. Didn't see anything different this year than we typically see in other years.

Speaker 2

Okay, thanks, guys, and congrats on the solid quarter.

Speaker 0

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from David Storms with Stonegate Capital Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to start with some of the flat-roll margin improvements that you mentioned. How should we be thinking about, you know, maybe the main drivers of this margin improvement?

Speaker 0

David, it's Rich. I think it was just really kind of a function of how the index pricing changed throughout the first half of the year. Obviously, index pricing shot up after the announcements in February with the tariffs. We had secured some inventory at lower pricing. That allowed you to sell that at higher prices coming into the second quarter. That's essentially the margin improvement that you see based on index pricing.

Speaker 2

Yeah. The other thing I'd add, this is Rick, Dave. The other thing I'd add is, obviously, we've talked a lot about it the last several years. Strategically, as we've also tried to enrich our mix. When I say enrich our mix, it's everything, including on the carbon side, doing more coated product, a product that carries a slightly higher pricing point and better margins. It's doing more fabricating and value-add work. A big piece of it is our acquisition strategy, where we've gained diversification by owning some companies that make some end products. It's all of that. Sometimes, you know, when the markets start to recede, is the time you see the manifestation of that. I think that's part of what you're seeing, aside from the basics in the service center, you know, pricing market and where the cost of the metal is.

That's very helpful. Thank you. I know you also mentioned in your prepared remarks, you're seeing some inbound inquiries jumping up, and that's a nice leading indicator. Are there any other leading indicators to maybe highlight, maybe some divergence in contract per spot price, lead times extending, anything like that?

No. I think, from my perspective, as I take a little bit of a longer view, I think getting some of the uncertainties settled out of Washington, D.C., will be helpful. I think we checked the box on the X legislation, so that's a good thing. The tariffs are still, as evidenced by last night's announcements, the tariffs are still in flux. Hopefully, we get some resolution on those in the near term. We do like, and Andrew talked about it, continue to see really strong quoting on fabricating and outsourced value-add work from a lot of our OEMs. I think that's really a continuation from what we've talked about as far back as coming out of COVID. We see that. Andrew mentioned some strengths in data center business, which we're a big participant in, in many of our divisions and many of our products.

Those would be some of the positives. I think it's always, July as Rich said, July is always more of a muted, seasonally slow month, and we obviously saw that this year, but it'll be good moving into August. I think we'll see some normal pickup in business. That's what we see. The general backdrop hasn't changed that much.

That's very informative. Thank you. Just one more for me, if I could. You mentioned that comment, the checking the box on tax legislation. I'm hoping to spend a little more time there. Any other impacts from the tax legislation other than maybe just the bonus depreciation that could work as a tailwind for you guys? Anything else there that you're keeping your eye on as it evolves?

Rich, why don't you answer for Olympic, and then we can also talk about why it's good for our business in terms of the bonus depreciation.

Speaker 0

Yeah, absolutely, Dave. It's Rich. I think the bonus depreciation of anything is the most significant part of the tax legislation. This has happened a number of times over, say, the last decade through various tax legislation, and it's very helpful to our customer base. For us, it will obviously allow us to depreciate some of the projects that, not the current projects, but any projects that we've entered into after January of 2025 on a faster basis. I think the bigger impact really is our customer base. That really does help the OEMs and their customer base feel the need, helps drive demand, which is always good for us and good for the industry.

Speaker 2

I think the depreciation, deductibility for customers, when you combine that with when we start to see interest rates come down, whenever that will be, those two things I think will be a pretty powerful boost to demand. We've got part of the equation in place, but the bigger part's really the interest rates.

Understood. Thank you for the time, and good luck in Q3.

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from Joichi Sakai with Singular Research. Please proceed with your question.

Yes, hi. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. Can you talk about the gross margin in carbon flat? It looks like it improved year over year. What initiatives really helped that improvement?

Speaker 0

Hey, Chris. It's Rich. I think Rick had addressed a couple of those on the last question, but I think that what you saw was a combination of an increase in index pricing. You saw the better mix that we've had. As Rick indicated, we've got a better concentration in some higher margin products. It's the focus on fabrication. I'll give a shout out to our end products companies who did have a very strong second quarter. All of that combined to help that gross margin on the carbon side.

Okay, great. Can you talk about operating expenses? What should we be expecting for the rest of the year in operating expenses?

Yeah, Chris. I mean, I think what you saw is operating expenses were relatively flat in Q2 versus Q1. What we tried to do is make sure that those operating expenses move on a variable basis with volume. We did, in an earlier question, say that typically Q3 is seasonally slower than Q2. With that, we'd expect to take the operating expenses down commensurately with volume.

Can you talk about, do you have an outlook for the pricing for hot-rolled steel in the second half of the year? Do you see any stabilization there?

Yeah, Chris. This is Andrew. I think you'll see the second half of the year is going to be similar to what you'll see, what we saw in the first half. I think there's some variables that could change that. Certainly, you have a 50% tariff. If the tariff is reduced, as you know, it went from 25% to 50%. If it's reduced back to 25%, if the tariff is replaced by a quota and the economy stays, at least with our customers, the way that we see it, you could see some pressure. Barring that, I think you're going to see some stability for the second half of the year.

Okay, thanks. Last one, this is more of a macro question, but we're seeing some large investments from other countries like Japan and Europe from these tariff deals. Is that going to be affecting demand?

Chris, this is Andrew. I think it's a little early to tell. There have been a lot of numbers that have been reported. I would say soft on specifics. I think the more manufacturing that can come to the United States, the better it's going to be for the United States and certainly the steel industry. We're encouraged by the news out of Washington and the tariff deals that have been made that's talking about countries investing in the U.S. and the building and potential opportunities for us and manufacturing in general.

Okay, great. Thanks for the answers.

Thanks, Chris.

Speaker 2

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Our next question comes from Philip Gibbs with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 0

Good morning.

Speaker 2

Good morning, Phil.

I know there was a question earlier about the big beautiful bill. Are there actual discrete tax benefits that you all will realize in the second half of 2025, given a lot of the investments you're putting in place this year?

Speaker 0

Hey, Phil. It's Rich. Yeah, unfortunately, we went forward with this large organic growth, these opportunities before January of 2025, which that's the cutoff date for those. We will not get the bonus depreciation on those. Future projects, we certainly will look to get that benefit, but I do not expect to have a significant impact on the 2025 tax rate.

Okay. Regarding that working capital, you know, typically the second half is a source of cash for you all. I know pricing's been kind of volatile across products, but you typically do have a second half tailwind and cash inflow associated with that. What are you expecting this year?

Yeah, Phil. I think we're evaluating that right now. I think the thing that has changed since we had the last call was that the 25% base increase in stainless pricing. We're evaluating some opportunities in stainless. My outlook right now for Q3 is probably more flattish on debt than a paydown.

In Q4, you typically will still get that release?

We'll see where pricing goes. I'm going quarter by quarter right now, and based on what I know, I think we're flattish for Q3.

Okay. Lastly, you mentioned you have over $300 million of liquidity available to you all. I know M&A has been a big part of your strategy over the last several years. Are there still a swath of decent opportunities out there that you could be exploring?

Speaker 2

Yeah, Phil. Great, great question. It's Rick. Really, we saw the opportunity flow really slow down towards the end of last year and through the first quarter. We've seen it pick up in the second quarter. We are certainly seeing and looking at more things. Obviously, as we've stated every quarter, M&A is still a big piece of our strategy, in addition to the pretty large CapEx plan we went through for this year. We are actively looking. I think we're starting to see some better candidates that really fit our target zone. More to come on that as we work through the third quarter. The good news is I think that little bit of a hesitation and pause that we saw for, call it, three or four months seems to start to be that logjam of nothing happening seems to be opening up a bit.

We will continue to be active. We're looking at a lot of things, and we'll continue to be disciplined too, Phil. You know, we've said it many times, while growth through a combination of organic growth and our CapEx and acquisition is the way forward for us strategically, we're going to stay disciplined, and we're not going to make an acquisition just to say we have to make an acquisition because it's been a couple of quarters. I'm optimistic as we work through the back half that we'll continue to see some really good fits for Olympic Steel.

Thank you.

Speaker 3

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Rick Marabito for closing comments.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Operator. I just want to thank all of you for joining us today on our call. We appreciate your continued interest in Olympic Steel, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you, and everyone have a great day.

Speaker 3

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.