Olympic Stays Profitable in Tough Quarter
By
Metal Center News Staff on
Nov 4, 2024
Declining metal prices led to lower sales and profits for Olympic Steel in the third quarter. The Cleveland-based distributor reported net sales of $470 million, down 10.6 percent, and net income of $2.7 million compared with $12.2 million in Q3 2023.
"Olympic Steel's strategies for diversification enabled all three business segments to deliver EBITDA-positive results despite industry-wide pricing pressure," said Richard T. Marabito, CEO. "Macroeconomic trends during the third quarter resulted in lower overall OEM contractual demand, pressuring margins across all segments. Despite these headwinds, we have remained profitable through our diversification into counter-cyclical steel-intensive end products, focusing on higher-margin opportunities such as flat-rolled coated products and expansion of our fabrication capabilities."
In its carbon steel business segment, Olympic's tons sold were down modestly from 207,145 to 204,111, but the average price declined 11.8 percent to $1,297. Tons sold in the specialty metals segment increased 6.4 percent to 29,738, but the average selling price tumbled from $4,752 to $4,227.
"Overall, we believe the success of our acquisitions and our capital investments in key organic growth areas has created a stronger and more resilient Olympic Steel. As we showed in the third quarter, we can deliver profitable results even in challenging times," Marabito said.