Ryerson Holding Corporation

Good day and welcome to the Ryerson Holding Corporation's first quarter 2023 conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. There will be a question and answer session later. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at any time. Again, that is star 1 to ask a question. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jorge Berstein. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you for joining Ryerson Holding Corporation's first quarter 2023 earnings call. On our call, we have Eddie Lehner, Ryerson's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mike Burbach, our Chief Operating Officer, Jim Claussen, our Chief Financial Officer, and Molly Cannon, our Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller. John Orth, our Executive Vice President of Operations, and Mike Hamilton, our Vice President of Corporate Supply Chain, will be joining us for Q&A. Certain comments on this call contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks 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, 2022, our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023 and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 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 non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is provided in our earnings release filed on Form 8K yesterday, also available on the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Eddie.

Thank you, Jorge, and thank you all for joining us this morning. I want to start by expressing my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to our 4,200-plus strong investors Ryerson team, which now includes BLP Holdings and its divisions for their dedicated efforts and commitment to a safe work environment that enables our mission of delivering great customer experiences throughout our network of intelligently connected industrial metals service centers. The first quarter was a period of solid seasonal demand characterized by robust inventory restocking, better than expected price drivers, and sustaining customer order backlogs. While noting ongoing supply chain distortions, credit market distress, rising interest rates, and still tight labor markets, secular manufacturing strength got the better of countercyclical indicators during the first quarter of 2023. As an ever-present reminder around the promise and potential of our industry and business, while these cyclical factors may be framed and clocked in quarters, our business is investing for the years ahead as we look forward to the growth opportunities engendered by long-term emergent trends that we expect will lead to a growing and sustainable industrial economy in North America. Overall, our first quarter started the year with encouraging results whereby we generated positive operating cash flow, solidly exceeded our expectations on earnings per share, increased our quarterly dividend, and maintained our net leverage ratio at the low end of our target range. We continued modernizing and growing our business through construction progress at our 900,000 square foot state-of-the-art service center campus in University Park Illinois which will be operational later this year as well as adding to our Ryerson family of companies with the acquisition of value-added processor BLP Holdings which will enable us to do more for our customers across various end markets while expanding our footprint in the Southwest United States. Additionally during the quarter We participated significantly in our largest shareholders secondary share offering through the repurchase of 1.5 million shares of Ryerson stock for $53 million, further increasing free float while simultaneously accreting more ownership to non-selling shareholders. As we demonstrate further our commitment to shareholder returns and will continue to do so in a balanced and prudent manner. The progress of our past work sets the stage for our future. The years ahead will be shaped by emerging trends in on-shoring, shifting trade paradigms favoring American manufacturing, fiscal investments in infrastructure, and climate transitioning, which we expect will lead to an imperative, recyclable, metals-intensive overhaul of our society and economy. Industrial metals are the reusable, and sustainable enablers essential to shaping the world around us and paving the way for the required advances in the human experience, living conditions, and societal well-being. In this new paradigm, Ryerson's investments in value-added manufacturing, customer-centric connected distribution networks, as well as modernized plants, equipment, and systems position us squarely at the nexus of these global megatrends and propel us toward a brighter future for all of our stakeholders. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Mike Burbach, to further discuss the pricing and demand environment.