Ryerson Holding Corporation

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Ryerson Holdings Corporation's second quarter 2021 conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Ms. Justine Carlson. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Good morning. Thank you for joining Ryerson Holdings Corporation's second quarter 2021 earnings call. I'm here this morning with Eddie Lehner, Ryerson's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Burbach, our Chief Operating Officer, Jim Claussen, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Molly Cannon, our Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. John Orth, our Executive Vice President of Operations, will be joining us for Q&A. Before we get started, let me remind you that certain comments we make on this call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the impacts of COVID-19 and related economic conditions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those set forth under risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements which speak only as of the date they are made and are not guarantees of future performance. In addition, our remarks today refer to several non-GAAP financial measures that are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is provided in our second quarter 2021 earnings release filed on Form 8K yesterday. which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Eddie.

Thank you, Justine, and thank you all for joining us this morning to discuss our second quarter 2021 results. I would like to begin this morning by thanking all of my Ryerson teammates for executing an extraordinary quarter as we posted our strongest quarterly revenue since 2008 and record-adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO. Every day across the organization, we demonstrated our say yes and figured out culture by always finding a way to get the job done safely amidst an environment of rolling turbulence. I also want to thank our customers for every opportunity to earn your business and our suppliers for their continued support in this pandemic-infused, supply-constrained economy. At a macro level, elevated pricing dynamics are an ongoing consequence of supply being unable to meet demand in the short term. but there are cyclical and secular factors signaling a longer duration recovery for fixed assets and manufactured goods. As we emerge tenuously from the pandemic and its unpredictable twists and turns, we see supporting variables of monetary policy, fiscal policy, trade policy, demographics, infrastructure investment, decarbonization, domestic supplier consolidation, and demand fundamentals as net favorable against ongoing public health risks, labor pool shortages, supply-side dislocations, and geopolitical volatility. We're not declaring an end to cyclicality in our industry, but noting strong secular growth underpinnings that have been suppressed for a long time, as well as changing societal needs favoring recyclable industrial metals and likely higher floors and ceilings for demand and price over the next several years. Relating this base case environment to Ryerson through the first half of the year and looking forward, we have realized favorable operating leverage because of decisions made and actions performed since our IPO in 2014 that are enabling us to build a stronger and better Ryerson under all conditions. We have managed the business exceedingly well despite being far from perfect as evidenced by our EBITDA generation, debt reduction, legacy liability de-risking, asset monetizations, working capital management, expense management, and safety performance. Given what we believe is the future trajectory of the company, given present conditions, past performance, and confidence in the ongoing execution of our strategic plan around the customer experience, Ryerson's Board of Directors approved two new and vital elements to our capital allocation plan. an $0.08 per share quarterly dividend, and a $50 million share repurchase program. This is a confidence marker and a clear indication that the enterprise value shift from debt to equity is underway and that the enterprise multiple is more a relic of the past than a fair evaluation representation of the present and future. I'll now turn the call over to Mike to discuss the second quarter pricing and demand environment.