Nucor Corporation

Good morning and welcome to the new call, the third call to the 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. At this time, I'd like to introduce Chris Jacoby, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin your call.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. I'm excited to join you this morning as the newest member of the Nucor IR team and welcome you to our third 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 the Nucor executive team are also here with us today and may participate during the Q&A portion of the call. Yesterday, we posted our third 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. With that, let's turn the call over to Leon.

Thanks, Chris. I want to begin by thanking our 33,000 Nucor teammates for their continued commitment to safety. Our team has been lowering our injury and illness rate every year since 2017, and we are on track to do it again in 2025. This level of performance would be impressive at any point, but to do it through a period of significant growth is an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to the entire Nucor team. And let's make the last two months of 2025 the safest in Nucor's history. Turning to Nucor's third quarter financial performance, we generated EBITDA of approximately $1.3 billion and earned $2.63 of EPS. These results exceeded our third quarter guidance, driven by stronger than expected shipments from our steel mills and favorable corporate adjustments. Steve will provide more details during his financial update. We remain committed to prudent capital management on behalf of our shareholders, balancing long-term growth with meaningful shareholder returns while maintaining our industry-leading credit profile. During the third quarter, we reinvested $807 million into the company, with a majority of this capital related to growth projects that are nearing completion. We've also returned approximately $230 million to Nucor shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. bringing our year-to-date returns to nearly $1 billion, or 72% of net earnings. We also saw our long-term credit ratings upgraded to A3 by Moody's. Following the Moody's upgrade, we are now rated A- or A3 by all three rating agencies, making us the only major North American steel producer to hold that distinction. Creating value for our stakeholders requires a relentless focus on execution, and I'm proud of the work our team has done to advance our long-term mission to grow the Corps, expand beyond, and live our culture. We are in the final phase of our multi-year capital investment campaign and will complete four major projects by the end of this year. Recent milestones include the commissioning of two bar mill projects and the commencement of pole production and galvanizing operations at our Alabama Towers and Structures facility. Our two new sheet coating facilities at Crawfordsville and Berkeley County remain on track, and the team in Crawfordsville recently processed the first coil through their new galvanizing line. And construction of our new sheet mill in West Virginia is two-thirds complete and remains on schedule to begin ramping up by the end of next year. Even as we invest to grow our capabilities, we remain focused on leveraging our existing asset base to generate attractive returns for our shareholders. For example, in steel products, we've taken steps to repurpose two existing steel products facilities to support our faster growing Nucor data systems businesses. And within the steel mills, we've recently decided to no longer pursue a new rebar micro mill project in the Pacific Northwest region. With the recent investments we've made in the bar group, we can serve the Western U.S. and Canadian markets from our current footprint with superior cost and supply chain advantages. We will continue to monitor market developments to ensure the best use of our shareholder capital. As I've said in the past, our growth strategy is not about growing our capacity. It's about providing more capabilities for our shareholders, customers, and team. The investments we're making now to grow our core steelmaking capabilities and expand into downstream steel-adjacent businesses will better position Nucor to offer comprehensive integrated solutions unmatched by any of our competitors. And by optimizing our full portfolio to operate as one team, we make it easier for our customers to buy, build, and succeed. Let me now take a few minutes to highlight a couple of the areas where Nucor is improving its position as a supplier, employer, and investment of choice within the steel industry. One of these is Nucor's bar mill group. As many of you know, Nucor entered the steelmaking business in 1969 when we began operating our first bar mill in Darlington, South Carolina. Over the following five decades, we have harnessed the inherent advantages of scrap-based steelmaking and Nucor's performance-driven culture to grow our bar mill group into the nationwide powerhouse that it is. The bar mill team has delivered strong results in 2025. fueled by increased demand in the non-res construction markets and infrastructure markets. With our broad geographic coverage and capabilities, Nucor is well positioned to optimize both product mix and volume regionally. In fact, the team has set quarterly rebar shipment records twice so far this year, first in Q1 and then again in Q3. We also began ramping production in the third quarter at our new melt shop in Kingman, Arizona. and our new rebar micro mill in Lexington, North Carolina. Both facilities are strategically located in high growth regions with reliable access to local scrap supply, enhancing our existing footprint in the western and southeast markets. We will continue ramping up operations over the coming months with both projects on track to be EBITDA positive by the first quarter of 2026. While we build our leadership in steelmaking, we are also positioning Nucor as a key supplier to high growth markets like data center construction. The Dodge Construction Network is forecasting 60 million square feet of data center construction in 2025, a 30% increase over 24. And the state of Virginia alone has seen 54 new data center permit applications in the first nine months of the year. underscoring the sector's momentum and long-term growth potential. With our comprehensive portfolio of products, Nucor is uniquely equipped to partner with leading developers and hyperscalers who increasingly value speed and certainty of execution. We now supply over 95% of all steel products that go into a data center, from the building envelope to the interior infrastructure. For example, we're the only provider capable of supplying steel for both conventional structures and pre-engineered buildings at scale. Inside of data centers, we're accelerating growth in our new core data systems businesses, implementing domestic production of server cabinets and increasing capacity for hot aisle containment and data center support structures. This unlocks powerful cross-selling opportunities for our diverse product portfolio. creating better outcomes for customers and driving shareholder value. Turning to trade policy, we've seen meaningful federal action this year supporting the American steel industry. Section 232 measures and ongoing trade enforcement are curbing imports, with finished steel imports down nearly 11% year to date through August. Since the broader Section 232 tariffs were implemented, we have seen larger month-over-month reductions in imports and expect the trend to continue. While imports have decreased since the comprehensive 50% steel tariffs went into effect, they continue to be a necessary tool to counteract the massive amounts of overcapacity that persist in the global steel sector. We believe that tariffs must stay in place with no exceptions or loopholes until there are fundamental changes in the global steel industry. Ongoing trade cases continue to provide another important defense against unfairly traded imports. In September, The ITC Commission ruled that American steel producers were materially injured by imports of corrosion-resistant steel from 10 countries. NUCOR is pleased with the decision, which clears the way for the Department of Commerce to issue final anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders in the coming weeks. We are also following the Commerce Department's investigations into rebar imports from four countries and expect to see the preliminary determination later this quarter. Overall, we are encouraged by the administration's actions to help level the playing field for the American steel industry. And as North America's largest and most capable steel products company, Nucor is well positioned to create value for our customers and shareholders. With that, let me turn it over to Steve, who will share additional details about our third quarter financial performance.