Good morning, and welcome to the Olympic Steel 2022 Q1 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are on a listen only mode. A Q&A session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Rich Manson, Chief Financial Officer at Olympic Steel. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, operator. Welcome to Olympic Steel's earnings call for the Q1 of 2022. Our call this morning will be hosted by our Chief Executive Officer, Rick Marabito, and we will also be joined by our President and Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Greiff. Before we begin, I have a few reminders. Some statements made on today's call will be predictive and are intended to be made as forward-looking within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and may not reflect actual results. The company does not undertake to update such statements, changes in assumptions, or changes in other factors affecting such forward-looking statements. Important assumptions, risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth in the company's reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, and the press releases filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During today's discussion, we may refer to adjusted net income per diluted share, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA, which are all non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is provided in the press release that was issued last night and can be found on our website. Today's broadcast will be archived and available for replay on Olympic Steel's website. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Rick. Thank you, Rich. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss Olympic Steel's results for the Q1 of 2022. I'll begin with some comments about our exceptional performance for the quarter and how we've achieved these results. After my comments, Andrew will review our business segments and provide some additional insights into the current market dynamics, and then Rich will discuss the Q1 financial results in more detail. Of course, as always, then we'll take your questions. It was another quarter of historic performance for Olympic Steel. In the Q1, we reported record sales of $696 million, and the second strongest quarter of profitability in our company's history, with $58.1 million of EBITDA. Our specialty metals and pipe and tube segments both delivered record quarterly sales and earnings, while our carbon segment posted its second-highest quarterly sales along with strong profits. These results are a testament to the strategic actions we have taken to strengthen Olympic Steel and better position us to succeed in all market cycles. We've worked hard to diversify our business, reduce our exposure to cyclical risk, and drive operational efficiencies. As we saw in the Q1, our ability to deliver near record profitability in a challenging carbon pricing environment shows that these efforts are working. The resiliency of our carbon segment is especially telling, which Andrew will detail later in this call. Moving forward, we're excited to advance our business through our capital deployment strategy. We've built an outstanding M&A track record with strong Q1 contributions from our recent acquisitions, including Berlin Metals and Action Stainless, as well as our other growth, organic growth initiatives. We continue to actively evaluate potential acquisition targets and growth opportunities, and I believe we're well positioned to execute in 2022. We have plenty of capital to deploy in new opportunities with strong returns that align with our strategy to further diversify our business. Our capital deployment approach is balanced with our commitment to reward shareholders as well. In our earnings release, we announced our regular quarterly dividend of $0.09 per share, and that's for the second consecutive quarter. If you remember, this was increased from our previous quarterly rate of $0.02 per share. We're also committed to communicating more about our ESG efforts. Later this month, we will publish our first corporate responsibility report, which details our priorities, progress, and goals for our ESG program. You'll be able to find that report on our website, and we encourage you to check it out. I'm also proud to share that we have joined the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion initiative, which is helping us to mobilize corporate America, and CEOs in particular, to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Before I turn the call over to Andrew, I'd like to take a moment to just thank the entire Olympic Steel for their outstanding efforts and dedication to our strategy. Together, we are building a company that achieves sustained success and has a positive impact on our world. Andrew. Thank you, Rick, and good morning. It is my pleasure to share additional detail about our historic performance during the quarter. All three of our businesses are executing at a very high level due to our collective company-wide efforts in a market that continues to exhibit steady demand. As Rick noted, our specialty metals and pipe and tube segments each delivered record sales and profitability for the quarter. Our carbon segment posted its second strongest quarter of sales ever, along with strong profits. Looking at the market, after hot-rolled carbon index pricing peaked in September 2021, it began an unprecedented drop until early March 2022. In the face of this strong headwind, our carbon segment was still able to post strong results for the quarter. This is a direct result of the changes we have made to our business to create a sustainable model for consistent long-term earnings in our carbon business and throughout our company. Following the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, pricing for most metal-based commodities, including pig iron, nickel, aluminum, and scrap, carbon scrap, increased significantly. While we now see hot-rolled carbon sheet pricing leveling off based on hot-rolled futures, the price for carbon plate, stainless, and aluminum products remain elevated. For the quarter, we reported record sales, and I wanna note that our segment sales mix continues to become more diverse, the result of a very intentional effort over the last several years. For the quarter, carbon flat roll accounted for 54% of sales, specialty metals was 29%, and pipe and tube was 17%. Our shipping levels were roughly flat year-over-year, excluding our former Detroit operations that were divested in September 2021. Jumping to our segment results, in specialty metals, market momentum and stellar execution enabled us to deliver a phenomenal Q1. Sales were up 58% from a year ago, and the segment contributed $35.1 million of EBITDA, shattering its previous EBITDA record by nearly $10 million. We are encouraged to see our traditional end markets, end-user markets, appliance, truck trailer, food equipment, industrial tanks, all performing well in light of continued supply chain issues. Investments in our white metals facilities are performing well and will continue to grow in our best-in-class value-added business. Pipe and tube also delivered another record quarter, with sales up by 30% and EBITDA at an all-time high of $15.9 million. Our traditional end-user markets have been remarkably steady and expect to see consistent volume through the Q2. Turning now to our carbon business. Our focus has been to be profitable in all market cycles. The performance of our carbon segment, even as hot-roll pricing continued its descent into early March 2022, demonstrated that our commitment toward this goal is paying off. We weathered the headwinds of carbon index pricing decreasing by over $1,000 per ton and maintained high volume levels to record $380 million in sales, our second strongest quarter of carbon segment sales ever. We did this while earning $12.5 million of EBITDA with all carbon distribution divisions profitable. Our carbon team has focused on business that is profitable for us, being diligent on operating expenses and improving inventory turns. These efforts are duly reflected in our results. Our industrial OEMs have been very consistent and, as we have been discussing on these calls, have good backlogs but are not able to get ahead due to the continued supply chain issues. Looking ahead, while metal prices increased at the beginning of March due to the war in Ukraine, it did not have a significant impact for our results for the Q1. We do expect current pricing dynamics and continued demand across our end markets will help support strong Q2 performance. Regardless of external pressures, we'll continue to focus on what we can control. We'll stay vigilant on safety, expenses, and managing inventory levels and believe our business is well positioned for sustained success. Now, I'll turn the call over to Rich for more details on the financials. Thank you, Andrew, and good morning, everyone. As Rick and Andrew have noted, our team delivered an incredibly strong start to the year. In addition to the $696 million in record sales for the company as a whole, our $58.1 million of consolidated EBITDA was a record for the Q1 and the second-best EBITDA for any quarter in our company's history. This is an outstanding accomplishment following our all-time record performance in 2021. As we get into our results, I want to remind you that we completed the disposition of our Detroit operations during the Q3 of 2021, and we acquired Shaw Stainless & Alloy in the Q4 of 2021. Those transactions impact our year-over-year comparisons. Net income for the Q1 totaled $37.3 million or $3.23 per share, up from $22 million or $1.91 per share in the Q1 of 2021. Adjusted EBITDA was $56 million, compared with $37.8 million a year ago. This year's results include no LIFO adjustment, compared with $1 million of LIFO pre-tax expense in the Q1 of last year. Consolidated operating expenses totaled $88.1 million for the Q1, an increase of $11.2 million or 14.6% compared with the $76.9 million for the Q1 of last year. Operating expenses for the quarter were 12.7% of sales versus 16.6% of sales a year ago. The current quarter included $1.6 million of Shaw operating expenses and $6.1 million of incremental incentive expenses, which are tied to profitability when compared to the Q1 of 2021. Like all companies, we have experienced inflationary pressure on labor, distribution expense, and supplies. After adjusting for the items that were not present in the Q1 of 2022, we estimate the impact of inflation at 5%-6%. Total debt decreased by $17 million since year-end 2021- $311 million. We expect additional debt reduction during the Q2. However, as metal pricing remains elevated, we expect the majority of our debt reduction to occur in the H2 of 2022. At quarter end, our credit line availability was approximately $160 million. Capital expenditures totaled $2.1 million, compared with depreciation of $4.4 million. Many capital expenditure projects, including some of our automation projects, were approved in the Q1, but long lead times are slowing the required utilization of cash. Our effective tax rate for the Q1 was 27%, compared to a 26.5% for the Q1 of 2021. We expect our 2022 effective tax rate to remain within the 27%-28% range. For the second consecutive quarter, the board of directors approved a cash dividend of $0.09 per share, a historically high level of dividend that is expected to be maintained in the future, subject to board approval. We have now paid dividends for 68 consecutive quarters. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to add my congratulations to our team for their efforts this quarter. We weathered the headwinds of the decline in hot roll pricing from September through early March. We expect these metal price increases to positively influence our Q2 results, but are mindful of the risks of declining prices. Regardless of pricing dynamics, we remain confident that the actions we've taken to diversify our business and expand into higher value-added product categories position Olympic Steel to withstand market challenges and continue to deliver consistent profitability over the long term. Operator, let's open up the call for questions. Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Yeah, good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. Good morning, Marco. Good morning, Marco. Morning. I was wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit more. In your prepared remarks, you discussed the fact that even though you had the increase in pricing in Q1 due to the Ukraine-Russian war, your profitability didn't necessarily reflect that, if I understood that correctly, and your expectation is you'll see more of a benefit here in Q2. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that dynamic behind that? Well, Marco, this is Andrew. We saw index pricing continue to drop. It really started September of 2021 and went through the end of February, really first week of March. After the unprovoked invasion, we did see an immediate shift in pricing that we saw over probably a four to five week period, index pricing increased about $500 a ton. For us, January and February were very good months, which certainly included the declining price. March was a little bit better. But again, the overall quarter, even without the increase in pricing, we still would have had a very good quarter. Understood. Is that partially, I mean, if I'm looking at your gross profits per ton on the carbon side, it's a bit off year-over-year, but a decent sequential decline. Is that factored into that movement there as well? It is. Understood. Okay. Got it. In terms of the specialty business, ASPs went up pretty significantly sequentially. Can you talk a little bit more about the dynamics there? I understand that obviously the aluminum markets and stainless are still kind of tight, but if you can just kind of give us a little bit of an update in terms of what you're thinking is and what your expectations are there for the ASP sequentially. Sure. What we saw from the beginning of the year, we had seen an increase certainly in nickel and aluminum pricing hit historic highs as we came through the quarter into March. You had a nice run up during that time period. It's leveled off a little bit since then. Again, our white metals or specialty metals division has been doing incredibly well. The anticipation that the selling prices will remain at the elevated prices, and a lot of that really is pegged towards, you know, those LME prices. As we've seen nickel come off a little bit, same thing with aluminum. We may see a little bit of a decrease, but the volume has been very consistent, very strong. Got it. Understood. Just kind of curious here, are you seeing or are you able to kind of peel back the layer on whether or not you're seeing any increase in demand due to the infrastructure bill kind of working its way through the country? Yeah, Marco, it's Rick. It's a great question. I tell you, we're not seeing that yet. Obviously, as we've talked a lot on prior calls, we're really well-positioned as a company in terms of who we sell to as you know, the infrastructure spend kicks in. We're really looking more towards that as a 2023 little boost to demand. To specifically answer your question, no, we're not really seeing the impact of any spending yet on demand. Understood. If I could sneak one more in here, just kind of talking about the M&A landscape and the pipeline. Obviously, there's been some increases in macro volatility, Shanghai lockdowns, Ukraine-Russian war. Have you seen that sort of impact the landscape of opportunities for you positively or negatively? Can you also kind of maybe discuss what you're seeing in terms of valuation levels right now? Yeah. Yeah, I'll kind of go in reverse order. Valuation levels, certainly given the dynamics of the last two to three years and looking at what historical and cyclical earnings would be in terms of targets for M&A, you've got a lot of volatility. I think this year, in terms of M&A activity, that's going to be, you know, one of the factors that gets really a lot of, you know, attention and thought in terms of coming through a pandemic and, you know, most companies have lower earnings than would be cyclically normal. We've obviously been in a really strong earnings environment here, for the last year or so. That's certainly the valuation and the multiples on the valuation is certainly going to be, I think, an area that gets a lot of attention in the M&A market. We're seeing a good amount of activity in terms of the M&A market. I'm not exactly sure it's really driven off of the, you know, the China and the war concerns. I think it's just more there's some pent-up demand from sellers who coming through COVID and the two years of shutdown, maybe had been thinking about and had been poised and ready to sell their companies potentially in 2020 and 2021, and it probably didn't happen. The short story is, you know, towards the back half of Q1, we're starting to see a lot of activity. We talked about we're certainly active and aggressively looking. We strategically would certainly like to execute on acquisitions and keep our sort of pace and record that you've seen from us the last several years going. I feel optimistic and confident that we're gonna be able to do that this year. Got a great color there. Appreciate your guys' time. Thank you. Thanks, Marco. Thank you, Marco. Our next question comes from Phil Gibbs with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question. Hey, good morning. Good morning, Phil. Good morning. Can you update us on your CapEx plans this year just in terms of size, and then also what you're targeting with that spend? Yeah. Phil, it's Rich. I'll talk about the dollar amounts, and then I'll kick it over to Andy to talk more about the specific expenditures. You know, I think when we had done the last call, we had predicted something in the low 30s in terms of cash flow. I do believe that we will put POs out that equal that amount. You know, quite honestly, I don't think we've seen a piece of equipment that hasn't had a lead time that's less than six months on a lot of this stuff. I think the cash flow will probably tend to be more in the low 20s as opposed to most of the low 30s, and some of it just gets pushed into 2023 from a cash flow standpoint. Well, you know, Rich, that's 100% correct. You know, we'll continue to invest certainly in the fabrication side of the business, Phil. We have our second auto stamping press that's a little bit behind. We had expected sometime in the beginning of the Q2, maybe even mid-Q2, would have been up and operational. We're looking probably now Q3 for that to happen. Some of the high-speed fiber lasers that we had expected to be running a little bit behind. Same with some of the robotic welders and other automation equipment that we had expected to start about now, and we're running, in some cases, two-four months behind. But that hasn't stopped us, and we have more that we're continuing to order. Thank you. What are your big customers in the earthmoving equipment side telling you guys or indicating? I know as we were coming out of some of the periods in the last several months, there was intermittent, you know, ups and downs, and it was hard to plan at times, for you and for others. What are they indicating to you? That's a great question. They're remarkably steady. The supply chain issues may have shifted in some ways that it's not a steel issue anymore, it may be a harness issue, or it may be a chip issue. A customer who's making seven units and has backlogs for 10 or 11 is making seven. They can't really seem to move ahead for a variety of issues. Certainly, what you're seeing out of China right now is adding to the problem. The expectation is they're gonna be very steady, certainly through the Q2, and they're really indicating through the H2. Your auto business has gotten smaller post-sale, some of your Detroit operations, but you still have some exposure there. What are your auto guys indicating? It's about the same, Phil. The business now is focused to our southern location. We've seen, again, steadiness. Maybe slight uptick over the last month or two, but really nothing dramatic. The expectation is that it's gonna be the same again through the Q2. Unless the chip situation resolves itself, which we don't expect it's going to this year, we expect it's gonna be fairly steady, certainly through the H1 and probably into the H2 as well. Phil, it's Rich. We'll have our updated investor deck out next week that has the breakdown by industry, but you'll see, you know, where we used to be 8%-10% in auto, Q1 this year, we're about 2%. Oh, wow. Okay. The last question, with the unprovoked war in the Black Sea, are you guys seeing anything in the long term that you feel will change? I mean, obviously the prices in the short run have gone up, but anything, you know, long term from a planning perspective or conversation perspective with your customers? Thank you. Yeah. I think, and Andy, certainly chime in. I think, for us, in terms of our customers and our supply, we're not really dependent on that area of the world, and haven't been for several years. From my perspective, however, we're going through a monumental, you know, global economic shift that may have some permanent impacts as we move forward in terms of demand supply dynamics into Europe. You know, I think some of the things that we've talked about through the pandemic in terms of supply chains, readjusting supply chains, realignments of economics and partnerships, I think all those things are likely going to be lasting effects from this war, and certainly have impacts on metal. I think, you know, I think the short and the near-term impacts of this, even if the war were to get resolved quickly, which doesn't look like it is, but hopefully it does, I think it's just creates supply chains that are going to be closer to home. I think that's a very good thing for Olympic Steel and for U.S. manufacturing. Andy, any other thoughts on that? Well, the only thing I would add, Rick, and I think you nailed it. I think the only thing is you'll see the reduction of pig iron certainly coming from that region. The mills have talked about the stopping of buying pig iron coming out of Russia. I think what that will do is you'll see a steadiness in scrap in the U.S. and that I think bodes well for hot roll pricing, at least keeping it steady in the long term. Thank you, guys. Have a good weekend. Yeah. Thank you, Phil. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our next question comes from Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Please proceed with your question. Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. You might have explained it up, but can you walk me through what were the main drivers for the higher cost of materials sold for carbon flat? Sure, Phil. It's Rich. You know, one of the things we've talked about is how index pricing, especially on the carbon flat rolled side, had increased steadily through September of 2021, and then we started to see the decrease fall after that. If you're trying to compare the Q1 of 2022 to the Q1 of 2021, there's a dramatic higher price level for carbon flat rolled in 2022 versus 2021. While it's down, you know, it started trending down versus Q4 when you're comparing to 12 months ago, it's a substantial difference. That's where you're gonna see the difference in the cost of goods sold. Yeah. We were speaking more sequentially. We were speaking more sequentially about the, you know, the pricing impacts than year over year in terms of cost of goods sold earlier. So, that's exactly right. Okay. Can you sort of share your thoughts on, you know, where you see the average selling price per ton for carbon flat for the remainder of the year? Well, I think, you know, we've had a lot of volatility in carbon. We talked about carbon pricing here recently, elevating by about $500 a ton. If you look at the futures on carbon metals, you know, they're pointing a little bit down from where they are today. You know, specifically, as we see a little bit of a decline here in the coming months, and then it starts really flattening out for the year. I think we're gonna be in a relatively good pricing environment, hopefully. I think prices are going to remain elevated. I think hot roll prices are going to be higher than people had predicted last year for the fall. I think that's a good thing. That's a good thing for certainly, you know, service centers in the steel industry as a whole domestically. That's what I'd say. I think we're in a period where it's just trying to find its footing. You know, it may settle a little lower than where we saw it recently peaked and then hopefully stabilizes. Okay, great. Can you talk about your inventory levels and how do you feel about them? Are you comfortable where they are? I think we've done a good job in terms of reducing our overall inventory level, Chris. I think we can expect in the next quarter it will come down a little bit, and then we'll steady out through the balance of the year. I think we're in relatively good shape today. I think we have some work to do to just bring it down a little bit. Okay, great. Thanks for the answers. You're welcome. Thanks, Chris. We've reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Rick Marabito. Thank you very much, and thank you all for joining us today on the call. We really appreciate your continued interest and support of Olympic Steel, and we look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you and have a good day. Bye-bye. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.