NYSE:WS Worthington Steel Q1 2025 Earnings Report $24.10 +0.29 (+1.21%) Closing price 04/15/2025 03:59 PM EasternExtended Trading$25.64 +1.54 (+6.38%) As of 04/15/2025 07:06 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Worthington Steel EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.56Consensus EPS $0.55Beat/MissBeat by +$0.01One Year Ago EPSN/AWorthington Steel Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$834.00 millionExpected Revenue$748.40 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$85.60 millionYoY Revenue Growth-7.90%Worthington Steel Announcement DetailsQuarterQ1 2025Date9/25/2024TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateThursday, September 26, 2024Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsWorthington Steel's Q4 2025 earnings is scheduled for Wednesday, June 25, 2025, with a conference call scheduled on Thursday, June 26, 2025 at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Worthington Steel Q1 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrSeptember 26, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Worthington Steel's First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Melissa Dykstra, Vice President of Communications and Investor Relations. Operator00:00:30You may begin. Speaker 100:00:32Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Worthington Steel's Q1 fiscal year 2025 earnings call. On our call today, we have Jeff Gilmore, Worthington Steel's President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Klingler, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Tim Adams, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made today are forward looking within the meaning of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those suggested. Speaker 100:01:06We issued our earnings release yesterday after the market closed. Please refer to it for more detail on those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Unless noted as reported, today's discussion will reference non GAAP financial measures, which adjust for certain items included in our GAAP results and which are presented on a stand alone basis. You can find definitions of each non GAAP measure and GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later today on worthingtonsteel.com. Speaker 100:01:39Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Gillmoron. Speaker 200:01:42Thanks, Melissa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The Q1 of fiscal year 2025 was solid for Worthington Steel despite some headwinds. Our teams are focused on serving our customers and managing the dynamics of our industry and the markets we serve. Demand is stable and we continue to find solutions for our customers in flat rolled steel processing, electrical steel laminations and Taylor welded blanks. Speaker 200:02:11Our solutions are unique and custom making us a valued partner. In fact, more than 90% of the steel we transform will go through multiple processes, enabling our customers to improve their end products and solve challenging material needs. Today, we will share updates on how we continue to execute on our strategy for growth by first, making focused investments in the rapidly growing electrical steel market, which supports the transition to a more electrified light vehicle fleet including hybrid and battery electric vehicles and transformer course to support the modernization and growth of the nation's electrical infrastructure. 2nd, strategic growth via CapEx and selective acquisitions leading to margin accretive growth. And finally, utilizing transformation, our system of continuous improvement to increase margins, reduce working capital and add capacity. Speaker 200:03:11When it comes to our electrical steel investments, we remain bullish on the electrified vehicle and transformer markets. Automakers continue to invest in both EV and hybrid technology and while EV adoption is slower than some anticipated, we are seeing pockets of acceptance and continued growth. We believe the shift to hybrid technology in some models is a positive for Worthington Steel because we can supply the specialty steel used in the hybrid's automatic transmission as well as the electrical steel laminations used in the hybrid's traction motors. Electric vehicles, data centers and AI continue to drive the need for electrical infrastructure and there continues to be an 18 to 24 month backlog for transformers. We remain well positioned to capitalize on the decarbonization of transportation, the energy transition to more renewable sources and the much needed investment in the U. Speaker 200:04:09S. Infrastructure. Over the quarter, the transformation drove continued improvements in efficiency and productivity. Jeff Klingler will share some examples of innovation and transformation in just a few minutes. Our employees empowered by our philosophy and strong culture drive this improvement, not only in our business, but also in our communities. Speaker 200:04:32Over the summer, teams across Worthington Steel came together to get back in many ways, From raising money for cancer research to maintaining the community garden to volunteering at a food bank, our employees exhibit our philosophy each day to support the areas where we live and work. Our commercial team continues to set the bar high for responding to customer needs. Last month, we had the opportunity to recognize their accomplishments, contributions to our growth and embodiment of our philosophy at our National Sales Meeting. I am honored to lead this team and I am excited about the progress we've made and the opportunities in front of us. Our breadth of value added processing capabilities, end to end supply chain management, price risk management solutions and our experienced and dedicated employees continue to differentiate Worthington Steel. Speaker 200:05:24In closing, I'd like to thank each one of our employees for remaining focused on innovating for our customers and executing our strategy. Our strategy and our differentiation position us well to grow and deliver strong returns for our shareholders. Next, Jeff Klingler will comment on our operations. Speaker 300:05:43Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start our operational overview by highlighting our safety efforts. Over the quarter, 6 of our facilities were recognized for reaching the highest level of our SafeWorks environmental health and safety program. Our facilities in Monroe and Middletown, Ohio Monroe, Michigan Cambridge, Ontario and Puebla and Celal, Mexico led the company in the execution of our SafeWorks program in fiscal 2024. These teams met 100 percent of the criteria for safety management system and program audits, leading multiple safety and environmental continuous improvement initiatives and implementing targeted risk reduction plans. Speaker 300:06:32Ensuring our employees return home safely after every shift is our number one priority. This emphasis continues to make Worthington Steel a great place to work and enables higher productivity, better customer responsiveness and stronger returns. As we look at our operational overview for the quarter, let's start with what we saw in our 2 largest end markets. Sales to the automotive market made up 51% of Q1 fiscal year 2025, a decrease from the same period a year ago when automotive made up 54% of our Q1 fiscal year 2024 sales. Our volume shipped to the automotive market on a direct sale basis decreased 10% in the Q1 of fiscal 2025 compared to the prior year. Speaker 300:07:29We expected some of the variance as several customers opted to change their business model from direct sale to toll processing. Additionally, we believe some Detroit 3 suppliers were pulling ahead orders last year to prepare for a potential strike. We were unexpectedly challenged during the quarter as one of our key customers adjusted their commercial and pricing strategy. We believe that customer has put those issues behind them and is largely back on track. Overall, the automotive market remains solid for us. Speaker 300:08:05While production timing was off this quarter, we continue to gain market share and provide value added solutions to help our customers. We believe North American light vehicle production will likely end up at 15,600,000 units for calendar 2024, which is flat compared to calendar year 2023 production, but remains on track to reach pre COVID production levels in the next year or 2. Our OEM customers continue to anticipate growth in the plug in hybrid and EV market as adoption continues to grow. Capital investments in our Mexico electrical steel facility will allow us to capitalize on this opportunity. Construction industry remains our 2nd largest market, making up 11% of our sales in the Q1 of fiscal 2025, the same as the prior year quarter. Speaker 300:09:00As we've discussed in the past, construction is a large and diverse market. In the submarkets we serve, we experienced strength in metal framing and building products combined with strengths in the culvert category. Our expansion projects in Canada and Mexico continue to be on time and on budget with expanded transformer core and electrical steel lamination capacity coming online at the end of calendar year 2025 in those respective facilities. We continue to receive interest from customers about our additional capabilities at TWB using our licensed ablation technology and are filling our pipeline. The equipment is currently being installed and we remain on schedule. Speaker 300:09:50Our initial move into Europe with the addition of the electrical steel facility in Nagel, Germany continues to gain customer interest and commitments. We acquired a strong team of highly skilled people at Nagel who understand their customers very well. The ERP project at Temple is progressing as expected. The entire project will take place over approximately 3 years and will provide the benchmark data needed to enhance our Temple business through the transformation. On a related note, I'd like to share a few examples of successful transformation projects. Speaker 300:10:26You may recall last quarter, I shared a story from one of our facilities about reducing work in progress. I also mentioned that we are launching transformation in our corporate functions. I'm pleased to report that even though we are just starting this work, we are already seeing results from quick wins realized during the process mapping phase. For instance, we've reduced the time involved in a payroll process by 80%. We've identified ways to decrease the time it takes to configure and distribute PCs to employees by 15%. Speaker 300:11:04And we've decreased the number of tasks needed to hire an IT contractor by 30%. It's important to note that these changes are happening in the very early stages. Over time, these small but important wins start the transformation mindset among departments and will add up to what we believe will be significant transformations. This will lead to streamlined work, less time to complete tasks and cost savings, while making the work our employees perform every day more valuable and more desirable. As I wrap up my comments, I want to congratulate the team at our Temple facility in India. Speaker 300:11:47They recently received a Best Supplier Award from Tata Auto Components for their exceptional contribution to Tata's electric vehicle motor program. The award recognizes our commitment to innovation, quality and excellence in electric vehicle motor manufacturing. Congratulations to that team and thank you to all our Worthington Steel employees for your great work and contributions. Now I'll turn the call over to Tim Adams to talk through the financial results. Speaker 400:12:21Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. Before I provide some color on the quarter, I would like to remind everyone that the current year Q1 consolidated results on a standalone basis are compared with the prior year quarter, which was prepared on a carve out basis. We started our fiscal year with a solid quarter reporting 1st quarter earnings of $28,400,000 or $0.56 per share as compared with prior year quarter earnings of $58,500,000 or $1.19 per share. The current quarter results included recognition of a second and final tax court ruling related to a Temple pre acquisition matter for which we were indemnified by the former owners of Temple. The net impact to earnings is 0. Speaker 400:13:06However, we recognized $4,400,000 of miscellaneous expense related to the indemnity payable and $4,400,000 of tax income associated with the refund. The Temple tax indemnification adjustment or Q1 relates to a 2,009 matter, while the matter we discussed in our Q4 2024 results was related to a 2,008 Temple matter. The prior year quarter included several unique items including pretax separation expense of $3,600,000 or $0.06 per share and a $1,400,000 pretax impairment charge or $0.01 per share related to assets at our consolidated joint venture, Worthington Samuel Coyle Processing. Excluding these items, we generated earnings of $0.56 per share in the current quarter compared to $1.26 per share in the prior year quarter. In addition, in the Q1, we had estimated pretax inventory holding losses of $16,600,000 or $0.25 per share compared to estimated pre tax inventory holding gain of $15,500,000 or $0.24 per share in the prior year quarter, an unfavorable pre tax swing of $32,000,000 or $0.49 per share. Speaker 400:14:22In the Q1, we reported adjusted EBIT of $39,400,000 which was down $41,100,000 from the prior year quarter adjusted EBIT of $80,500,000 This decrease is primarily due to lower gross margin and lower Servicero equity earnings. Gross margin was impacted by lower direct material spreads, including the impact of estimated pre tax inventory holding losses and lower direct volume. Lower direct volume was partially offset by higher toll spreads due to an improved mix within toll processing. Equity earnings from Serviacero decreased due to lower direct spreads, which were unfavorably impacted by lower steel prices as well as the impact of exchange rate movements. SG and A was in line with our expectations, but $3,200,000 higher than the prior year Q1, primarily due to incremental costs associated with being a standalone company. Speaker 400:15:21Next, I'll provide some content on the market and our shipment. Fuel market pricing trended lower throughout the quarter, bottoming at $6.60 per ton in August, down approximately $150 per ton from May. With the decrease in market pricing, we expect estimated inventory holding losses in the Q2 of fiscal 2025 will be slightly lower than the $16,600,000 of estimated inventory holding losses in the Q1. We estimate inventory holding losses in Q2 could be approximately $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 on a pre tax basis. Flat steel prices prevailed throughout most of July August and increased approximately $50 per ton since mid August. Speaker 400:16:06Recently, there have been several steel related fair trade initiatives announced in the North American market. While we have not quantified the impact, we would expect these cases to result in upward pressure on steel prices over the longer term. Net sales in the quarter were $834,000,000 down $72,000,000 or 8% from the prior year quarter, primarily due to lower direct market pricing and lower direct volumes, partially offset by a more favorable mix within our toll business, which included a greater proportion of higher value added processing. We shipped approximately 1,000,000,000 tons during the quarter, which was down 3% compared to the prior year quarter. Direct sale volume made up 56% of our mix in both current year and the prior year quarter. Speaker 400:16:53Direct sale volume was down 4% over the prior year quarter with an increase in construction related volume that was more than offset by reduced shipments to the automotive market. Our shipments to the construction market increased 8% on a year over year basis, while our direct sale volume to the automotive market was down 10% compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease in automotive volume was primarily due to several programs reaching their end of life, while the replacement platforms continue to experience launch delays as well as lower volumes for several specific programs. Our automotive book of business continues to be healthy, making up 51% of our sales. We believe the lower year over year volume is related to specific platforms and not indicative of the health of our overall automotive book of business, which we are expanding. Speaker 400:17:43We are cautiously optimistic about automotive volumes in the coming quarters and look forward to continuing our partnership with our automotive customers. Toll tons were down 2% year over year, primarily due to lower toll pickling with the mill. However, the mix of toll volume was more heavily weighted towards higher value added products, including Taylor loaded blanking and galvanizing. Similar to the automotive market, we are cautiously optimistic about overall volumes for the next few quarters as demand appears to be steady. Turning to cash flows and the balance sheet. Speaker 400:18:16Cash flow from operations was $54,600,000 and free cash flow was $33,100,000 During the quarter, we spent $21,500,000 on capital expenditures related to a variety of projects, including the previously announced electrical steel expansion in Mexico and Canada. On a trailing 12 month basis, we generated $167,200,000 of free cash flow. And Wednesday, we announced a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share payable on December 27, 2024. In regard to our balance sheet, operating working capital decreased $16,100,000 during the Q1. We ended the quarter with $36,000,000 of cash, which is down $4,000,000 from year end. Speaker 400:19:00Our ABL debt at August 31 was $122,000,000 resulting in net debt of $86,000,000 In summary, Worthington Steel had a good Q1 and our team is performing at a very high level. Everyone at Worthington Steel continues to be focused on driving value for our stakeholders on both a near term and long term basis. At this point, we would be happy to take your questions. Operator00:19:26Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question today comes from the line of Martin Englert from Seaport Research. Your line is open. Speaker 500:19:46Hello. Good morning, everyone. Speaker 300:19:50Good morning. Speaker 500:19:52I had a question. You just touched on here within autos, you noted some slower start up of newer programs that rolled out from previous models and programs. And then you noted some changes in program needs for steel. Is that correct? Speaker 300:20:14I'm not sure we noted any changes from for program needs in steel, but Speaker 500:20:21you are correct. Speaker 300:20:22We had some model changeover delays that impacted us. We did have a customer who had to sort of retool their commercial strategy, which they did and sales rebounded there and we think that's behind us. Speaker 200:20:42And I think Martin, the third Jeff touched on the first two, definitely a delay in the model changeover, definitely retooling their strategy were slow to maybe incentivize and offer discounts as their competitors were doing. And then lastly, and this was anticipated, if you look year over year, we had the auto strike looming, so there was quite a bit of pull ahead as well. So that was a difference. Speaker 500:21:13Do you think that lower ramp ups of the newer models is kind of essentially some pent up demand within autos, whereas those get rolling forward, you would expect more of a normalized demand pull, I guess. It sounds like it inhibited some activity within autos in recent history here. Speaker 200:21:37Yes, Martin, our assumption would be that it probably will end up being more normalized. When you're a little bit slow on your commercial strategy and you're missing out sales, you're sacrificing market share at that point in time. So I think that'll work its way out. Market share will shift where it needs to and you'd see a more normalized auto structure auto build structure, I should say. Speaker 500:22:05What was why do you think there was a shift away from direct volumes in the pivot towards tolling? I guess what prompted that? Like what was behind that? Speaker 200:22:18Yes, good question. So predominantly there was 2 areas where you saw a bit of a shift. Number 1, we simply were getting more customers looking for us to do toll galvanizing. So that was one piece of it. Another piece and maybe a bigger piece was just a shift in business model with some customers out of Taylor welded blanks, where it was their preference to negotiate and own material and then obviously hire us to do the toll processing. Speaker 200:22:53So that was a decision they made and certainly one we supported, but that was the change. Speaker 500:23:01Okay, got it. I know looking back a quarter ago, there was a pretty favorable mix when you look at excluding holding gains, losses on underlying unit EBITDA for steel. This quarter seem to pivot back to something, I guess, maybe characterized as possibly more normalized. Is that a fair assumption or read through that looking at the current fiscal 1Q underlying EBITDA ex those holding gains and losses that's more normalized in the ballpark? Speaker 600:23:40Yes, Martin, this is Tim. I think what we saw in Q4 was we had a prior proportion of galvanized in our direct sales, right? So what we were trying to signal in Q4 was, hey, that mix was a little higher weighted towards galvanized than it was the rest of the products. So I would say if you're looking at a historical average and Q1 meets that historical average, that's a pretty fair way to look at it. Speaker 700:24:04What are you seeing as Speaker 500:24:05far as just carving out and looking solely at Gal COVID products, what are you seeing as far as demand and availability out there? Are you seeing any notable shifts versus what you saw a quarter, 2 quarters ago? Speaker 300:24:24Sure. Good morning. This is Jeff Klingler of Martin. Overall, I think we would describe the market as solid. Automotive is despite the small setback last quarter, ultimately the year is going to be relatively flat at about 15,600,000 units. Speaker 300:24:50So pretty flat there. When it comes to other important markets for us, the construction market, which is very large and very diverse for us. We're cautiously optimistic about what's going into calendar 2025. We expect that the cut in interest rates are likely to have a positive impact there. The ag market expected to be muted for the rest of the calendar year, came off a really strong 2023, but they continue to face challenges here with lower commodity prices this year, higher interest rates and higher input costs. Speaker 300:25:36We did see some bright spots, however, throughout the year with customers ordering an increased number of grain bins during the summer. And then heavy truck is sort of in the same boat, experienced a pullback in demand that we saw late starting in late 'twenty three. We expect that to last through the remainder of the year. However, we're expecting some improvement going into the next calendar year there. Speaker 200:26:09Hey, Martin, I think you've good overview from Jeff on all the markets. I think you specifically asked about coated and galvanized and I would mirror Jeff's comments there that that's another book where we're optimistic and feel like demand is going to be stable. Obviously, we have an election, so we're going to stress stable. I think most would mirror those comments right now. But as we get beyond that and with lower interest rates, the markets we serve with that galvanized product feeling optimistic overall. Speaker 500:26:45Are you able to say roughly like what kind of utilizations you're running Galvines at? What I'm curious about is, of course, trade case. And if there's more volume coming back to the domestic market, would you be able to cope more there and maybe serve a bit more volume into the market or spot market outside of your traditional customer base if there's a need for it in the United States? Speaker 200:27:15Well, the way to answer that, certainly we would have some open capacity and that's the importance of our transformation, the continuous improvement team that we have to constantly be focusing on that and trying to free up capacity. And certainly, the trade cases, we're already seeing an impact just from the announcements of gallows slowing down coming in. So certainly that could create some opportunities for us. I think probably where we'd be most excited is certainly out of Delta, but we also have Spartan and certainly we would have capacity there that is open that we would be able to go after additional market and market share. Speaker 500:28:02Okay. Appreciate it. Helpful and thank you very much. Speaker 200:28:07You got Operator00:28:07it. Your next question comes from the line of Phil Gibbs from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is Speaker 700:28:15open. Hey, good morning. Speaker 600:28:18Good morning, Phil. Hey, Phil. Good morning. Speaker 700:28:20I know last quarter you gave us an update on electrical steel, maybe mid to longer term contract wins and allocated capacity at both the Canadian facility and Mexican facility. Anything new to report there in terms of dialogue with your customers? Speaker 300:28:45Yes. Nothing specific. We knew we have won some additional business for the future capacity that's coming online in Mexico. So we've got some additional business coming online to fill those presses. 3 of the 5 are installed and pretty much spoken for. Speaker 300:29:08The other 2 will be arriving within the next 1 to 3 months and then installation will begin. I guess I would summarize it by saying just a lot of very positive customer communication and activity around the capacity coming along in Mexico. Same thing in Canada, we've got a couple additional customers who want to sign up in advance for some of the additional capacity, but nothing specific there in Canada like in Mexico. Speaker 200:29:52And Phil, you know this, keep in mind, at this point, it's what we can produce, we can ship, hence the $84,000,000 investment to add capacity, be able to continue to service customers' need and increase in demand and then adding the capabilities because our customers want us to provide different products than we're providing today, which is all good news. Speaker 700:30:18Thank you. And then on the equity income, I think it was a little over $1,000,000 in the quarter last year, it was $9,000,000 Is that a volume impact? Is that where you're or is that where you're seeing some of the model changeovers on the automotive comparisons? Or is it FIFO hits? Or is it all of the above? Speaker 700:30:37Because that was certainly softer than what we anticipated and I think obviously softer than what you would expect moving forward over the long run? Speaker 600:30:48Hey, Phil, this is Tim. So Servicera, I want to start out with Servicera remains fundamentally strong and a key Speaker 400:30:53part of our strategy. Speaker 600:30:54One of the things we didn't update you guys on was we are making progress on the new splitter project down there. So we've got new volume coming. The new splitter should be installed by the 1st December. But what you're seeing is a combination of 2 things in Servicero's results and the impact of both is they're kind of weighted the same. First Servicero showed significant decreases in inventory holding gains on a year over year basis. Speaker 600:31:19So they had significant gains last year and they were much, much smaller this year. And then second, what we're also seeing is the impact of the volatility of the Mexican peso. So as you know, the peso has been highly volatile over the last 12 months. And last year, Service Area's results showed the impact of an appreciating peso, while in the current quarter, we're showing the impact of a depreciating peso. So it's a combination of both those things. Speaker 700:31:49Is which one of those things is a stronger impact versus the other? Speaker 600:31:56No, they're equally weighted, equally weighted this quarter. Speaker 700:32:01Okay. And then lastly for me on the side of Temple, I mean it sounds like you're in the early innings of integration of IT systems and other new business practices. What type of returns are you anticipating from some of these things? I think you mentioned kind of meaningful longer term cost savings and things of that nature. So trying to understand where your mindset is at regarding the project? Speaker 200:32:39I'm going to ask for some grace from you and give us time because we have to right now stay 100% focused on getting the ERP implemented, Phil. I mean, it's just until we get good timely data to set any type of baseline, it's going to be difficult for us to quantify what type of savings we're going to start getting longer term. And it's hard to compare, I think, as you could imagine versus what we've achieved in our flat rolled carbon business. There's just some differences there. I can just tell you that we're highly optimistic and think we have several opportunities identified and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more to come. Speaker 200:33:23What I can commit to is just like Jeff Klingler has been doing over the last three calls as we're having various continuous improvement events and we're achieving success and we're able to quantify those, we'll start sharing those with those calling in. Speaker 700:33:42Thank you so much. Speaker 200:33:44You got it. Thank you. Operator00:33:47Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos from John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open. Speaker 800:33:56Thank you very much for your service to the company and the good results. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, sir. The Laser Welded Blank business had $200,000 more equity income, actually minority interest, a little over $200,000 more net income for Worthington. And that's very automotive related also. Speaker 800:34:24Could you explain why the laser welded blank business was up bucking the trend of the consolidated rest of the company? Speaker 600:34:36Yes, John, this is Tim. So, I think the easy answer there is our spreads were up at Servius Aero sorry, TDBB, Servius Aero on my brain. But spreads were up at TDBB. We had to do some recovery of costs, freight costs and some other costs and we absolutely had to raise prices to recover those. Okay. Speaker 300:34:58I would add they were Speaker 800:35:00So that product is so differentiated that you can raise prices even when hot rolled sheet exchange prices were dipping below 700 a ton? Speaker 600:35:17That's correct. It is a differentiator. It's a very high value added product. It's typically not hot roll based. It's Galvin cold roll. Speaker 600:35:27So we are able to when we have those situations where and everybody's gone through these from an inflation standpoint, we had to recover cost there and did the best we could and we were able to push price a little bit. Speaker 800:35:44Cliffs announced that they were going to build transformers Speaker 600:35:49in Wheaton and Speaker 800:35:53make their electrical steel in Butler and I guess take it Southwest to Wearden to make the transformers, would that bypass any opportunity for Worthington because they're going to be integrated from start from scrap to sales product or are there going to be intermediate phases where you could process the steel from the mill and before the Weirton transformer plant? Speaker 200:36:30Yes. I mean, they certainly are making electrical steel today as we know. They're announcing they announced that they will be making transformers. I don't know where electrical steel laminations and transformer cores fit into that scenario at this point. So to the latter part of your question or suggestion, yes, theoretically, they could be a customer. Speaker 200:36:54But more importantly, John, we don't see that as a disruption. As we've said, there's an 18 to 24 months backlog. That market is going to grow much faster than GDP for the next 10 years. So Cleveland Cliffs entering that space certainly will not disrupt our business. And more importantly, we're going to continue to support our customers. Speaker 200:37:25Our customers are the experts at making transformers and we're the experts at making electrical steel laminations and it's a win win for us to continue to partner with them. Partnering with them is going to create more shareholder value and it's going to be better than industry versus us ever trying to leap into that market. Operator00:37:50And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Jeff Gilmore for some final closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:59Thank you for showing interest in Worthington Steel and joining the call this morning. Great questions and we look forward to performing the balance of the quarter and getting back with you soon. Have a great day. Thank you. Operator00:38:14This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.Read moreRemove AdsPowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallWorthington Steel Q1 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xRemove Ads Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Worthington Steel Earnings HeadlinesWorthington Steel Named a 2024 Supplier of the Year by General MotorsApril 14 at 10:24 AM | gurufocus.comWorthington Steel Earns John Deere’s Highest Supplier Rating for 13th Consecutive YearApril 10, 2025 | finance.yahoo.comTrump Treasure April 19Thanks to President Trump… A $900 investment across5 specific cryptos… Could gain 12,000% so quickly that, just 12 months later…April 16, 2025 | Paradigm Press (Ad)Worthington Steel Ranked No. 1 in Large Organization Category of Columbus Top WorkplacesApril 1, 2025 | businesswire.comWorthington Steel's (NYSE:WS) Dividend Will Be $0.16March 30, 2025 | finance.yahoo.comWorthington Steel: Tariff Woes Are A Concern, But The Firm Is A Buy NonethelessMarch 27, 2025 | seekingalpha.comSee More Worthington Steel Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Worthington Steel? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Worthington Steel and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Worthington SteelWorthington Steel (NYSE:WS) operates as a steel processor in North America. It offers carbon flat-rolled steel and tailor welded blanks, as well as electrical steel laminations; and aluminum tailor welded blanks. The company serves various end-markets, including automotive, heavy truck, agriculture, construction, and energy. 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There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Worthington Steel's First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Melissa Dykstra, Vice President of Communications and Investor Relations. Operator00:00:30You may begin. Speaker 100:00:32Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Worthington Steel's Q1 fiscal year 2025 earnings call. On our call today, we have Jeff Gilmore, Worthington Steel's President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Klingler, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Tim Adams, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made today are forward looking within the meaning of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those suggested. Speaker 100:01:06We issued our earnings release yesterday after the market closed. Please refer to it for more detail on those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Unless noted as reported, today's discussion will reference non GAAP financial measures, which adjust for certain items included in our GAAP results and which are presented on a stand alone basis. You can find definitions of each non GAAP measure and GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations within our earnings release. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later today on worthingtonsteel.com. Speaker 100:01:39Now I'd like to turn the call over to Jeff Gillmoron. Speaker 200:01:42Thanks, Melissa. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The Q1 of fiscal year 2025 was solid for Worthington Steel despite some headwinds. Our teams are focused on serving our customers and managing the dynamics of our industry and the markets we serve. Demand is stable and we continue to find solutions for our customers in flat rolled steel processing, electrical steel laminations and Taylor welded blanks. Speaker 200:02:11Our solutions are unique and custom making us a valued partner. In fact, more than 90% of the steel we transform will go through multiple processes, enabling our customers to improve their end products and solve challenging material needs. Today, we will share updates on how we continue to execute on our strategy for growth by first, making focused investments in the rapidly growing electrical steel market, which supports the transition to a more electrified light vehicle fleet including hybrid and battery electric vehicles and transformer course to support the modernization and growth of the nation's electrical infrastructure. 2nd, strategic growth via CapEx and selective acquisitions leading to margin accretive growth. And finally, utilizing transformation, our system of continuous improvement to increase margins, reduce working capital and add capacity. Speaker 200:03:11When it comes to our electrical steel investments, we remain bullish on the electrified vehicle and transformer markets. Automakers continue to invest in both EV and hybrid technology and while EV adoption is slower than some anticipated, we are seeing pockets of acceptance and continued growth. We believe the shift to hybrid technology in some models is a positive for Worthington Steel because we can supply the specialty steel used in the hybrid's automatic transmission as well as the electrical steel laminations used in the hybrid's traction motors. Electric vehicles, data centers and AI continue to drive the need for electrical infrastructure and there continues to be an 18 to 24 month backlog for transformers. We remain well positioned to capitalize on the decarbonization of transportation, the energy transition to more renewable sources and the much needed investment in the U. Speaker 200:04:09S. Infrastructure. Over the quarter, the transformation drove continued improvements in efficiency and productivity. Jeff Klingler will share some examples of innovation and transformation in just a few minutes. Our employees empowered by our philosophy and strong culture drive this improvement, not only in our business, but also in our communities. Speaker 200:04:32Over the summer, teams across Worthington Steel came together to get back in many ways, From raising money for cancer research to maintaining the community garden to volunteering at a food bank, our employees exhibit our philosophy each day to support the areas where we live and work. Our commercial team continues to set the bar high for responding to customer needs. Last month, we had the opportunity to recognize their accomplishments, contributions to our growth and embodiment of our philosophy at our National Sales Meeting. I am honored to lead this team and I am excited about the progress we've made and the opportunities in front of us. Our breadth of value added processing capabilities, end to end supply chain management, price risk management solutions and our experienced and dedicated employees continue to differentiate Worthington Steel. Speaker 200:05:24In closing, I'd like to thank each one of our employees for remaining focused on innovating for our customers and executing our strategy. Our strategy and our differentiation position us well to grow and deliver strong returns for our shareholders. Next, Jeff Klingler will comment on our operations. Speaker 300:05:43Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start our operational overview by highlighting our safety efforts. Over the quarter, 6 of our facilities were recognized for reaching the highest level of our SafeWorks environmental health and safety program. Our facilities in Monroe and Middletown, Ohio Monroe, Michigan Cambridge, Ontario and Puebla and Celal, Mexico led the company in the execution of our SafeWorks program in fiscal 2024. These teams met 100 percent of the criteria for safety management system and program audits, leading multiple safety and environmental continuous improvement initiatives and implementing targeted risk reduction plans. Speaker 300:06:32Ensuring our employees return home safely after every shift is our number one priority. This emphasis continues to make Worthington Steel a great place to work and enables higher productivity, better customer responsiveness and stronger returns. As we look at our operational overview for the quarter, let's start with what we saw in our 2 largest end markets. Sales to the automotive market made up 51% of Q1 fiscal year 2025, a decrease from the same period a year ago when automotive made up 54% of our Q1 fiscal year 2024 sales. Our volume shipped to the automotive market on a direct sale basis decreased 10% in the Q1 of fiscal 2025 compared to the prior year. Speaker 300:07:29We expected some of the variance as several customers opted to change their business model from direct sale to toll processing. Additionally, we believe some Detroit 3 suppliers were pulling ahead orders last year to prepare for a potential strike. We were unexpectedly challenged during the quarter as one of our key customers adjusted their commercial and pricing strategy. We believe that customer has put those issues behind them and is largely back on track. Overall, the automotive market remains solid for us. Speaker 300:08:05While production timing was off this quarter, we continue to gain market share and provide value added solutions to help our customers. We believe North American light vehicle production will likely end up at 15,600,000 units for calendar 2024, which is flat compared to calendar year 2023 production, but remains on track to reach pre COVID production levels in the next year or 2. Our OEM customers continue to anticipate growth in the plug in hybrid and EV market as adoption continues to grow. Capital investments in our Mexico electrical steel facility will allow us to capitalize on this opportunity. Construction industry remains our 2nd largest market, making up 11% of our sales in the Q1 of fiscal 2025, the same as the prior year quarter. Speaker 300:09:00As we've discussed in the past, construction is a large and diverse market. In the submarkets we serve, we experienced strength in metal framing and building products combined with strengths in the culvert category. Our expansion projects in Canada and Mexico continue to be on time and on budget with expanded transformer core and electrical steel lamination capacity coming online at the end of calendar year 2025 in those respective facilities. We continue to receive interest from customers about our additional capabilities at TWB using our licensed ablation technology and are filling our pipeline. The equipment is currently being installed and we remain on schedule. Speaker 300:09:50Our initial move into Europe with the addition of the electrical steel facility in Nagel, Germany continues to gain customer interest and commitments. We acquired a strong team of highly skilled people at Nagel who understand their customers very well. The ERP project at Temple is progressing as expected. The entire project will take place over approximately 3 years and will provide the benchmark data needed to enhance our Temple business through the transformation. On a related note, I'd like to share a few examples of successful transformation projects. Speaker 300:10:26You may recall last quarter, I shared a story from one of our facilities about reducing work in progress. I also mentioned that we are launching transformation in our corporate functions. I'm pleased to report that even though we are just starting this work, we are already seeing results from quick wins realized during the process mapping phase. For instance, we've reduced the time involved in a payroll process by 80%. We've identified ways to decrease the time it takes to configure and distribute PCs to employees by 15%. Speaker 300:11:04And we've decreased the number of tasks needed to hire an IT contractor by 30%. It's important to note that these changes are happening in the very early stages. Over time, these small but important wins start the transformation mindset among departments and will add up to what we believe will be significant transformations. This will lead to streamlined work, less time to complete tasks and cost savings, while making the work our employees perform every day more valuable and more desirable. As I wrap up my comments, I want to congratulate the team at our Temple facility in India. Speaker 300:11:47They recently received a Best Supplier Award from Tata Auto Components for their exceptional contribution to Tata's electric vehicle motor program. The award recognizes our commitment to innovation, quality and excellence in electric vehicle motor manufacturing. Congratulations to that team and thank you to all our Worthington Steel employees for your great work and contributions. Now I'll turn the call over to Tim Adams to talk through the financial results. Speaker 400:12:21Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. Before I provide some color on the quarter, I would like to remind everyone that the current year Q1 consolidated results on a standalone basis are compared with the prior year quarter, which was prepared on a carve out basis. We started our fiscal year with a solid quarter reporting 1st quarter earnings of $28,400,000 or $0.56 per share as compared with prior year quarter earnings of $58,500,000 or $1.19 per share. The current quarter results included recognition of a second and final tax court ruling related to a Temple pre acquisition matter for which we were indemnified by the former owners of Temple. The net impact to earnings is 0. Speaker 400:13:06However, we recognized $4,400,000 of miscellaneous expense related to the indemnity payable and $4,400,000 of tax income associated with the refund. The Temple tax indemnification adjustment or Q1 relates to a 2,009 matter, while the matter we discussed in our Q4 2024 results was related to a 2,008 Temple matter. The prior year quarter included several unique items including pretax separation expense of $3,600,000 or $0.06 per share and a $1,400,000 pretax impairment charge or $0.01 per share related to assets at our consolidated joint venture, Worthington Samuel Coyle Processing. Excluding these items, we generated earnings of $0.56 per share in the current quarter compared to $1.26 per share in the prior year quarter. In addition, in the Q1, we had estimated pretax inventory holding losses of $16,600,000 or $0.25 per share compared to estimated pre tax inventory holding gain of $15,500,000 or $0.24 per share in the prior year quarter, an unfavorable pre tax swing of $32,000,000 or $0.49 per share. Speaker 400:14:22In the Q1, we reported adjusted EBIT of $39,400,000 which was down $41,100,000 from the prior year quarter adjusted EBIT of $80,500,000 This decrease is primarily due to lower gross margin and lower Servicero equity earnings. Gross margin was impacted by lower direct material spreads, including the impact of estimated pre tax inventory holding losses and lower direct volume. Lower direct volume was partially offset by higher toll spreads due to an improved mix within toll processing. Equity earnings from Serviacero decreased due to lower direct spreads, which were unfavorably impacted by lower steel prices as well as the impact of exchange rate movements. SG and A was in line with our expectations, but $3,200,000 higher than the prior year Q1, primarily due to incremental costs associated with being a standalone company. Speaker 400:15:21Next, I'll provide some content on the market and our shipment. Fuel market pricing trended lower throughout the quarter, bottoming at $6.60 per ton in August, down approximately $150 per ton from May. With the decrease in market pricing, we expect estimated inventory holding losses in the Q2 of fiscal 2025 will be slightly lower than the $16,600,000 of estimated inventory holding losses in the Q1. We estimate inventory holding losses in Q2 could be approximately $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 on a pre tax basis. Flat steel prices prevailed throughout most of July August and increased approximately $50 per ton since mid August. Speaker 400:16:06Recently, there have been several steel related fair trade initiatives announced in the North American market. While we have not quantified the impact, we would expect these cases to result in upward pressure on steel prices over the longer term. Net sales in the quarter were $834,000,000 down $72,000,000 or 8% from the prior year quarter, primarily due to lower direct market pricing and lower direct volumes, partially offset by a more favorable mix within our toll business, which included a greater proportion of higher value added processing. We shipped approximately 1,000,000,000 tons during the quarter, which was down 3% compared to the prior year quarter. Direct sale volume made up 56% of our mix in both current year and the prior year quarter. Speaker 400:16:53Direct sale volume was down 4% over the prior year quarter with an increase in construction related volume that was more than offset by reduced shipments to the automotive market. Our shipments to the construction market increased 8% on a year over year basis, while our direct sale volume to the automotive market was down 10% compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease in automotive volume was primarily due to several programs reaching their end of life, while the replacement platforms continue to experience launch delays as well as lower volumes for several specific programs. Our automotive book of business continues to be healthy, making up 51% of our sales. We believe the lower year over year volume is related to specific platforms and not indicative of the health of our overall automotive book of business, which we are expanding. Speaker 400:17:43We are cautiously optimistic about automotive volumes in the coming quarters and look forward to continuing our partnership with our automotive customers. Toll tons were down 2% year over year, primarily due to lower toll pickling with the mill. However, the mix of toll volume was more heavily weighted towards higher value added products, including Taylor loaded blanking and galvanizing. Similar to the automotive market, we are cautiously optimistic about overall volumes for the next few quarters as demand appears to be steady. Turning to cash flows and the balance sheet. Speaker 400:18:16Cash flow from operations was $54,600,000 and free cash flow was $33,100,000 During the quarter, we spent $21,500,000 on capital expenditures related to a variety of projects, including the previously announced electrical steel expansion in Mexico and Canada. On a trailing 12 month basis, we generated $167,200,000 of free cash flow. And Wednesday, we announced a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share payable on December 27, 2024. In regard to our balance sheet, operating working capital decreased $16,100,000 during the Q1. We ended the quarter with $36,000,000 of cash, which is down $4,000,000 from year end. Speaker 400:19:00Our ABL debt at August 31 was $122,000,000 resulting in net debt of $86,000,000 In summary, Worthington Steel had a good Q1 and our team is performing at a very high level. Everyone at Worthington Steel continues to be focused on driving value for our stakeholders on both a near term and long term basis. At this point, we would be happy to take your questions. Operator00:19:26Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Your first question today comes from the line of Martin Englert from Seaport Research. Your line is open. Speaker 500:19:46Hello. Good morning, everyone. Speaker 300:19:50Good morning. Speaker 500:19:52I had a question. You just touched on here within autos, you noted some slower start up of newer programs that rolled out from previous models and programs. And then you noted some changes in program needs for steel. Is that correct? Speaker 300:20:14I'm not sure we noted any changes from for program needs in steel, but Speaker 500:20:21you are correct. Speaker 300:20:22We had some model changeover delays that impacted us. We did have a customer who had to sort of retool their commercial strategy, which they did and sales rebounded there and we think that's behind us. Speaker 200:20:42And I think Martin, the third Jeff touched on the first two, definitely a delay in the model changeover, definitely retooling their strategy were slow to maybe incentivize and offer discounts as their competitors were doing. And then lastly, and this was anticipated, if you look year over year, we had the auto strike looming, so there was quite a bit of pull ahead as well. So that was a difference. Speaker 500:21:13Do you think that lower ramp ups of the newer models is kind of essentially some pent up demand within autos, whereas those get rolling forward, you would expect more of a normalized demand pull, I guess. It sounds like it inhibited some activity within autos in recent history here. Speaker 200:21:37Yes, Martin, our assumption would be that it probably will end up being more normalized. When you're a little bit slow on your commercial strategy and you're missing out sales, you're sacrificing market share at that point in time. So I think that'll work its way out. Market share will shift where it needs to and you'd see a more normalized auto structure auto build structure, I should say. Speaker 500:22:05What was why do you think there was a shift away from direct volumes in the pivot towards tolling? I guess what prompted that? Like what was behind that? Speaker 200:22:18Yes, good question. So predominantly there was 2 areas where you saw a bit of a shift. Number 1, we simply were getting more customers looking for us to do toll galvanizing. So that was one piece of it. Another piece and maybe a bigger piece was just a shift in business model with some customers out of Taylor welded blanks, where it was their preference to negotiate and own material and then obviously hire us to do the toll processing. Speaker 200:22:53So that was a decision they made and certainly one we supported, but that was the change. Speaker 500:23:01Okay, got it. I know looking back a quarter ago, there was a pretty favorable mix when you look at excluding holding gains, losses on underlying unit EBITDA for steel. This quarter seem to pivot back to something, I guess, maybe characterized as possibly more normalized. Is that a fair assumption or read through that looking at the current fiscal 1Q underlying EBITDA ex those holding gains and losses that's more normalized in the ballpark? Speaker 600:23:40Yes, Martin, this is Tim. I think what we saw in Q4 was we had a prior proportion of galvanized in our direct sales, right? So what we were trying to signal in Q4 was, hey, that mix was a little higher weighted towards galvanized than it was the rest of the products. So I would say if you're looking at a historical average and Q1 meets that historical average, that's a pretty fair way to look at it. Speaker 700:24:04What are you seeing as Speaker 500:24:05far as just carving out and looking solely at Gal COVID products, what are you seeing as far as demand and availability out there? Are you seeing any notable shifts versus what you saw a quarter, 2 quarters ago? Speaker 300:24:24Sure. Good morning. This is Jeff Klingler of Martin. Overall, I think we would describe the market as solid. Automotive is despite the small setback last quarter, ultimately the year is going to be relatively flat at about 15,600,000 units. Speaker 300:24:50So pretty flat there. When it comes to other important markets for us, the construction market, which is very large and very diverse for us. We're cautiously optimistic about what's going into calendar 2025. We expect that the cut in interest rates are likely to have a positive impact there. The ag market expected to be muted for the rest of the calendar year, came off a really strong 2023, but they continue to face challenges here with lower commodity prices this year, higher interest rates and higher input costs. Speaker 300:25:36We did see some bright spots, however, throughout the year with customers ordering an increased number of grain bins during the summer. And then heavy truck is sort of in the same boat, experienced a pullback in demand that we saw late starting in late 'twenty three. We expect that to last through the remainder of the year. However, we're expecting some improvement going into the next calendar year there. Speaker 200:26:09Hey, Martin, I think you've good overview from Jeff on all the markets. I think you specifically asked about coated and galvanized and I would mirror Jeff's comments there that that's another book where we're optimistic and feel like demand is going to be stable. Obviously, we have an election, so we're going to stress stable. I think most would mirror those comments right now. But as we get beyond that and with lower interest rates, the markets we serve with that galvanized product feeling optimistic overall. Speaker 500:26:45Are you able to say roughly like what kind of utilizations you're running Galvines at? What I'm curious about is, of course, trade case. And if there's more volume coming back to the domestic market, would you be able to cope more there and maybe serve a bit more volume into the market or spot market outside of your traditional customer base if there's a need for it in the United States? Speaker 200:27:15Well, the way to answer that, certainly we would have some open capacity and that's the importance of our transformation, the continuous improvement team that we have to constantly be focusing on that and trying to free up capacity. And certainly, the trade cases, we're already seeing an impact just from the announcements of gallows slowing down coming in. So certainly that could create some opportunities for us. I think probably where we'd be most excited is certainly out of Delta, but we also have Spartan and certainly we would have capacity there that is open that we would be able to go after additional market and market share. Speaker 500:28:02Okay. Appreciate it. Helpful and thank you very much. Speaker 200:28:07You got Operator00:28:07it. Your next question comes from the line of Phil Gibbs from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is Speaker 700:28:15open. Hey, good morning. Speaker 600:28:18Good morning, Phil. Hey, Phil. Good morning. Speaker 700:28:20I know last quarter you gave us an update on electrical steel, maybe mid to longer term contract wins and allocated capacity at both the Canadian facility and Mexican facility. Anything new to report there in terms of dialogue with your customers? Speaker 300:28:45Yes. Nothing specific. We knew we have won some additional business for the future capacity that's coming online in Mexico. So we've got some additional business coming online to fill those presses. 3 of the 5 are installed and pretty much spoken for. Speaker 300:29:08The other 2 will be arriving within the next 1 to 3 months and then installation will begin. I guess I would summarize it by saying just a lot of very positive customer communication and activity around the capacity coming along in Mexico. Same thing in Canada, we've got a couple additional customers who want to sign up in advance for some of the additional capacity, but nothing specific there in Canada like in Mexico. Speaker 200:29:52And Phil, you know this, keep in mind, at this point, it's what we can produce, we can ship, hence the $84,000,000 investment to add capacity, be able to continue to service customers' need and increase in demand and then adding the capabilities because our customers want us to provide different products than we're providing today, which is all good news. Speaker 700:30:18Thank you. And then on the equity income, I think it was a little over $1,000,000 in the quarter last year, it was $9,000,000 Is that a volume impact? Is that where you're or is that where you're seeing some of the model changeovers on the automotive comparisons? Or is it FIFO hits? Or is it all of the above? Speaker 700:30:37Because that was certainly softer than what we anticipated and I think obviously softer than what you would expect moving forward over the long run? Speaker 600:30:48Hey, Phil, this is Tim. So Servicera, I want to start out with Servicera remains fundamentally strong and a key Speaker 400:30:53part of our strategy. Speaker 600:30:54One of the things we didn't update you guys on was we are making progress on the new splitter project down there. So we've got new volume coming. The new splitter should be installed by the 1st December. But what you're seeing is a combination of 2 things in Servicero's results and the impact of both is they're kind of weighted the same. First Servicero showed significant decreases in inventory holding gains on a year over year basis. Speaker 600:31:19So they had significant gains last year and they were much, much smaller this year. And then second, what we're also seeing is the impact of the volatility of the Mexican peso. So as you know, the peso has been highly volatile over the last 12 months. And last year, Service Area's results showed the impact of an appreciating peso, while in the current quarter, we're showing the impact of a depreciating peso. So it's a combination of both those things. Speaker 700:31:49Is which one of those things is a stronger impact versus the other? Speaker 600:31:56No, they're equally weighted, equally weighted this quarter. Speaker 700:32:01Okay. And then lastly for me on the side of Temple, I mean it sounds like you're in the early innings of integration of IT systems and other new business practices. What type of returns are you anticipating from some of these things? I think you mentioned kind of meaningful longer term cost savings and things of that nature. So trying to understand where your mindset is at regarding the project? Speaker 200:32:39I'm going to ask for some grace from you and give us time because we have to right now stay 100% focused on getting the ERP implemented, Phil. I mean, it's just until we get good timely data to set any type of baseline, it's going to be difficult for us to quantify what type of savings we're going to start getting longer term. And it's hard to compare, I think, as you could imagine versus what we've achieved in our flat rolled carbon business. There's just some differences there. I can just tell you that we're highly optimistic and think we have several opportunities identified and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more to come. Speaker 200:33:23What I can commit to is just like Jeff Klingler has been doing over the last three calls as we're having various continuous improvement events and we're achieving success and we're able to quantify those, we'll start sharing those with those calling in. Speaker 700:33:42Thank you so much. Speaker 200:33:44You got it. Thank you. Operator00:33:47Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazos from John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open. Speaker 800:33:56Thank you very much for your service to the company and the good results. Thanks, Scott. Thank you, sir. The Laser Welded Blank business had $200,000 more equity income, actually minority interest, a little over $200,000 more net income for Worthington. And that's very automotive related also. Speaker 800:34:24Could you explain why the laser welded blank business was up bucking the trend of the consolidated rest of the company? Speaker 600:34:36Yes, John, this is Tim. So, I think the easy answer there is our spreads were up at Servius Aero sorry, TDBB, Servius Aero on my brain. But spreads were up at TDBB. We had to do some recovery of costs, freight costs and some other costs and we absolutely had to raise prices to recover those. Okay. Speaker 300:34:58I would add they were Speaker 800:35:00So that product is so differentiated that you can raise prices even when hot rolled sheet exchange prices were dipping below 700 a ton? Speaker 600:35:17That's correct. It is a differentiator. It's a very high value added product. It's typically not hot roll based. It's Galvin cold roll. Speaker 600:35:27So we are able to when we have those situations where and everybody's gone through these from an inflation standpoint, we had to recover cost there and did the best we could and we were able to push price a little bit. Speaker 800:35:44Cliffs announced that they were going to build transformers Speaker 600:35:49in Wheaton and Speaker 800:35:53make their electrical steel in Butler and I guess take it Southwest to Wearden to make the transformers, would that bypass any opportunity for Worthington because they're going to be integrated from start from scrap to sales product or are there going to be intermediate phases where you could process the steel from the mill and before the Weirton transformer plant? Speaker 200:36:30Yes. I mean, they certainly are making electrical steel today as we know. They're announcing they announced that they will be making transformers. I don't know where electrical steel laminations and transformer cores fit into that scenario at this point. So to the latter part of your question or suggestion, yes, theoretically, they could be a customer. Speaker 200:36:54But more importantly, John, we don't see that as a disruption. As we've said, there's an 18 to 24 months backlog. That market is going to grow much faster than GDP for the next 10 years. So Cleveland Cliffs entering that space certainly will not disrupt our business. And more importantly, we're going to continue to support our customers. Speaker 200:37:25Our customers are the experts at making transformers and we're the experts at making electrical steel laminations and it's a win win for us to continue to partner with them. Partnering with them is going to create more shareholder value and it's going to be better than industry versus us ever trying to leap into that market. Operator00:37:50And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Jeff Gilmore for some final closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:59Thank you for showing interest in Worthington Steel and joining the call this morning. Great questions and we look forward to performing the balance of the quarter and getting back with you soon. Have a great day. Thank you. Operator00:38:14This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.Read moreRemove AdsPowered by