Reliance reports solid Q3 2025 results with record tons sold, but faces margin headwinds amid competitive market conditions and trade uncertainties.

OPERATOR - (00:00:22)

Greetings and Welcome to The Reliance Inc. Third quarter 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. You may be placed into question queue at any time by pressing Star1 on your telephone keypad. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press Star zero. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kim Orlando with ADDL Invest Relations. Kim, please go ahead.

Kim Orlando - Investor Relations - (00:00:50)

Thank you operator. Good morning and thanks to all of you for joining our conference call to discuss Reliance's third quarter Q 2025 financial results. I am joined by Carla Lewis, President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Cook, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Arthur Ajemian, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A recording of this call will be posted on the Investors section of our website@investor.reliance.com Please read the forward looking statement disclosures included in our earnings release issued yesterday and note that it applies to all statements made during this teleconference. The reconciliations of the adjusted numbers are included in the non GAAP reconciliation part of our earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Carla Lewis, President and CEO of Reliance. Good morning everyone and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2025 results. We delivered another solid quarter amidst market uncertainty, reflecting the strength and adaptability of our business model and solid execution across the Reliance family of companies. Our third quarter results demonstrate how Reliance's scale diversification and high performing management teams combine to deliver strong financial performance and capture market share in a uniquely challenging environment. Our tons sold were a third quarter record and outperformed the industry by approximately 9 percentage points, increasing our U.S. market share to 17.1%, up from 14.5% in 2023 due to our smart profitable growth strategy driven by our high levels of customer service and broad inventory and processing capabilities. We offset declining industry shipment trends by winning new business opportunities that also better leveraged our operating expenses and meaningfully contributed to our overall profitability. Trade policy uncertainty and readily available inventory are causing buyers to be hesitant, creating an extremely competitive market. In this environment, it is more difficult to immediately increase selling prices to fully offset mill price increases. These factors have contributed to short term gross profit margin headwinds in the past two quarters. In addition, the aerospace and semiconductor markets that we serve, which have high value specialty products that typically contribute meaningfully to our profits, continue to underperform due to excess inventories within these supply chains. We are confident, however, that the underlying margin profile of our Consolidated business remains solidly intact and we maintain our long term annual sustainable gross profit margin range of of 29 to 31%. Our scale, product and end market diversity and exceptional customer service including next day delivery and extensive value added processing capabilities were instrumental in our outperforming our competition and capturing significant market share. Overall non GAAP earnings per diluted share of $3.64 were within our expectations and guidance for the quarter. Our capital allocation strategy is designed to drive growth and deliver strong returns to our stockholders. We generated approximately $262 million in operating cash flow in the third quarter that we strategically redeployed into high value initiatives including investments in advanced processing equipment and other projects that strengthen our long term growth platform. Our 2025 capital expenditure budget remains at $325 million with more than half directed towards growth initiatives including carryover spending. We expect total cash outlays between 340 and $360 million in 2025. Our strong financial position also affords us the flexibility to pursue M and A opportunities that enhance our geographic reach, expand our value added capabilities and strengthen our margin profile. At the same time, we remain committed to returning capital to our stockholders. During the quarter, we returned $124 million through dividends and share repurchases. Our year to date repurchases total more than 1.4 million shares, reflecting our balanced approach to growth and shareholder value creation. In summary, our teams navigated the quarter exceptionally well, keeping our people safe while managing market dynamics with discipline and focus. Our primarily domestic supply chain and strong relationships with our US Mill partners provide reliance a distinct competitive advantage while our nimble operating model, solid balance sheet and diversified product mix continue to underpin strong and consistent performance. These same strengths also position us favorably to capitalize quickly as market activity rebounds. Looking ahead, we remain focused on investing for growth and delivering value to our customers and stockholders, supported by our consistently strong cash generation. I'll now turn the call over to our COO Steve Cook who will review our demand pricing trends.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:07:11)

Thanks Carla and good morning everyone. I want to begin by recognizing our teams across the organization for their strong execution in the third quarter, delivering outstanding service to our customers, navigating ongoing macro challenges with discipline while maintaining their relentless focus on safety. Looking at our demand and pricing trends, third quarter tons sold were consistent with the second quarter of 2025, surpassing our expectations of down 1% to 3%. Our tons sold increased 6.2% compared to the third quarter of 2024, significantly outperforming the service center industry which reported a decrease of 2.9% in the same comparative period. Our outperformance of the industry demonstrates our ability to gain share in a demand environment constrained by market uncertainty through our smart, profitable growth strategy and the contributions of our continued investments in growth. Consistent with our outlook, our third quarter average selling price remains steady compared to the second quarter of 2025 even as tariff related momentum quickly leveled off. Pricing upside from certain aluminum and stainless steel products was offset by pricing pressures on most carbon steel products as well as stainless steel products sold into the aerospace and semiconductor industries through industry over buying in the first quarter of this year in advance of the tariffs as well as readily available inventory at domestic mills and depots. Pricing for most products has been declining since April resulting in a very competitive market which when combined with stable through declining end demand has pressured our gross profit margins as Arthur will expand upon when reviewing our outlook, we believe pricing for most products has now stabilized entering the fourth quarter. Our teams navigated these market dynamics very well while maintaining discipline in pricing and strong customer service levels. Turning to our key end markets, nonresidential construction represented roughly one third of our third quarter sales comprising carbon, steel, tubing, plate and structural products. Shipments for these products were seasonally strong in the third quarter and increased compared to the third quarter of last year driven by strong demand in public infrastructure work including civil projects, schools, hospitals and airports, as well as ongoing data center construction. Our scale and broad geographic footprint enable us to capture growth across these key areas. General manufacturing, also about 1/3 of third quarter sales, is highly diversified across geographies, products and industries. Shipments in this market also increased year over year as military, industrial machinery, consumer products, shipbuilding and rail sector shipments were seasonally strong and showed solid year over year growth. Relative weakness in agricultural machinery continued our sustained outperformance across key product groups. In general, manufacturing highlights the versatility and competitive advantage for a diversified business model as well as our ability to grow with both new and existing customers in an uncertain macroeconomic environment. Aerospace products comprised approximately 9% of total sales in that quarter. Demand on the commercial side was down slightly due to pent up inventory in the supply chain, while demand in defense and space related aerospace programs remained consistent at strong levels. Automotive, which we primarily service, our toll processing operations and are not included in our tons sold, represented about 4% of our third quarter sales. Our process tons improved over the third quarter of 2024, supported by our investments in capacity expansion. Semiconductor market remained under pressure from ongoing excess inventory in the supply chain during the third quarter. In summary, I thank our team for their strong, focused and safe execution in uncertain and volatile market conditions. The scale and diversity of our product offerings and value added processing capabilities combined with the better with dependable customer service, continue to win, reliance new business and new customers and increase our market share. To reiterate what Carla said, we are well positioned to capitalize and improve on already strong results as market activity rebounds. I will now turn the call over to our CFO Arthur Gemian to review our financial results and outlook. Thanks Steve and thanks everyone for joining today's call. We were pleased to report third quarter non GAAP earnings per diluted share of $3.64 consistent with both our expectations and the third quarter of 2024. Of particular note, the third quarter of 2024 benefited from $50 million of LIFO income compared with $25 million of expense this quarter which which equates to a $1.03 per share unfavorable year over year LIFO Impact I'll circle back to lifo, but first I'd like to expand on a couple of points that Carla and Steve mentioned. Gross Profit Margin Headwinds and Market Share Gains Trade policy uncertainty has contributed to temporary headwinds to gross profit margins since May of this year for most carbon steel products. Tariffs initially drove rapid price increases for carbon steel products which slightly elevated carbon steel margins. But without a corresponding increase in demand and plenty of inventory availability in the supply chain, we encountered a very competitive pricing environment which led the third quarter margin decline for carbon product from somewhat elevated levels in the first half. In addition, ongoing excess inventories within the aerospace and semiconductor supply chains continue to pressure prices and margins across a range of stainless steel and aluminum products. In sum, gross profit margin associated with less than 10% of our sales has contributed to consolidated margin compression. We expect this pressure to ease as we move through 2026. Finally, the impact of our LIFO accounting method also contributed to margin pressure this quarter. Since LIFO is applied on a pro rata basis, we continue to carry lifo expense through 2025 that reflected cost increases that occurred earlier this year. This LIFO effect tends to smooth out on an annual basis, though for the full year 2025, we are still expecting $100 million of LIFO expense. Turning to organic growth, our teams have done an outstanding job winning new business and growing with existing customers. We tend to outperform industry shipment trends and at wider margins during uncertain times. The incremental volume of over 100,000 tons for the third quarter and over 300,000 tons for the year so far in 2025 has allowed us to meaningfully contribute to our overall profitability on a FIFO basis. Our gross Profit margin was 29% in the third quarter, up from the third quarter of 2024, and our FIFO pre tax income increased 30%. Looking at expenses, our same store non GAAP, SG&A expenses were up 4.8% for the quarter and 3.6% for the nine month period compared to the same prior year period due to inflationary wage adjustments and higher variable warehousing and delivery costs to support our increased tons sold. We also saw higher incentive compensation in the third quarter due to a 30% increase in FIFO profitability on a per ton basis. Our Same store non GAAP, SG&A expenses were slightly lower in both the third quarter and the first nine months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, demonstrating the operating leverage achieved through our smart profitable growth strategy. I'll now address our balance sheet and cash flow. We generated approximately $262 million in operating cash flow in the 2025 third quarter, which reflected a working capital investment due to seasonally strong net sales. We continue to generate strong cash flow from operations throughout market cycles that we redeploy to execute our opportunistic capital allocation strategies. We use that cash to fund $81 million in capital expenditures, pay $63 million in dividends, and repurchased $61 million of our common shares at an average price of approximately $288 per share year. To date, our repurchases have reduced total shares outstanding by 2% and we have approximately $964 million available for further repurchases under our $1.5 billion share repurchase plan that we refreshed in October 2024. As previously announced on August 14, 2025, we borrowed $400 million under a term loan agreement maturing in August 2028 and used the proceeds to retire $400 million of senior notes due August 15, 2025. As of September 30, our total debt was $1.4 billion, including $238 million in borrowings on our $1.5 billion revolving credit facility. Our leverage position remains favorable with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of less than 1, providing significant liquidity to continue executing or capital allocation priorities. Looking ahead, we anticipate overall demand in the fourth quarter will remain stable across our diversified end markets, subject to ongoing domestic and international trade policy uncertainty. Accordingly, we estimate our tons sold will be up 3.5 to 5.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024 and consistent with seasonal trends, down 5 to 7% compared to the third quarter of 2025. We anticipate our average selling price per ton sold for the fourth quarter of 2025 will stay relatively flat compared to the third quarter. As a result, we anticipate flat to slightly improve FIFO gross profit margin in the fourth quarter. Based on these expectations and consistent with typical sequential seasonality, where we experienced approximately 20 to 25% decline in earnings per share in the fourth quarter, we anticipate Q4 non GAAP earnings per diluted share in the range of $2.65 to $2.85 inclusive of quarterly LIFO expense of $25 million or $0.35 per diluted share. This concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you again for your time and participation. We'll now open the call for your questions. Operator thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to move your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing Star one. Our first question today is coming from Katja Jancik from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now live.

Steve Cook - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer - (00:19:58)

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Maybe starting on the gross margin. So I understand that right now the environment is such that the it resulting in gross margin compression. But is any of this compression attributable also potentially to your focus on growing volumes? Good morning Katja. From a gross profit standpoint, I mean we tried to in our remarks in the release give enough context to to help everyone understand the uniquely challenging market that we've been in the last couple of quarters. And what really said a lot to me in recently speaking with a couple of our people who run some of our typically higher performing Reliance companies who've been in the business 30 to 40 years, you know, they commented that they've never seen a market quite like the one we've been operating in the last two quarters with the, you know, pricing strength coming from tariffs without the underlying demand to follow it. And you know, that's what we think is a little unique in the current environment. We think our teams have done exceptionally well in, you know, winning business and they are getting price increases from some of the mill increases that are coming through on products, more so in some products than others, just not at the rate that Reliance has experienced in more normal periods where there was demand pull forward, but we do think that that is temporary. We also tried to highlight in particular there's been a drag on margins for some of our special high specialty products that we sell into aerospace and semiconductor. We're bullish on both of those markets. Long term, there's just been a little pain and it has a bit of an outsized impact on our gross profit margin that we've been experiencing the last couple of quarters. But as far as our smart, profitable growth strategy that we've been pushing the last couple of years that we think our teams have executed really well on, it means grow your tons with good profitable business and keep our gross profit margin in that sustainable annual range of 29 to 31%. We said there may be quarters where we dip down, which we experienced in this quarter, which, you know, there's a little bit of the LIFO timing that Arthur explained that impacts that. But the tons we're going after, we certainly have picked up tons in the flat rolled space, which those margins aren't always as high as some of the other products that we sell. So could there be a little bit of impact from that? But overall, the end game is the right endgame in our view because this is pretty profitable business. That's adding to our earnings, it's helping leverage our SGA expenses, and we're really happy with the additional profit that those tons are bringing to us. So it's not the reason that our margin dipped down. It could be a factor to a certain extent, but there are other. It's more the market and, and a couple of those specialty lines for us having the bigger impact. Okay, maybe when I look at your inventory level on your balance sheet, it seems like they're moving higher a little bit. I wouldn't expect this to be the case in this environment. Can you maybe talk a little bit about what's going on there? So part of that is pricing because as we mentioned, there have been mill price increases, so that's part of the dollars increasing. But we also have our tons up and we buy based on what we're shipping. And so I think we might have a slight uptick in tons as well, but it's right for the market and I think we've seen many of our competitors pulling back a bit from having inventory on hand. And this is allowing us to, to win some business and better service our customers.

Katja Jancik - Equity Analyst - (00:24:46)

Perfect.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:24:46)

Thank you. Thanks, Katja.

OPERATOR - (00:24:50)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Tim Nanners from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Tim Nanners - (00:24:55)

Yeah. Hey, good morning. I wanted to follow up, if I could, on the inventory side. I know you said ongoing. I think the quote I have was ongoing excess inventory was pressuring margins for contributing to the margin pressure. And another mill CEO this week said destocking was over. So I'm just trying to get a sense of how close are we to putting that in the rearview mirror. When do you think we could switch to seeing appropriate levels of inventory? And did you mean that from your competitors or from your customers? I guess yes. Tim, the more at both the mill and the service center level in Q2 and Q3, you know, there was a lot of inventory the beginning of the year. We think a lot of service center companies were buying heavy to get in front of the tariffs, whether that was coming through import or domestic buys. So we believe service centers have been trying to work down that inventory. We do believe those inventories have come down. You know, we're not going to say if destocking is over. We don't talk about destocking and restocking in our company. We. We talk about buying what we need based on our shipment levels. But we are starting to see lead times for certain products go out a bit, which is a positive sign. You know, are we at an inflection point? Potentially, if, if we're not there, we're probably closer than we were. And when we were talking about the impact on gross profit margin from the competitive environment with a lot of inventory, that was really talking about Q2 and Q3 and the markets we were in every day. So we do see momentum coming out of that. We think our gross profit margin troughed in Q3 based on the factors we see today. So I would say we probably generally agree with that comment, but probably just wouldn't say it as strongly as others. Fair enough. Thank you. I wanted to ask on the comment about winning new business, how does Reliance win new business? Is it execution? Is it price? Is it a little both? Well, hopefully it's execution and not price. That's the strategy. And you know, we have changed our message starting a couple of years ago and set specific targets with certain of our Reliance companies where we felt that they could grow their tons in a profitable way and, and ask them to execute on that. And it's really them calling on customers. Maybe they're customers they had not been calling on prior to that. Maybe they're going back after some business they used to have. We also have much more expanded processing capabilities. We can do a lot more for our customers now with the investments that we've made in that equipment. And so it's really going back out, educating our customers and then getting their orders and proving ourselves. We think that we think we provide among the highest levels of customer service in the industry. And that's why typically once our companies can get their foot in the door with business and show our customers how well we can service them, we expect to retain most of that business that we've earned during these last couple of quarters. Our model though, does fit with the market that we've been in. Where it's been competitive, people have been hesitant to buy too much inventory because of the tariff uncertainty and falling prices in certain products. You know, our ability to service small orders on a just in time basis is a positive in that type of market environment. So we probably won some business because some customers buying patterns changed a bit. But I think we should be able to hold on to a lot of that business that we were able to win during the last couple of quarters. Okay, I appreciate it. I want to squeeze in one more if I could. I'm going to dare to ask a question about lifo, but it's kind of bizarre to see continued LIFO expense at the same time as you're talking about prices having drifted lower recently. So I guess just at a high level, when do we clear the decks and start to have like a neutral LIFO environment? It sounds like you're still expecting continuation into Q4, but are we getting to a point where we'd rather run through that and start to see LIFO income or at least no LIFO impact?

Arthur Gemian - (00:30:06)

Yeah, Tim Nahi, good question. So LIFO is an annual estimate. So I guess the way you're thinking about it, a lot of the cost increases, if you step back or look at the year, happened in the first half of the year. But because it's an annual estimate, we applied at pro rata. So you're right intuitively, when you look at Q3 and you say there's LIFO expense, it's essentially associated with cost increases that are in the rearview mirror. But you know, again, because the accounting method is pro rata, you're effectively spreading that equally throughout the year. So as we head into 2026 and you know, costs are relatively flat, then essentially LIFO expense is in the rearview mirror.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:30:58)

And just as a reminder, Tim, that when we're in more normal times with pricing moves based more on the supply demand dynamics and prices are going up because of demand and that creates LIFO expense. We're happy to incur LIFO expense in that type of environment, but again, it's been a bit of an atypical environment. The last couple of quarters.

Tim Nanners - (00:31:26)

Got it. Thanks again. Appreciate it. Yep, thanks.

OPERATOR - (00:31:30)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Phil Gibbs from Keybanc Capital Market. Your line is now live. Hey, good morning. Good morning.

Phil Gibbs - Equity Analyst - (00:31:38)

Hey Phil. On the semi's infrastructure and aerospace pieces specifically, certainly been noting excess inventories for most of 2025 and I know Tim made a general question about access inventory in the supply chain but those markets specifically, are you anticipating that those begin to turn around or levelize sometime in 2026?

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:32:09)

Yeah, and Phil, maybe we want to make sure too that we're clear these are in those markets. We're talking in particular about the, you know, high value products. These are the products you've heard us start talking about the end of last year. Well, actually for the last couple of years we're coming out of COVID You know, we saw lead times move to 80, 50 to 80 weeks, which we had never seen before and the whole industry saw that. We do think there was some general over buying in both the aerospace and semiconductor market of some of these products because there was just concern about availability. And so we've just, you know, seen the supply chain working through those products. There are pockets where you start to see, you know, some improved demand. So you know, we, we don't think it's getting worse today. We think it's getting better, but it's for certain products it's just going to take some time. So we commented as we go through 2026, we think we'll see continued improvement in the supply chain working itself down for those products.

Steve Cook - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer - (00:33:31)

Phil, I would say that if you think about the aerospace inventory from a reliance point of view, we're probably in the seventh or eighth inning of kind of getting our inventory under control and in good position to start start restocking in the first quarter of 2026. But the overall industry and our competitors and some of our customers, they're probably more in the fifth and sixth inning but I think we're in good shape. But we're still going to have to deal with the market dynamics of reality. There's a lot of inventory. Thank you. And then on the capex side, I think you said around 350 million in cash capex this year. What should we anticipate for 2026? Because I know you've been kind of on and above trend for the last several years as you've invested in your capabilities and made more acquisitions.

Arthur Gemian - (00:34:26)

Yeah, Phil, that is our current estimate for this year. We're working on our 2026 CapEx budget as we speak. It, we believe will be probably below what our 2025 number was. We've had some record years the last few years and it's been good investments for us. But we are pushing our people to really, you know, utilize the equipment that we have better. How can we maybe share some of that equipment within the Reliance Network and just really pushing for better utilization of the investments we've already made. But we will continue, we do continue to see growth opportunities and we will have some growth initiatives in our capex in 2026. We'll give you that number in February, but probably directionally lower than our budget of 325 million in 2025. And remember, there will be carryover. Some of these projects are multi year projects. So the cash outlay might be more consistent with this year just because of some of the carryover coming into 2026.

Phil Gibbs - Equity Analyst - (00:35:43)

And the last question, just on taxes. So I know there's been a big beautiful bill and half a dozen other things that seemingly are changing cash tax rates and effective tax rates for companies. But is your cash tax rate for this year and next year relatively aligned with the effective rate or is it somewhat below? Thank you.

Arthur Gemian - (00:36:07)

Yeah, Phil. So you can look at our tax rate. For the most part it's, you know, we're a full rate taxpayer I think as far as the, the new tax bill. Yeah, it is definitely especially the bonus depreciation that's going to help lower our cash taxes paid. You know, we're currently estimating the impact, but that could be an incremental reduction of cash taxes probably 30 in the 30 to $40 million range. So that's kind of the extent of the impact at the moment that we, we've estimated. Thank you. Yep.

Phil Gibbs - Equity Analyst - (00:36:52)

Thanks.

OPERATOR - (00:36:54)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Bennett Moore from JPMorgan. Your line is now live. Morning, Carla, Steve Arthur, thank you for taking my question. If I could circle back real quick on the arrow comment, I think from Steve sounds like expecting maybe restocking could emerge as soon as the first quarter. Is there any difference there between the aluminum and stainless side? Just given some commentary for some other players this morning and Boeing moving to 42amonth as of Friday.

Bennett Moore - Equity Analyst - (00:37:27)

Yeah. Hi Bennett. So from, I think Steve's comment again, he was talking specifically about Reliance's inventory position. And remember we're talking about these, you know, specialty alloy Steels, titanium, specialty aluminum products. So it's not impacting all of our aerospace inventory and aerospace business. We've seen relatively steady activity with the aluminum plate and some of the other products that we consistently sell into aerospace. This is a pocket of our inventory that we were talking about. But I commented earlier, we're long term bullish on aerospace. Increased build rates absolutely could help that supply chain excess inventory get worked through faster. So that's all positive for Reliance and for the industry if we realize increased build rates.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:38:33)

Yeah, we're in really good shape. Regarding our heat treated aluminum with the 2x and the 7x. For our space, we're a little more challenged with some of the specialty long products that we're working through. All right, thanks for that color. And then turning to the steady pricing guidance, if I could kind of dig into some of the puts and takes here. I mean, it seems like flat steel is looking pretty steady. I think you made some similar comments. But we have seen attempted plate price hikes over the past few weeks with some success. Structural sounds pretty, pretty strong. And the Midwest premium reached a record high over this past week. So could you walk us through kind of the puts and takes there? So from the Y flange beam point of view, the lead times have been extended and demand has been strong for most of the year, actually probably the last 12 to 18 months. We do appreciate the plate increase that was announced recently because there was continuous sliding of some of those products. So we believe that that stops some of the bleeding and we are looking for more of an uptick in the fourth quarter going into 2026. There's Merchant Bar increase that we think is going to take hold. And just in general, there's been some hold in some of the tubing mills and overall we're looking for brighter days in some of the carbon products. And I would comment too, you mentioned aluminum Bennett on the common alloy aluminum. And we did get our prices up in Q3 based on those price increases. You know, some pretty high levels on the Midwest spot, which are good for us and we're passing through. But I think with the trade uncertainty and not knowing when and what some of those final agreements might be, there's overall some hesitancy of stocking up too much on inventory in case there is a trade action related to the aluminum products.

Bennett Moore - Equity Analyst - (00:40:36)

That's great color. Thank you. And if I could squeeze one more in, maybe just on, you know, M and A. We saw some activity from peers this past month. Just hoping to get your latest read on the M and A Landscape valuations, if you're seeing any new opportunities emerge.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:40:51)

Yeah, so we're continuing to see a pretty steady flow of opportunities. We had commented the first quarter, the fourth quarter of last year, we think because of the elections and first quarter of this year, it had slowed a bit, but the market's been, you know, picked back up to what we would call fairly normal levels and has stayed there. So we continue to look at opportunities as they become available, think about where we might want to be growing. And so we think it's a decent M and A environment. I think valuations are generally reasonable. Each opportunity is a little different depending on what the sellers are looking for. But we're pleased with the level of activity we've been seeing.

Bennett Moore - Equity Analyst - (00:41:42)

Great. Thank you for that. Best of luck.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:41:45)

Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:41:47)

Thank you. Next question is coming from Mike Harris from Goldman Sachs. Shoreline is now live. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Quick question. As you work through the gross profit margin headwinds, are there any SDNA levers you can pull to help protect the operating margin?

Mike Harris - Equity Analyst - (00:42:07)

Yes, I think, you know, Mike, that's something we're focused on every day and pushing our people to be focused on. We have been talking more internally and pushing our people to really look for efficiencies in their operations, in their warehouse activities. We have reduced our headcount, even with higher tons being shipped over the last couple of quarters. So that's a focus. Again, like I said, that we're always looking at. We have several different locations. They don't all perform at the same levels. So we are continuously looking at any underperforming assets. How do we make changes there? You know, sometimes we combine locations. We'll close small locations. That's kind of constant activity that we're doing. And also with our smart, profitable growth strategy, we are getting better leverage off of the fixed cost component of our costs. And Arthur, anything you would add?

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:43:16)

Yeah, no. Great color. Carla and Mike? Yeah, we actually did peak headcount in Q2 and we've trended down and that's part of the efforts that Carla mentioned around rationalizing our operations. I think the service levels in this environment are important and our market share gains have had a lot to do with our service levels. So it's important to be really thoughtful about maintaining those and not just go in and reduce headcount for the short term, but in the long term really impact our service level. So we're being very thoughtful, methodical as we're navigating this environment and really growing the business, getting new customers going with existing customers. We've had some really good success with that and we're looking forward to continue that. Okay, great caller guys, thanks. And then I guess just on the market share gain that you pointed out, you know, going from 14 and a half up to like 17.1%. Just curious as to how much of that would you attribute to organic versus inorganic growth?

Arthur Gemian - (00:44:38)

Yeah, so certainly Mike, we have had a few acquisitions over the last couple years, four and 2024, that is part of that. But. And we call out our same store and our consolidated shipment trends and. But the majority has been organic growth. Both again, investments we're making in some green fields, some expansions, our increased value added processing we're able to do. But really just our salespeople looking for more opportunities and going after good business that's out there that maybe we haven't been servicing the last few. So we're really proud of what our teams have done. Going out aggressively, but aggressively through service, not through price, getting that increased business.

Mike Harris - Equity Analyst - (00:45:41)

Okay, that's helpful.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:45:44)

I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, that majority is organic, so. Okay, great, great. And then just last one if I could. If we look at the third quarter shipments, were there any, I guess major one time items in there or perhaps any pull forward sales that you would call out?

Mike Harris - Equity Analyst - (00:46:08)

No, there's nothing there we would call out, Mike. I mean when your average order size is $3,000 in order, it's hard to get that, you know, one big order. So that, that really moves the needle. So I think it was just pretty broad based.

OPERATOR - (00:46:26)

Got it, got it. Okay, thanks a lot guys. Thank you. Next question is coming from Martin Englert from Seaport Research Partners. Your line is now live. Hello. Good morning everyone. Good morning, Martin. For non residential construction, it seems reasonably good. I'm curious, how much of this activity do you think is related, tied to AI data centers, semiconductor buildouts? Kind of that camp of activity.

Martin Englert - Equity Analyst - (00:46:58)

Yeah. Hi Martin. It's hard for us to quantify just based upon the diversification we have within our companies and then the customers that we're selling into. But and I think we commented on this last question quarter, almost every one of our reliance businesses is touching the data center trend and build, including the build of the electrification to support that with, you know, many, many different products. Right. It's not just building the shell of the facility. It's a lot of the internal racking and enclosures and equipment. It's cooling systems, it's again the grid. So we're touching it and it's been very positive for the industry. That the data center trend is strong right now, but for us to quantify that, we think it will continue to grow. You can look at all the estimates out there of the builds that are being announced and that will continue. So that's all very positive for us, but difficult for us to quantify specifically.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:48:17)

Thank you. And if the government shutdown continues for an extended period, does this pose any risk to any programs you might have exposure to or anything within defense spending?

Martin Englert - Equity Analyst - (00:48:29)

There's nothing that we're aware of that's impacted us directly today. You know, we're on. I think the programs we're on are pretty solid programs that we expect to continue, but certainly they're, you know, like with anyone else, there could be some fallout if this continues, but it's not something that we've heard any warnings from any of our companies about any of the programs they're on.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:49:00)

Okay, excellent. Thank you very much.

Martin Englert - Equity Analyst - (00:49:03)

Thanks.

OPERATOR - (00:49:03)

Thank you. Thank you. Next question is coming from Lawson Winder from Bank of America. Your line is now live. Thank you, operator, and good morning, Carla, Steven and Arthur. Nice to hear from you all. May I ask about capital return and I guess really in the context of capital allocation, you know, one might expect that as the shares were a little bit weaker during the quarter, it might present an attractive opportunity. Perhaps allocate more of your capital to the share buyback as opposed to less and maybe direct that away from other opportunities. So how do you think about that in terms of return on your dollars in buying back shares versus investing in the rest of the business? And how should we think about that going forward?

Lawson Winder - Equity Analyst - (00:49:55)

Well, Lawson, we think buying Reliance stock is always a good decision no matter what the price looks level is. But we do look at that. We do look at what the market value is and adjust our activity accordingly. We've been active the last few quarters. The exact volumes vary a bit. But we look to be in the market. We look to buy at attractive levels. We've got the balance sheet and the ability. We look at it as a pretty low risk use of our capital when we're investing in Reliance by repurchasing our shares. And yeah, it could be more attractive at different price levels. The same, I think, is for the general market.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:50:51)

Okay, that's helpful context. Can I also ask you, are you being impacted by any way by the. The aluminum supply disruption in New York State?

Lawson Winder - Equity Analyst - (00:51:05)

Yeah. So, you know, we do in our toll processing businesses directly, we do work with the mill that I think you're referring to there specifically. And it has created some disruption in the market that was not expected. And we are working closely with our mill suppliers as well as the end users of the metal, the automakers and others to try to, you know, do whatever we can. We try to be a problem solver for them, whether it's storing metal for them, processing metal for them, actually leveraging the whole Reliance company to see if we can source some metal and fill some holes through some of the other Reliance businesses. So definitely a collaborative effort within Reliance trying to help that particular mill and its customers as well as the overall industry because it's having a much broader impact on multiple end use customers and different mills. So we're just trying to do what we can to help lessen the disruption for those impacted.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:52:27)

Is it material enough for Reliance that that could show up on your cost item or impact profitability? No.

Lawson Winder - Equity Analyst - (00:52:38)

And the good news with our tolling operations, if, you know, they do lose some processing business to this particular mill, they generally have more demand than they can accommodate that they can, you know, process metal for some other customers and end use applications.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:53:05)

Okay, great. And can we maybe talk a bit about seasonality or can you give us some perspective on that? I mean, we've talked for a number of quarters about kind of negative impacts of seasonality on the business. In Q1, we saw seasonality benefit Reliance. When you think about the business today in looking out to Q1, I mean, overall across the business line, should we be looking at a recovery in Q1 or how are you thinking about seasonality going forward from here? Yeah, Lawson, as much as anything is kind of normal in our business, the last few years there hasn't been that much normal. But in the service center business, you know, our activity is really based on shipping days and it's based on the number of shipping days that our customers are open. So the normal seasonality is Q1 and Q2 are our two strongest shipping quarters. They're usually fairly even, but there can be a little give or take. But the first two quarters of the year are our strongest. Q3 typically trends down a bit because a lot of big OEMs will do shutdowns for planned shutdowns during the summer in industries that we're selling into. Also a lot of the smaller customers, there are vacations and things going on where small businesses will shut down for a week or two. So we generally see probably a 3 to 5% fall off in our shipping volumes in Q3 versus Q2. I think the fact that our Q3 25 shipments were equal with Q2 25 is a big Positive. And again, shows how our businesses, the Reliance businesses, are going out and winning business from others. And the fact that there was no dip in our shipment levels because the industry, I think we'll see, did have the normal seasonality. And then Q4 with the holidays, that's usually another 5 to 7% reduction in shipment levels from Q3, just again, because of customers being shut down more days, us being shut down a couple days for the holidays. And then you see the bounce back in Q1 when, you know, there are just more shipping days, people are back to kind of full staffing moving into the year. So we certainly expect that to happen. You know, I would comment. And when people look at C seasonality, I just talked about shipment levels, but that obviously trickles down to earnings. And we Our guide for Q4 earnings per share. Typically, we've been down earnings per share from Q3 to Q4 dips about 20 to 25%, which is consistent with our guidelines. However, it was not reflected in the consensus numbers that were out there. So we ask that people putting those numbers out there do study history and pick up on some of those trends and react accordingly.

Lawson Winder - Equity Analyst - (00:56:41)

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:56:44)

All right, thanks.

OPERATOR - (00:56:46)

Thank you. We reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Carla Lewis - President and Chief Executive Officer - (00:56:53)

Well, again, we'd like to thank everyone for joining the call today and your continued support of Reliance. You know, in particular, we'd like to thank all of the Reliance family members for continuing to operate safely and for all that you're doing in these challenging market times and the successes that we've had. We're very proud of what you're accomplishing out there. And also, before we close out the call, I'd like to remind everyone that we'll be in Chicago next month presenting at Baird's Global Industrials Conference, and we hope to meet with many of you there. Thank you and goodbye.

OPERATOR - (00:57:36)

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.