Olympic Steel, Inc.

24 first quarter financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. 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 would like to hand the conference call over to Rich Mason, Chief Financial Officer at Olympic Steel. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel's earnings call for the first quarter of 2024. Our call this morning will be hosted by our Chief Executive Officer, Rick Marabito, and we will also be joined by our President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew 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-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 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, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss Olympic Steel's 2024 first quarter results. I'll begin by talking about the solid results we delivered in the first quarter and how our strategy to diversify and expand into higher value-added processing and manufactured metal products enables us to consistently deliver positive results regardless of market conditions. Then, Andrew will review our segment performance, and following that, Rich will discuss our financial results in more detail. And then, as always, we will open up the call for your questions. Olympic Steel delivered a strong start to 2024, despite challenging market conditions during the first quarter. We reported first quarter sales of $527 million and net income of $8.7 million, and all segments contributed to our adjusted EBITDA of $23.7 million. Our shipping volumes increased 9% sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2023, and we maintained our margins despite unusual declining pricing dynamics for the first quarter. We typically start the new year in a strengthening market with increasing pricing, and that trend usually continues into the second quarter. However, this year we saw index pricing for hot-rolled steel fall more than 31%, from January through mid-March, while stainless steel surcharges also fell throughout the quarter. So the movement in pricing was the opposite of what we normally experience in the first quarter. Despite these pricing challenges, we generated solid profitability, which reinforces that our strategy is working. Our efforts to diversify and expand our portfolio into higher value manufactured metal products provides a natural counter-cyclical benefit to falling metal prices and helps drive profitability regardless of market conditions. In addition, our fabrication and value-added product capabilities drove new business wins, and we outpaced market shipments during the quarter in every product we sell. We continue to see industrial manufacturers looking to outsource more long-term fabrication work And we have made the strategic investments in people, technology, and equipment to capitalize on what we believe is a long-term trend. We hired industry veteran Max Fitzgerald to the newly created role of vice president of fabrication. Max is leading the execution of Olympic Steel's fabrication strategy, which is a key component to both our near-term and long-term growth. We are beginning to realize the benefits of the team's efforts to strengthen our fabrication capabilities and to integrate new, more efficient equipment, automation, and software into our operations. We are well-positioned to accelerate our growth, and we are excited for the opportunities to come. As the U.S. rebuilds its infrastructure and our large OEM customers continue to outsource metal fabrication. As we near the midpoint of the second quarter, pricing on some products has recovered, yet market conditions remain dynamic. While we monitor the evolving conditions, the entire Olympic Steel team remains focused on what we can control, our disciplines around working capital, operating expenses, and cash flow. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we have access to capital that will enable us to continue investing in organic growth and automation opportunities and a reinvigorated M&A market. And that all aligns with our strategic priorities for our long-term success. As we look ahead, we are optimistic about our ability to deliver consistent, profitable results and create value for our shareholders. I'll now turn the call over to Andrew.