Steel Mills

Ryerson Expects Drag on Business from Coronavirus

March 8, 2020

“Beyond seasonally subdued,” is how Ryerson Holding CEO Eddie Lehner described demand in the fourth quarter of 2019. Ryerson shipped 541,000 tons last quarter, down 6.2 percent year-over-year and 9.5 percent lower than in the third quarter. Revenue decreased 17.1 percent to $961.5 million compared to Q4 2018 and net income was $26.4 million. Average selling price dropped 11.6 percent to $1,777 per ton.

“Beginning with the third quarter of 2018, we are now six quarters through the most recent industrial metals counter cycle characterized by falling industrial metal prices, contracting industrial metals demand and compress margins. The average duration of these counter cycles over the past decade has been approximately seven quarters,” said Lehner.

“Consequently, we expect increasing probabilities of improving macro conditions as we move through 2020 depending on the impacts from external events such as the coronavirus whose impact to the economy is yet to be determined.”

Ryerson has several operations in China that have been affected by the coronavirus but, as of now, no Ryerson China colleagues or their immediate families have contracted the virus. Ryerson estimates that first-quarter China revenues will decrease by $15 million compared to Q1 2019 and shipments will decline by approximately 20,000 tons.

“We have been in contact with our China team every day,” said Lehner. “We have firsthand accounts of what’s going on inside of the country and, so far, things are slowly gearing back towards normalcy. It’s going to take a little bit of time for those knots to get untied. But based on what we can see, it looks like by the end of April a lot of the lost operational capacity and throughput should be restored unless virus conditions worsen.”

Lehner said it is too early to quantify what the impact of the virus will be on the North American business, but he anticipates the virus will be a “drag on sentiment and business activity.” The impact will likely affect the service side more than manufacturing. “It looks to be about a one-month to three-month arc, and I think we just have to look at it day by day,” added Lehner.

Kevin Richardson, president of the South-East region, added that the company has received quite a few calls from OEMs asking for verification that supply chains are not at risk. The concern is mostly about components coming in from overseas, he added. “Without question there’s been a lot of canceled conferences and meetings. So, from a travel perspective, that’s definitely taking hold in the economy, but nothing directly in terms of manufacturing.”

For the first quarter of 2020, Ryerson anticipates revenues of $1.03 billion to $1.07 billion, driven by the normal seasonality patterns but mildly tempered by weaker manufacturing demand that has carried over from the second half of last year. Carbon prices have increased sequentially, but stainless steel surcharges and aluminum prices continue to decline.

Ryerson expects average selling prices in the first quarter to be flat to up 2 percent compared to the fourth quarter due to recovering carbon pricing, lower China shipments, and higher transactional shipment volumes.