Stelco Holdings Inc
TSX:STLC
| US |
|
Johnson & Johnson
NYSE:JNJ
|
Pharmaceuticals
|
| US |
|
Berkshire Hathaway Inc
NYSE:BRK.A
|
Financial Services
|
| US |
|
Bank of America Corp
NYSE:BAC
|
Banking
|
| US |
|
Mastercard Inc
NYSE:MA
|
Technology
|
| US |
|
Abbvie Inc
NYSE:ABBV
|
Biotechnology
|
| US |
|
Pfizer Inc
NYSE:PFE
|
Pharmaceuticals
|
| US |
|
Palantir Technologies Inc
NYSE:PLTR
|
Technology
|
| US |
|
Nike Inc
NYSE:NKE
|
Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods
|
| US |
|
Visa Inc
NYSE:V
|
Technology
|
| CN |
|
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd
NYSE:BABA
|
Retail
|
| US |
|
3M Co
NYSE:MMM
|
Industrial Conglomerates
|
| US |
|
JPMorgan Chase & Co
NYSE:JPM
|
Banking
|
| US |
|
Coca-Cola Co
NYSE:KO
|
Beverages
|
| US |
|
Realty Income Corp
NYSE:O
|
Real Estate
|
| US |
|
Verizon Communications Inc
NYSE:VZ
|
Telecommunication
|
| US |
|
Walt Disney Co
NYSE:DIS
|
Media
|
If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Utilize notes to systematically review your investment decisions. By reflecting on past outcomes, you can discern effective strategies and identify those that underperformed. This continuous feedback loop enables you to adapt and refine your approach, optimizing for future success.
Each note serves as a learning point, offering insights into your decision-making processes. Over time, you'll accumulate a personalized database of knowledge, enhancing your ability to make informed decisions quickly and effectively.
With a comprehensive record of your investment history at your fingertips, you can compare current opportunities against past experiences. This not only bolsters your confidence but also ensures that each decision is grounded in a well-documented rationale.
This note will be permanently deleted.
Stelco Holdings Inc
You don't have any saved screeners yet
Good morning. Thank you for attending today's Stelco's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Foram, and I will be your moderator for today's call. [Operator Instructions]It is now my pleasure to pass the conference over to our host, Trevor Harris with Stelco. Mr. Harris, please proceed.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Stelco's quarterly earnings conference call. Speaking on the call today to discuss our 2024 first quarter results will be Alan Kestenbaum, our Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Scherzer, our Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday, after the market closed, we issued a press release overviewing Stelco's financial results for the first quarter of 2024. This press release, along with the company's financial statements and management's discussion and analysis have been posted on SEDAR+ and on our Investor Relations website at investors.stelco.com. We have provided a link to the presentation referenced on today's call on our website as well.I would like to inform everyone that comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking statements, which involve assumptions, which have inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the statements made here today, so do not place undue reliance upon them. Stelco management disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law.With that in mind, I would ask everyone on today's call to read the legal disclaimers on Page 2 of the accompanying earnings presentation and also to refer to the risks and assumptions outlined in Stelco's public disclosures, in particular, the first quarter 2024 Management's Discussion and Analysis sections relating to forward-looking information and risks and uncertainties as well as our filings with Securities Commissions in Canada.The appendix of our presentation and the non-IFRS performance measures and review of non-IFRS measures of our MD&A provide definitions and reconciliations of the non-IFRS measures that we use today.Please also note, that all dollar figures referred to on today's call will be in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise noted. Following today's prepared remarks, Alan and Paul will be taking questions. To maximize efficiency, we would ask that all participants who would like to ask a question, please limit themselves to 1 question and 1 follow-up question before requeuing.With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Alan. Alan?
Thank you, Trevor, and good morning, everyone.In the latter part of 2023, we saw an improvement in the market with respect to both demand and pricing that represented an opportunity for our business to deliver stronger results entering 2024. The first quarter was representative of the strength, the resilience and versatility we have built in our business and the ability of our team to control costs and take full advantage of these favorable conditions by driving increased revenue straight through to the bottom line.In Q1, we generated $153 million of adjusted EBITDA, a 200% increase over the previous quarter. The resulting adjusted EBITDA margin of 21% was once again the highest amongst our North American reporting steelmaking peers, a position we have proudly held for 10 of the last 14 quarters. As a management team, we take great pride in this continued success. Our close alignment with shareholders has been at the core of our philosophy, and led us to ensure that the deployment of our capital has always been in your, our fellow shareholders' best interests. As an example, last quarter, we took the step of increasing our ordinary quarterly dividend. And today, we are again declaring an ordinary dividend to our valued shareholders of $0.50 per share, which annualizes to more than 5% based on the existing share price.In addition, during the quarter, we took the step of repurchasing shares under the previously announced Normal Course Issuer Bid. As a result of these continued efforts to deliver value, we have surpassed $2.1 billion in capital returned to our shareholders since 2017 or more than 10x the amount we raised in our IPO. When looked at as a percentage of market capitalization, this level of return leads by far the entire North American industry. We are extremely proud of this track record and intend to keep the interests of our shareholders front and center, as we determine the best way to deploy our capital in the future.These results did not come by chance. They are a direct result of the tactical flexibility that we deploy in the day-to-day operation of our business. We have seen ebbs and flows in the market in recent years, both in terms of pricing and demand, and seen the influence of inflationary pressures on the cost of our raw material inputs. But at every point in the market, our team and our business have been able to capitalize on the opportunities that the market presented, while controlling our cost of production, and delivering high returns for the benefit of all of our stakeholders.We have already begun executing on our plan that we announced and initiated this year to expand our already impressive industry-leading margins by increasing utilization of our downstream value-added capacity at the Hamilton Works, in a way that enhances and diversifies the product mix and also increases our profit margins even further. While we continue to explore all options to grow our business, whether through organic growth or accretive M&A opportunities, we remain patient and disciplined. Our interest is in creating value for our shareholders. While we invest in all our assets, we will pursue those potential opportunities that have both attractive valuations and significant synergies.Thank you for your time this morning. I will now ask Paul Scherzer to detail some of our financial results.
Thanks, Alan, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2024 was demonstrative of the true strength of our business and our ability to take advantage of opportunities in the market. While we did see an increase in revenue of 22% over the previous quarter, that was largely driven by a comparable increase in our average selling price, our industry-leading low-cost structure, and our relentless focus on cost controls saw us drive that revenue through to the bottom line. The 200% increase to adjusted EBITDA and the 187% increase to adjusted EBITDA per net ton are representative of our capability to convert these market opportunities into value for shareholders. These results are in line with the guidance we provided last quarter, guidance that we were able to provide because of the confidence we have in our tactical flexibility business model, and in our management team's ability to seize upon market opportunities.These results once again allowed us to deploy capital in a manner that benefits our shareholders through the payment of our recently increased ordinary dividend and the repurchase of approximately 162,000 shares under our Normal Course Issuer Bid. We have also preserved optionality for the future deployment of capital by being conservative in our approach to liquidity.For the second quarter in a row, we ended the period with $645 million in cash and with no borrowings on our revolving credit facility. As noted by Alan, this flexibility will afford Stelco the opportunity to pursue both organic and accretive growth opportunities as they emerge without risk of compromising our commitment to our shareholders. While these metrics certainly paint a picture of our success during the first quarter of 2024, we also see optimism for the period ahead.In Q1, we realized an increase in shipping volume of 4% for a total of 636,000 net tons. For the second quarter, we anticipate shipping volume to be in the range of 625,000 to 650,000 net tons. We believe this relative stability in the market will afford our business the opportunity to leverage our relentless focus on costs, and continue our strong record of generating cash from operations. This of course, is central to our commitment to shareholders as we strive to generate value within our business and create opportunities to deploy capital in a responsible and strategic manner.As we move through the second quarter, we will continue to pursue measures that reduce our operating costs while maintaining a clean balance sheet. These principles have created a foundation of our business that has returned substantial benefits to all of our stakeholders, and we will not deviate from our commitments.Overall, the first quarter was a positive start to our year, and we are optimistic about our ability to continue building upon our success throughout 2024. We thank you for taking the time today to join our call.
Thank you to Alan and Paul. That concludes our prepared remarks for today. I would now like to turn the call back over to the operator for questions and answers. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] Our first question today will come from the line of Katja Jancic with BMO Capital Markets.
Maybe starting on the margin. You delivered a solid first quarter margin, but now prices have moved lower. Can you talk a bit about how we should think about margin in the second quarter or near term?
Yes. Let me first correct something, prices have actually not moved lower with respect to second quarter, because as we've discussed on multiple occasions, the cycle since 2021 has gone up and down with the same type of buyer behavior, buyer strikes, prices drop, buyers come rush in, prices shoot up. And that's what we experienced at the end of 2023, when you saw that in November, then prices started to shoot up in December, because we booked in December, and we had already been booked halfway through the quarter at that point when prices started to move, you really only started to see the benefit of some of those price increases occur late February and into March, and into April, and into May. So there's some recent markdowns in futures and CRU and other price indicators are really only starting to impact June.And so therefore, we have the benefit already. We're predominantly sold out for the quarter. We've got a little bit left with some of the recent softness may impact some of our competition, should have less of an impact on us. We do see the same cycle happening again. History has been repeating itself consistently since 2021, and we do expect prices, which have, as you've correctly pointed out, in following of late, not to impact us that much. But certainly, as we get through the next quarter, I think you're going to continue to see very good results from us as a result of the present cycle and booking cycle that we have. That may not be the case in June. We might see some softness in June. But as I said, we did a very good job of selling out as much as we could.And so we're expecting to have a pretty similar looking quarter. And then as we get into next quarter, I think we're going to see it again. The ongoing economy is good. Order patterns are such that buyers will probably come rushing in again all of months, and we'll have yet another spike in the next quarter. That's what we're anticipating. So again, to repeat the softness that you're referring to is very, very recent over the last couple of weeks. Fortunately for us, we've done a good job of selling ahead to the quarter as much as we could, and that will impact to some degree in -- towards the end of this quarter, but I expect we'll -- should balance out into the third quarter as well as parts to start moving up again.
And maybe as a follow-up on the product mix, since you're trying to increase utilization of the value-add side. How should we think about the mix going forward?
So this is a dramatic, major, and important shift to this company. And if you recall, I cautioned when we talked about this last quarter, we remain almost 50% on the utilize on our cold mill, coating lines, and [ tandem ] lines. Each one of those facilities have different amounts. This is essentially a CapEx-free opportunity for us to go and expand that. We're being modest in our expectations. We do expect on an annualized basis to see an increase in that part of the business by over 15% as we get through this year, and even much more next year. Very, very focused on making sure we keep our top-rated performance that we have enjoyed in the hot-rolled part of the business to also make sure we deploy that in the downstream part of the business. These are customers that are much more used to just-in-time delivery, reliable deliveries, and we want to make sure that we're able to service these customers in the right way. So it's an incremental growth.We're going to see a nice bit of bump up this year to the tune of about 15% on an annualized basis. We're starting to see it already now. A little bit of that is even going to be reflected in this coming quarter, with the current quarter that we're in right now and even much more so we've got pretty ambitious plans. We have a 3-phase plan that's going to roll in over the next 2 years. And the output of this company, the footprint of company that -- the way this company is viewed in terms of a full top to bottom supplier, never sacrificing margins is going to be apparent over the next couple of years. So look for about 15% annualized basis as we get through this year. We'll update you for next year, but we're expecting a pretty sizeable increase. Keep in mind, we've got the ability to -- we've got about 60% capacity utilization available in that part of the business. And we're working very, very hard at this new initiative to accomplish this. Just to remind everybody who may not have heard this -- heard the source of this initiative, when we saw in December that Nippon is paying 9x for our U.S. Steel, I look at our multiple today, we're at 2.54,2.54, that's 6.5 turns less than U.S. Steel. It's unbelievable.And we look at our business and say like, wow, what are we doing wrong? What can we do better? We've got the highest margins in the industry. We've returned the most capital than any company, and yet we trade at a [indiscernible] 2.54 multiple. And that calculation is very simple. You take our market cap, you deduct our cash because we have no debt, $645 million of cash, and you come to an enterprise value of 1.525 and you annualize our current quarter at about $150 million, that's $600 million, and you come to about 2.54. And it's really a lot of multiple pick-up. And one of the things we did after the last quarter, and I mentioned this on the last call, for those of you who missed it, I'm sorry, and I'll explain it now for those of you who've heard it, I'll update you. But what we've seen is like what does U.S. Steel do right that we could do better at. And one of the things that we know Nippon was very, very attracted by some of the things we can do, in terms of its penetration into key and core markets on the downstream, that's something that we have the ability to do. So we believe that this is not only going to result in higher profitability, and again, we're sitting in a leading profit margin position, 10 of the last 14 quarters, we've had the highest profit margin, including this very quarter.And based on what you've heard from others, we'll probably do it again this quarter. If we can get from 21% margins in a mediocre quarter bump another 5% or 10% out of that by shifting to higher value-added products. And when I sell higher value-added products, I'm talking about higher value added to the customer and higher value to our shareholders, where we make more profits. We're going to have a machine here that's not only going to make more money, that get re-rated on a multiple basis to something a lot closer to what Nippon put forward for U.S. Steel. So that's the plan. We're on our way. We're very, very determined, and we expect that we're going to be successful at it and within months. As I said, 15% annualized basis for '24. I hope to double that for 2025, and that's what you guys posted on that.
Our next question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan.
This is [ Bennett ] on for Bill. I was hoping could you get a little more color on what you're seeing on customer demand from your different end markets, which are the strongest and weakest? And how the order book is looking so far for the second quarter, please?
The order book, as I just mentioned in the prior question, the order book is looking very good. We did a good job selling out early. We're in June right now. The latter part of June was a little bit less. We expect to fill out, unfortunately, did most of our selling when prices were higher. While the demand -- the demand has been steady in all areas, key markets, energy, construction, autos, service centers. It's really been steady. Everyone predicted certain reactions to interest rates to hurt construction and auto sales, but we're seeing steady demand from our customers. The ebbs and flows that we see is pricing related. I think that the downstream customers have become much smarter as they should, to what's going on in the steel market, and so they try and do their order patterns, time to when they see prices -- when they think prices have bottomed out, that's when they tend to come rushing in.But we follow very, very closely our customer inventories, the customer inventories are lightning yet once again as the prices drop, and we expect those customers to rush back in, give us another leg up on pricing. But underlying demand is really the key point. And you're asking the actual really most important question, what is the underlying demand look like in those key markets? And I would say from the top, construction, very good demand for products that go into things like data centers and warehouses and things like that. Same with resi, seeing good construction numbers there. We're getting good orders for our galvanized and coated products, a lot of it goes into residential. Then auto is steady, you guys have seen the SAR numbers, those are pretty steady. Oil and gas remains good, particularly on the oil side. So really across the board, we're seeing demand steady.
And then real quick, given your leverage to spot pricing, I was hoping to get your thoughts on the reason spot pricing now being put in the market by 2 of your U.S. peers. What impact do you perceive is having on the market and/or potentially easing pricing volatility through the cycle?
Really too early for me to give you a projection on how that's going to impact the market. There has been -- there is a CRU number that's published every week. This is yet another number, another data point. So we have several data points. We have the 2 producers that are putting out weekly prices, we have the future prices, and we have CRU. And I don't really see much of an impact just yet, and probably be happy to answer that question as we have a little bit of experience to be just 6 months down the road. And certainly, I don't see much of an impact, positive or negative to our business.
Our next question comes from the line of James McGarragle with RBC.
Congrats on the industry-leading margins. I just wanted to ask a question on the new core contracts. We've seen lower gas -- natural gas prices and the impact on costs looking ahead. So Cleveland-Cliffs flagged around $20 to $30 per ton decrease in cost mainly on the back of their lower coal contracts and natural gas prices. Is that the right way to think about it for your business? And are you expecting those to sort of flow through costs in Q3 -- sorry, in Q2? Or is that more of a Q3 story? Thanks.
Yes. We will start to see some of those costs drop in Q2 and Q3. Those are the right ingredients. It's natural gas, it's coal. So we will definitely see some of those costs still to positively impact our costs. We're already seeing that in Q2, and then it should continue to accelerate end of Q2 and Q3 as well, and Q4 for that matter. So we're anticipating to have some lower cost, and pricing can stay on average through the year as we've been seeing it. We should be having a pretty good year and hope to be able to achieve all of our capital and investment initiatives and goals.
And just a follow-up for me on some of the recent infrastructure announcements. We saw a big pickup in investment from the Government of Canada into the budget. We had that new Honda EV plant as an example. So on one hand, steel price is going to be driven by what happened in the U.S. market. But on the other hand, having some big projects in your backyard is probably going to be pretty good for business. So what type of impact do you see from these projects having on your business if you look a little longer term into 2025 and 2026?
Yes. The impacts are excellent. There's been a lot of growth in Canada. There's the ones that you mentioned, the big infrastructure projects that are definitely consume a lot of steel. And we're right at the forefront to be able to service into that. And so that's really good. And then in addition to that, Canada continues to have an acute housing shortage. You drive around Canada, and the construction is despite higher interest rate environment is strong. And so that's also very, very good for us. And the other thing, since you mentioned the budget, there are a number of budgetary allotments for -- that directly will impact us in terms of certain investments that we want to make, that are working their way through. I'm really, really very excited in all of that. So the Canadian environment is very, very positive. You're right.We think a lot about the U.S. and we focus on the U.S., but we're in Canada and predominantly more than 80% of our shipments stay in Canada. And while the impact of pricing is very much related to what goes on in the U.S., the local demand in Canada is exalt economic planning that's taken place, especially on a provincial level in our home court in Ontario has really been wonderful. And we speak to these guys all the time. They're traveling around the world, getting guys like that to have come in and invest. And these are really, really exciting opportunities for us. Along with the other things that are in the budget, not enough time to go through them right now, but one of the very positive aspects in that budget that will impact us in a very positive way.
Our next question comes from the line of Adam Schneider with Cormark Securities.
I'm just filling in for David today. I have a couple of questions about the free cash flow. Given your strong cash balance of $645 million, what are your plans for that cash this year? Is it NCIBs, growth CapEx, or acquisitions?
So in terms of capital allocations, we break it down into 3 buckets. There's investment back in the facility. One thing we've learned, and I have learned over the course of my 30-year career, the importance of investing back into the facility. We put in over $1 billion of capital back into the facility. And we intend to continue to allocate additional cash accumulation into the facility to make sure we maintain reliability and our cost competitiveness. So that's one aspect of use of cash. Other as you pointed out, I mentioned in the prior call, that we have 3 capital initiatives this year. We've got share buybacks, special dividends, and ordinary dividends. And then, of course, investments back in the facility. With the way business is looking this year with our cash balance, we should be able to hit on all of them.Let me just remind everybody, we paid last year, a $3 special dividend, in addition to the annual current ordinary dividend of $2, $5 is a 12% return on the stock just on dividends. So we hope to be able to do that. We hope to be able to -- we expect to be able to do more share buybacks. We just started them at the beginning of March, and we intend to -- capital investments back from the facility, share buybacks, dividends. And then, of course, when you look at M&A opportunities, we try to be really, really smart and really long-term, and because we've got industry-leading metrics, we want to make sure that whatever we buy has enormous synergies. Nobody has the cost structure we have. There's nothing we can buy that's going to have the same profit margin we have. But we know with our capability and our know-how, and synergies, we can actually make acquisitions and participate in M&A that could be extremely, extremely meaningful to the shareholders of this company. So very, very focused on that. There are not a lot of players out there that have the financial flexibility, know-how, experience, skill to go and actually execute a very successful M&A transaction.And we remain very, very focused on that. But M&A is something that's unpredictable. It's opportunistic. We're not like Starbucks, we're going to go and build 200 stores this year or whatever it is. This is a company that lives by being able to exploit opportunities. We have a very, very flexible balance sheet to enable us to do that. So when you think about capital allocation, think about CapEx, share buybacks, dividends and when M&A is available to us, we will be in a position to execute it on a way that's extremely accretive to shareholders.
And just a quick follow-up. With regards to your inventory monetization arrangement, is the expectation to use that less now given the high interest rate environment?
Look, we have an internal rate of return on our investments of 25%. So the answer is no. We believe we can take our capital and invest it, and we don't need to sit and put it into working capital. So when we get to a place of interest rate, where we have no better opportunity for it, and it's better to own inventory, we'll do that. But we've become -- just look at our numbers, $2.1 billion of shareholder returns. I mean, we are so efficient in our working capital management. And even with the higher interest rates, we're able to continue to do that. I just looked at our dividends, our share buybacks, our special dividends. We've been able to do that.So this is a -- we always look at what can we do with our capital. And as I mentioned on your prior question, these are investments in the facility. We have a minimum threshold of 25%. That's a heck of a lot more than the interest we pay. And so we're going to continue to be really, really smart and efficient with our working capital. We, of course, always have the ability to pay that down, if we thought that was the most efficient thing to do. But we're always looking at efficiency and how do we make the best use and value out of our assets.
And sorry, just one quick one. I know you mentioned the cyclicality earlier of the steel price, but just wondering, quickly, what your expectation is for cost per ton this year?
Again you [Technical Difficulty]
Our next question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan.
Its Bennett on again here. I just wanted to squeeze one more in. Alan, you've done a great job of outlining the capital allocation framework as it relates to the buyback dividends, CapEx. It's good to see the strategy unfolding with greater leverage downstream. But I wanted to focus a little bit more on decarbonization. In the past, you've spoken about a potential investment on this front. So wondering if there's any updates there on what the opportunities are for potential government support?
So on the government support and decarbonization, we've had major advancements on all fronts, both in terms of technology, government support and otherwise. The government will dictate the timing of those announcements. So I'm not at liberty to give you precise programs that have been awarded to us, but that will come out soon, and everything we planned on, we alluded to in prior conversation is happening and then some.
All right, we look forward to the update. Thank you.
There are no additional questions waiting at this time. So I will pass back to Alan Kestenbaum for any closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you very much, everyone, for your participation today. As always, we always remain available to all of our analysts, shareholders, everybody. I think we pride ourselves on being open, being available and really look forward to any questions that anyone has, please feel free to reach out to me or Paul or anybody else with any questions, ideas, concerns, and always happy to address them in any format. So I wish everyone a good day, and we'll speak to you next quarter.
This concludes today's Stelco's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.