Ryerson's 2025 Q1 Earnings Call: Key Contradictions in Debt Management, Sales Strategy, and Market Performance

Debt management and capital expenditure, transaction vs. contractual sales target, stainless steel market performance, and debt management and interest expense are the key contradictions discussed in Ryerson Holding's latest 2025Q1 earnings call.



Operational Model Renovations and CapEx Investments:
- Ryerson Holding Corporation continued its operational model renovations, progressing with significant CapEx investments across its service center network.
- These investments are expected to provide improved quality of earnings through the cycle, with encouraging transactional market share gains and sequential improvements across the business, despite challenging market dynamics.

Sales and Market Share Gains:
- Ryerson's Q1 sales volume reached 500,000 tons, approximately 12% higher quarter-over-quarter, aligning with MSCI's industry sales volume increase of nearly 11%.
- Market share gains were experienced across most metal product categories, with notable increases in construction equipment, metal fabrication, and industrial machinery and equipment.

Financial Performance and Cash Flow Management:
- Ryerson's adjusted EBITDA excluding LIFO for Q1 was $32.8 million, a significant improvement from the previous quarter's $10.3 million.
- The company maintained its $60 million expense reduction target and used $41 million of cash in operations, primarily driven by increased customer sales volumes.

Pricing and Demand Dynamics:
- Average selling prices improved early into Q2, with expectations for a 3% to 4% increase in the second quarter.
- The improvement in pricing trends was attributed to balanced industry inventories, shorter mill lead times, and good domestic metal availability.

Debt Leverage Ratio and Shareholder Returns:
- Ryerson's leverage ratio for the quarter was 4.3x, with plans to improve this ratio throughout the rest of 2025.
- The company returned $6 million in dividends during the quarter, maintaining its cash dividend of $0.1875 per share.