Earnings call transcript: Olympic Steel Q1 2025 stock surges 9.66% post-earnings

Olympic Steel Inc. (NASDAQ:ZEUS) reported its first-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a mixed financial performance that led to a notable stock surge of 9.66% in after-hours trading. The company posted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.21, falling short of analysts’ expectations of $0.26. Despite this miss, Olympic Steel’s revenue of $493 million surpassed the forecast of $473.75 million, contributing to the positive market reaction. According to InvestingPro data, the stock has shown significant volatility, with a beta of 1.5, making it more responsive to market movements than the average stock.

Key Takeaways

• Olympic Steel’s stock rose by 9.66% following the earnings announcement.
• Q1 2025 revenue exceeded forecasts, reaching $493 million.
• EPS fell short of expectations, reported at $0.21 against a forecast of $0.26.
• The company reduced its debt by $37 million to $235 million.
• Olympic Steel opened a new facility in Houston, expanding its operational capacity.

Company Performance

Olympic Steel’s Q1 2025 performance showed a decline in net income, which dropped to $2.5 million from $8.7 million in the same quarter of the previous year. EBITDA also saw a decrease, falling to $16.1 million from $23.3 million year-over-year. The company maintains strong financial health, with InvestingPro analysis showing a current ratio of 4.38, indicating robust liquidity with assets well exceeding short-term obligations. Additionally, Olympic Steel has maintained dividend payments for 20 consecutive years, demonstrating consistent shareholder returns despite market cycles. Despite these declines, the company managed to increase its flat roll shipping volumes by 24% sequentially and 6% year-over-year, reflecting strong operational execution in a challenging market environment.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $493 million, up from $473.75 million forecasted.
• EPS: $0.21, below the forecast of $0.26.
• Net income: $2.5 million, down from $8.7 million YoY.
• EBITDA: $16.1 million, down from $23.3 million YoY.
• Debt: Reduced by $37 million to $235 million.
• Effective tax rate: Increased to 30.1% from 27% last year.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Olympic Steel reported an EPS of $0.21, missing the forecasted $0.26 by approximately 19.2%. However, revenue exceeded expectations by about 4.3%, coming in at $493 million compared to the anticipated $473.75 million. This revenue beat provided a positive offset to the EPS miss, influencing the stock’s upward movement.

Market Reaction

In response to the earnings report, Olympic Steel’s stock surged by 9.66%, closing at $35.08, up from the previous close of $31.99. This movement places the stock closer to its 52-week high of $64.15, indicating strong investor confidence despite the EPS miss.

Outlook & Guidance

The company remains optimistic about its future, with plans for capital expenditures of $35 million in 2025 and a focus on reducing debt to the low $200 millions by year-end. Olympic Steel is also targeting at least one acquisition per year as part of its growth strategy. InvestingPro analysis reveals the company’s debt-to-equity ratio stands at 0.55, while maintaining an Altman Z-Score of 4.31, suggesting strong financial stability. Subscribers to InvestingPro can access 6 additional key insights and a comprehensive Pro Research Report, offering detailed analysis of Olympic Steel’s financial health and growth prospects.

Executive Commentary

President and COO Andrew Greif stated, "We have built a more resilient Olympic Steel and we are confident in our strategy and position in the market." CEO Rick Maribido added, "We are exceptionally well prepared, should the big bet that this administration is doing on bringing back manufacturing to the United States actually takes place."

Risks and Challenges

• Tariffs on steel and aluminum continue to impact market dynamics.
• Challenges persist in OEM markets, particularly affecting the Pipe and Tube segment.
• The effective tax rate has increased, potentially affecting net income.
• Rising competition in M&A due to tariffs may impact acquisition strategies.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the stability of the Pipe and Tube segment in Q2 and the impact of tariffs on M&A competition. Executives emphasized their focus on working capital and inventory management as strategic priorities.

Olympic Steel’s Q1 2025 earnings reveal a complex financial landscape, with strong revenue performance offsetting an EPS miss, leading to a positive market response. The company’s strategic initiatives and operational resilience position it well for future growth amidst ongoing market challenges. With a price-to-book ratio of 0.68 and trading near its InvestingPro Fair Value, the stock presents an interesting case for value-focused investors. The company’s gross profit margin of 23.24% and analysts’ positive outlook for profitability in 2025 suggest potential for continued operational improvement.

Full transcript - Olympic Steel Inc (ZEUS) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Olympic Steel twenty twenty five First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. 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.

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you, operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel’s earnings call for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Our call this morning will be hosted by our Chief Executive Officer, Rick Maribido, and we will also be joined by our President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Greif. 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 ks 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.

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you, Rich, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Olympic Steel’s twenty twenty five first quarter results. I’ll begin with a summary of our first quarter earnings results, including our strong shipping start to the year despite a challenging macro environment for the steel industry. Then Andrew will review our segment performance, and following that, Rich will discuss our financial results in more detail. And then as always, we’ll open up the call for your questions.

So we’ve talked a lot in recent years about our strategy to build a stronger, more resilient Olympic Steel, one that is positioned to deliver profitable results in any environment. Our first quarter performance during a challenging time for the metals industry reflects the success of these efforts and reinforces our strategy as we move forward. We reported strong shipments in first quarter sales of $493,000,000 with net income of $2,500,000 All three of our business segments continued to deliver positive EBITDA. Our flat roll shipping volumes were up 24% sequentially and 6% over the prior year, hitting their highest levels since the third quarter of twenty twenty one, which was also the height of the post COVID pricing and demand market. We really saw an increase in demand about halfway through the quarter, as customers reacted to the announced 25% steel and aluminum tariffs and contemplated the impact of potential reciprocal tariffs.

Andrew will talk more about this in a few moments. We continue to execute on our strategy to grow profitably by diversifying into metal intensive end markets, expanding our fabrication capabilities and focusing on a richer mix of higher margin metal products. Our commitment to M and A to bolster these areas has proven to be very effective. Our most recent acquisition, Metalworks, completed in late twenty twenty four, is off to an excellent start. As expected, it has been immediately accretive to our results.

Building on our successful track record of completing eight acquisitions over the past seven years, we remain committed to M and A as an ongoing source of growth for Olympic Steel. We are also committed to making key organic growth investments in our operations that will enhance throughput and safety, and Andrew will detail more about that in a few minutes. At the same time, we’ve demonstrated our operational discipline by staying focused on what we can control. We are closely managing our working capital and improved our inventory turns as we weather uncertain markets. These efforts drove strong operating cash flow during the quarter, which resulted in a 37,000,000 reduction in our debt.

In addition, last week, we announced the five year extension of our $625,000,000 asset based revolving credit facility. This will continue to provide us with the flexible, low cost capital to fund our continued growth, both organically and through acquisition. While tariffs have dominated the macroeconomic conversation, Olympic Steel is well positioned to support increased manufacturing in The United States. Over 90% of our metal supply and almost all of our sales are domestically based, and our fabrication capabilities provide an excellent solution for OEMs looking to onshore, outsource, or simply expand their first stage of manufacturing in The United States. And our longstanding strong relationships with our domestic mills are also a real benefit in the current tariff environment.

As we look ahead, we believe strongly in the Olympic Steel that we have been building. We remain confident in our ability to continue to drive profitable growth regardless of market conditions. I’ll now turn the call over to Andrew.

Andrew Greif, President and Chief Operating Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. This certainly has been an interesting time for the steel industry with a number of dynamics shaping our current environment, most notably the tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. After the initial announcement of 25% steel and aluminum tariffs in January, hot roll pricing escalated quickly increasing more than 30% during the quarter. As customers scrambled to digest the news, spot orders increased significantly. During the first quarter of twenty twenty five, Olympic Steel had its strongest flat rolled shipping volume since the third quarter of twenty twenty one, which was the peak of post COVID demand.

And as you may recall, we still owned our former Detroit facility back then. Increased shipping levels along with our end products businesses drove strong performance in our Carbon segment with EBITDA of $10,900,000 In addition, continued growth in our coated carbon steel product line, a higher margin product had a positive impact on performance. Also of note, we were recognized as a partner level supplier for 2024 in the John Deere Achieving Excellence program. This is John Deere’s highest supplier rating. We are incredibly proud to receive this recognition from our longtime customer and respected global OEM.

Congratulations to our entire team on this great achievement. The Pipe and Tube market, which typically lags our carbon performance by three to six months, experienced slower OEM orders similar to what the carbon market experienced during the second half of twenty twenty four. However, the segment still delivered EBITDA of $6,400,000 We are confident the team’s focus on sales growth, margin improvement and fabricated product expansion will continue to drive positive results for this business. The Specialty Metals segment, despite continually falling nickel surcharges, had a solid quarter reporting EBITDA of $3,600,000 We continue to invest in the growth and expansion of Specialty Metals. In March, we opened our new facility in Houston.

The 105,000 square foot facility will increase the Action Stainless Houston operations footprint by an additional 73,000 square feet, expanding our distribution fabrication capabilities in the Southwest. Our other planned capital investments remain on track with most expected to become operational later this year or in early twenty twenty six. These include a new cut to length line at our Minneapolis coil facility to support our growing coated business, a new high speed light gauge narrow width specialty metal slitter to expand our Berlin Metals unique slitting capacity outside Chicago, a new white metals cut to length line in Schaumburg, Illinois in the automation of our Chambersburg fabrication operation. These investments will continue to expand our capacity and enhance our safety and drive efficiency in targeted growth areas of our business. As Rick said earlier, we have built a more resilient Olympic Steel and we are confident in our strategy and position in the market.

As always, we will continue to control what we can control, while many market inputs and macroeconomic variables will no doubt continue to change. We strongly believe the combination of these efforts keep us well positioned to continue to grow and deliver profitable results under all market conditions. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Rich.

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you, Andrew. As you have heard from Rick and Andrew, our team did an excellent job on the first quarter to navigate macroeconomic headwinds to deliver solid performance to the start of the year. Before I discuss the results in more detail, I want to remind you that comparisons are impacted by the November 2024 acquisition of Metalworks, whose results are included in the Carbon segment. For the first quarter, net income totaled $2,500,000 compared with $8,700,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. EBITDA in the first quarter was $16,100,000 compared with $23,300,000 in the prior year period.

There was no LIFO adjustment in the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared with $400,000 of LIFO expense in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Consolidated operating expenses for the first quarter totaled $110,600,000 compared with $103,200,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Our first quarter twenty twenty five operating expenses reflect the addition of Metal Works, 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, Metal Fab, Shaw Stainless or the entire Pipe and Tube segment.

Consolidated operating expenses for the first quarter include operating expenses associated with shipping 6% more volume year over year, dollars 2,500,000.0 of metalworks operating and acquisition related expenses and $500,000 of lower incentive expenses when compared with the first quarter of twenty twenty four. Our team’s excellent working capital management drove strong operating cash flow, which enabled us to pay down debt by $37,000,000 since year end, lowering our total debt to $235,000,000 at the end of the first quarter. On April 22, we announced a five year extension of our $625,000,000 asset based revolving credit facility. Immediately after the extension, we had approximately $269,000,000 of availability under the facility, providing us with an excellent source of flexible low cost capital to fund strategic growth initiatives. Our capital expenditures totaled $8,800,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five compared to depreciation of $6,500,000 We estimate that 2025 capital expenditures will be approximately $35,000,000 as we continue to invest in automation and other growth initiatives that Andrew mentioned earlier.

Our first quarter twenty twenty five effective tax rate was 30.1% compared with 27% in the same period last year. We expect our 2025 tax rate to approximate 28%. In addition, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share in the first quarter. Our Board of Directors approved our next regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per share, which is payable on 06/16/2025 to shareholders of record on 06/02/2025. The company has now paid regular quarterly dividends dating back to 02/2006.

Before we open the call for your questions, I would like to thank the entire Olympic Steel team for all their efforts in the first quarter. It’s because of the team’s hard work and dedication that Olympic Steel remains in a strong operational and financial position and is equipped to manage through a challenging market environment while continuing to advance our strategy. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our first question is from Samuel McKinney with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hey, good morning, guys.

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Good morning, Good morning, Sam.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Hey, starting in carbon flat, volumes were up about 25% versus the It’s well ahead of your normal seasonality and the MSCI figures. We’ve been hearing a lot about pull forward demand during this earnings cycle. And I was curious if you could frame up how much of that first quarter volume boost has to do with that?

Andrew Greif, President and Chief Operating Officer, Olympic Steel: Yes, Sam, this is Andrew. I would say a lot of it. So traditionally, our sales are, call it 60 fivethirty five from a contract versus spot. It stronger this quarter on the spot side of it. So we certainly saw some great activity and some pull ahead

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: relatively early in the quarter and it really helped propel the strength of the carbon sales. And I’d say, Sam, it’s Rick. The other, I guess, way to look at it is typically and I think Rich, you calculate the number, but typically seasonally fourth quarter to first quarter were 10 to 12% off, that would kind of be a normal increase of certainly, we lap that we doubled it. And as Andrew said, a big piece of that extra was certainly in the spot business.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Understood. And then I know first quarter tends to be the strongest revenue quarter for Pipe and Tube given the rebates. Are you expecting that to hold true this year off the $77,000,000 base you set in the first quarter or could we see some improvement as the year progresses?

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Yes, Sam. So the Pipe and Tube segment didn’t certainly didn’t see the same bump up in sales that the Carbon segment saw. And that’s primarily because they’re more contractual based than spot based. And so as Andrew walked you through the increase in spot sales, you didn’t see that in the pipe and tube segment. I think what they’re seeing is kind of that continued malaise that we saw in the back half of twenty twenty four for the carbon segment for OEMs.

Keep in mind, basically lag three to six months. And so, right now, what we’re seeing, I think the pipe and tube segment going into Q2 looks a lot like Q1.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay. And then last one for me, given your five year extension on that ABL, just talk us through your current appetite for M and A, any potential areas you’re looking to bolster and how does the marketplace look now compared to prior recent periods?

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Yeah, it’s Rick Sam. Great question. Certainly, and A continues to be one of the key pieces of our strategic growth for Olympic. We’ve talked a lot about that. That certainly remains.

We’re active looking. You are right. I think last call we had, I probably commented that we saw some of the inflow, the pipeline in terms of candidates slow. Certainly that kind of continued through the first quarter. But I tell you in April, we’ve started to see, a return of potential sellers and candidates who are really interested in dialoguing.

So it’s going to continue to be, you see our track record, we’ve done eight and seven years. So it’s going to continue to be a big piece of our growth strategy going forward. We’d anticipate really continuing on the pace that you’ve seen us do over the last five to seven years.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Okay, Would you be disappointed if you didn’t get a deal done this year?

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: You like repeating that line I use. Yeah, I would. Think, certainly, I think we’re trying to do at least one a year and doing that. And I don’t see why we wouldn’t continue at that pace.

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Okay. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thanks, Sam.

Conference Operator: Our next question is from Dave Storms with Stonegate.

Dave Storms, Analyst, Stonegate: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets: Good morning, Dave.

Dave Storms, Analyst, Stonegate: I wanted to circle back to pipe and tube and maybe a sense of what the outlook might be beyond 2Q. You mentioned obviously that it lags. But are you seeing buying patterns that might indicate more of a muted response relative to carbon flats? Or do you think it’ll be more of a trapped and slingshot situation where the market realizes that they need to kind of get ahead of some of those?

Andrew Greif, President and Chief Operating Officer, Olympic Steel: No, I think we’ll see a more traditional year for pipe and tube. I think the area that we will see continued opportunity is going to be onshoring opportunities. So couple of areas that pipe and tube has been very strong, certainly with data centers. It’s a big part of their growth. But really with the onshoring opportunities on both our flat roll and our pipe and tube is really where we expect to see some great opportunities through 2025 and probably beyond and we’re well prepared for it.

With CTI and now CTB, we can really service fabrication customers who’ve got 20 high speed sophisticated tube lasers, really positioned well in the Southwest. In our traditional Chicago tube and iron facilities, Chicago, Minneapolis, Locust, as well as some others are really positioned well, and our flat roll side of it the same thing. So we’ve invested, as you know, a lot in the flat roll side of our fabrication. Couple specific facilities are Beaufort, Georgia and our Bartlett, Illinois facilities, but in Bettendorf, in Chambersburg, in Mount Sterling, on the flat roll side, put a lot of money into the fabrication and are anticipating as we have seen some great opportunities that we’ve seen really in the last thirty days for big growth there.

Dave Storms, Analyst, Stonegate: That’s fantastic color. Thank you. And then just one more for me. Just would love to get your thoughts on your working capital and maybe inventory management to try to cover for the 10% amount of supply that’s not domestic? Any thoughts there would be great.

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Yes, I’ll touch the working capital and then I’ll let Andrew talk about the supply base. So Dave, yes, we did take that down $37,000,000 in Q1 and part of that was taking inventory down. I would expect to see maybe a modest decrease in debt during Q2, I’m not expecting a whole lot. As we’ve been talking on these calls, we really expect the large reduction in debt to come in the back half of the year. And we see no reason why by year end, we couldn’t be back down in the low 200s in terms of borrowing on our debt.

And so Andrew, I’ll let you talk about the supply base.

Andrew Greif, President and Chief Operating Officer, Olympic Steel: No, I think the our inventories are at appropriate levels. I think as you saw in the MSCI report, a lot of the service centers were sitting with too much inventory coming into 2025. I think we are in really good position continue to be as into the second quarter and expect that the supply will be relatively stable as we head into the balance of the year. I think we are well positioned because we’re the majority of our material comes from the domestic supply. So tariffs really are not going to impact us relative to that side of it.

And we think that there’s fine availability domestically to support our growth.

Dave Storms, Analyst, Stonegate: Fantastic. Thank you very much and good luck in 2Q.

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Thanks, guys.

Conference Operator: Our next question is from Chris Sakai with Singular Research.

Chris Sakai, Analyst, Singular Research: Yes, hi. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. Just had question on carbon flat. Looks like operating expenses took a jump up from last year.

Was that from acquisitions? And how are you managing that going forward?

Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer, Olympic Steel: Yeah, Chris, really caused by two things. One being the acquisition of Metal Works, remember that occurred in November of twenty four. So when you’re comparing Q1 versus Q1, there’s about $2,500,000 extra operating expenses that weren’t there last year, but associated with a great growth company in metalworks. And then we shipped quarter over quarter, we’re 24% up in volume and 6% in volume up year over year. And so those tons have to be processed, those tons have to be shipped and that’s really what you’re seeing an increase in warehouse and processing and then an increase in distribution expense associated with that volume growth.

And we continue to monitor our expenses on a same store basis. What we continue to see is our inflation adjusting for volume is essentially in the low single digits as far as inflation goes, say 1% to 2%. And that’s after giving people a 3% cola raise at the beginning of the year. So we think the operating expenses on a same store basis continue to be managed very well.

Chris Sakai, Analyst, Singular Research: Okay, thanks for that. And then with all this tariff talk, how is that affecting your M and A strategy? Is it hurting it or helping you?

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: I’d tell you really not an impact directly. We are domestic based. All of our acquisitions have been in The US at this point. We’re not really looking at foreign acquisitions. What I would tell you is the tariff impact really has a greater impact on our fabricating business.

And Andrew talked about that. I mean, we are exceptionally well prepared, should the big bet that this administration is doing on bringing back manufacturing to The United States actually takes place. We’re exceptionally positioned to take advantage of that. So I think from an M and A front, you’ll continue to see us do what we’ve done in the past, which is find service center distribution businesses that are very successful. And then just as importantly, continue to buy end manufacturing companies.

So really the tariff impact, tell you has more of a, more of an impact on the core business going forward than really impact on M and A. And as I stated earlier, I think there was a little trepidation as the year started, in terms of the capital markets and M and A. And that’s probably why we saw a little bit of a slow slowdown in the pipeline. But I think as companies are getting a little more used to and you hate to say used to changes out of DC, but I think people are getting a little more comfortable and we’re seeing more, certainly more companies come into the pipeline.

Chris Sakai, Analyst, Singular Research: Do you think that the tariffs will increase competition for acquisitions?

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think if this plays out as planned, and we continue to build our manufacturing base in The United States, I could certainly see some others choosing to grow more quickly through an M and A route versus a capital expenditure investment route. So I think that’s sort of one stream where you may see M and A increase.

Chris Sakai, Analyst, Singular Research: Okay, great. Thanks.

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you. Thanks, Chris.

Conference Operator: Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I’d like to hand the floor back over to Richard Marabino for any closing comments.

Rick Maribido, Chief Executive Officer, Olympic Steel: Thank you, operator, and thank you everyone for joining us today on our call. We certainly appreciate your continued interest in Olympic Steel and look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Have a great day, everyone. Bye bye.

Conference Operator: This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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