Nucor Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to NUCOR's second quarter 2025 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise, and today's call is being recorded. After the speaker's prepared remarks, I'll provide instructions for callers wishing to ask any questions. I'd now like to introduce Jack Sullivan, Vice President, Treasurer, and General Manager of Investor Relations to begin your call.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to NUCOR's second quarter earnings review and business update. Leading our call today is Leon Topalian. Chair, President, and CEO, along with Steve Laxton, Executive Vice President and CFO. Other members of Nucor's executive team are also here with us today and may participate during the Q&A portion of the call. Yesterday, we posted our second quarter earnings release and investor presentation to Nucor's IR website. We encourage you to access these materials as we will cover portions of them during the call. Today's discussion will include the use of non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Actual results may be different than forward-looking statements and involve risks outlined in our Safe Harbor Statement and disclosed in NUCOR's SEC filings. The appendix of today's presentation includes supplemental information and disclosures, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures. So with that, let's turn the call over to Leon.

Thanks, Jack. Now I want to begin by thanking our 33,000 new core teammates for delivering a solid quarter, both in terms of financial results and our safety performance. Amid all the uncertainty and distractions, you have remained focused on executing our growth strategy and creating value for our shareholders, customers, and communities. And you did it all while setting another all-time safety record for the first half of any year. Thank you for your vigilance and focus and never losing sight of our most important value. Let's continue to carry that momentum into the back half of the year. To recap some of the second quarter financials, Nucor generated EBITDA of approximately $1.3 billion and earned $2.60 per diluted share. This represents a significant improvement over our first quarter results, driven by higher average selling prices in our steel mill segment and stable realized pricing in higher volumes in our steel product segment. During the quarter, we returned $329 million to Nucor shareholders through dividends and buybacks, bringing our total capital return to shareholders for the first half of the year to $758 million. Capital expenditures for the quarter totaled $954 million, and we remain on track to deploy approximately $3 billion in capex for the year. Our team continues to execute well, and I'd like to highlight just a few of our accomplishments for the quarter. Production levels and shipments at our Brandenburg plate mill trended higher for a sixth consecutive quarter. Shipments in June reached another record, helping Brandenburg achieve positive EBITDA for the quarter. Meanwhile, Brandenburg's product development team continues to strengthen its market position with key customers for complex grades of steel plate that we have not been able to produce prior. I'd also like to recognize our entire sheet making group for shipping nearly 3.1 million tons during the second quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter where the sheet group has set a new shipment record. In particular, I'd like to congratulate our team at Gallatin Sheet Mill in Kentucky for setting a new monthly shipping record during the quarter. On our first quarter earnings call, I mentioned our structural steel backlog reaching historically high levels and that set us up nicely for strong shipments in the second quarter. Nucor's beam team delivered, shipping over 630,000 tons and generating the highest quarterly earnings for this business since 2022 and the fourth highest of all time. On the growth front, our construction teams continue to make great progress as we near completion of several important capital projects. A rebar micro mill in Lexington, North Carolina recently rolled its first heat and is now in the early stages of ramping up production. And the team in Kingman, Arizona has successfully melted, cast, and rolled several heats out of its new melt shop, and it will be ramping up production throughout the third quarter. For Nucor Towers and Structures, pole production and galvanizing operations in Alabama are set to begin by September. with customer shipments beginning in the fourth quarter. Our Indiana Greenfield project is set to commence full operations by the spring of 2026 with customer shipments beginning in the second quarter. Within sheet, we remain on schedule to complete our coating complex in Crawfordsville, Indiana by the end of 2025 and our galvanizing line in Berkeley, South Carolina by the middle of 2026. And the construction of our new West Virginia sheet mill is nearly 60% complete and remains on track for completion by the end of 2026. A key driver of our quarterly results came from the strong performance of our steel products group. We have grown this business to become the broadest and most diverse portfolio of downstream steel products in North America, allowing Nucor to offer a wide variety of solutions for our customers. For the entire segment, second quarter pre-tax earnings were 392 million, a 28% increase over the adjusted results of the previous quarter. In fact, pre-tax earnings for each of the main product groups comprising this segment were in line with or above Q1 levels. On an LTM basis, the steel product segment accounted for 45% of Nucor's total pre-tax segment earnings, with EBITDA margins of approximately 16%. Both of these metrics remain significantly higher than their respective pre-pandemic averages. Tariff policy continues to evolve, but has been positive for the steel industry overall. We support the administration's recent actions to strengthen the Section 232 program by increasing the tariffs to 50%. We also applaud the Commerce Department's decision earlier this year to expand the review of steel derivative products covered by the Section 232 tariffs and for implementing a transparent inclusions process. These steps will help to curb the volume of unfairly traded imports and protect our national security. However, dumped and subsidized imports continue to persist and the vigorous enforcement of our trade laws is needed now more than ever. Nucor and other domestic producers have been injured by elevated levels of unfairly traded corrosion resistant imports in recent years and file trade positions on core imports from 10 countries last September. NUCOR is pleased with the preliminary determinations from the U.S. Commerce Department and U.S. International Trade Commission in these investigations, and we anticipate affirmative final determinations from both agencies later this summer and fall. The Commerce Department and ITC have also initiated investigations into rebar imports from four countries, with the ITC issuing an affirmative preliminary injury determination earlier this month. Affirmative determinations in these cases and other trade proceedings are critical to ensuring a level playing field for the steel industry in America. We are optimistic that the administration's vigorous enforcement of our trade laws and the strengthened Section 232 program will result in a sustained reduction of imports into our market. We're also monitoring the evolving country-specific tariff negotiations and their impact on raw material costs. Nucor's raw material supply chain is advantaged by having a broader set of capabilities than any other steel producer in North America. That diversity, along with our world-class sourcing and logistics teams, give us flexibility to source raw materials in a way that optimizes our cost structure and adapt to this highly dynamic situation. Beyond trade policy, we were pleased to see the tax provisions and manufacturing incentives contained in the new legislation signed into law earlier this month. We expect the bill will lead to further economic growth and boost our competitiveness as a nation. It will unleash new investments in steel intensive projects and promote the restoring of vital manufacturing while enhancing our national security. And as North America's largest and most capable steel products company, Nucor is incredibly well positioned to support this growth. With that, let me turn it over to Steve, who will share additional details about our second quarter performance, the current demand environment for steel, and our outlook for the third quarter. Steve?