Olympic Steel, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to the Olympic Steel 2021 second quarter financial results conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer at Olympic Steel. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel's earnings call for the second quarter of 2021. 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 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 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 for 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.

Thank you, Rich. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Olympic Steel's results for the second quarter of 2021. I'll begin with some comments about our record quarterly performance and the progress on our long-term strategy to position our business to deliver consistent profitability. Then, Andrew will review our business segment performance and our market outlook. Rich will conclude with a more detailed review of our second quarter financial results. After that, we'll be happy to take your questions. This is truly an exceptional time for Olympic Steel. The second quarter was the most profitable quarter in the company's history, and we reported record sales for the second consecutive quarter. From a market perspective, demand continues to be good. Metal prices continue to escalate to record highs, and our shipping volumes are at pre-COVID levels. And from an operational perspective, Our strategic execution, key investments, and ongoing disciplines around working capital turnover and controlling expenses have propelled our success. Our historic performance would not be possible without the efforts and talents of the entire Olympic Steel team. We are proud of how our team has worked together to provide superior service to our customers while driving our operational initiatives and sustaining our culture of safety first. Collectively, these efforts resulted in record-setting quarter. Our second quarter sales of $556 million were up more than $90 million from our record-setting first quarter. Net income totaled $29.6 million for the second quarter and adjusted EBITDA was a record $51.7 million. To put this in perspective, adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter alone was more than double the adjusted EBITDA for all of fiscal year 2020. Market dynamics for the steel industry remains strong and pricing continues at record levels into the third quarter. Index pricing for carbon hot rolled steel rose from $1,300 per ton to $1,723 per ton during the second quarter. And as of today, it is $1,863 per ton, marking the 51st consecutive week that the index has increased. This compares to the $400 to $500 per ton range that we experienced last summer. The robust market brings challenges, however, and we continue to serve our customers by delivering metal while they navigate component shortages, supply chain disruptions, and labor constraints. We expect these challenges to continue in the near term. We also continue to execute our long-term strategy to further diversify our business and deliver consistent profitability. Our investments in the specialty metals business, our expansion in the southeast region of the United States, and the successful integration of our recent acquisitions have helped us diversify our portfolio and improve our returns. will continue to focus on operational efficiencies while deploying capital into investments with higher EBITDA returns to drive consistency in our earnings. Looking ahead, our already strong balance sheet was bolstered recently by our amended and extended $475 million credit facility. The continued access to low-cost capital and additional borrowing capacity gives us the financial flexibility to pursue additional acquisitions and capital expenditures in organic growth. We have a strong pipeline of high return investment opportunities that we are actively pursuing for future growth. We expect the demand environment remains strong as positive industry dynamics continue in a strengthening economy. For the long term, we're hopeful that the U.S. infrastructure legislation will be passed this year and we are in an excellent position to be a key supplier to customers who play a critical role in the rebuilding of our nation's roads, bridges, and other infrastructure projects that really could extend the higher metal demand for many years to come. For these reasons, we're optimistic about the future and anticipate a similarly strong third quarter. Now I'll turn the call over to Andrew for some additional comments.