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Text: On our call today, we have Andy Rose, Worthington's President and Chief Executive Officer and Joe Hayek, Worthington's Chief Financial Officer.
Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be made available later on our worthingtonindustries.com website.
Today we'll be sharing our results consistent with our new reporting segments for the first time.
We believe the new structure will provide greater insights into the underlying performance of our businesses.
We had a strong start to our fiscal year, reporting earnings of $2.55 a share in Q1 versus $11.22 in the prior-year quarter.
Excluding restructuring and one-time items, we generated a record $2.46 per share in earnings in Q1 compared to $0.64 in the prior-year quarter.
During the quarter, we recognized a net after-tax restructuring gain of $5 million or $0.09 a share primarily related to the sale of a shuttered facility owned by our WSP joint venture.
That compares to restructuring and impairment charges of $0.16 a share a year ago.
In addition, the prior-year results included a net benefit of $10.74 per share related to our investment in Nikola Corporation.
Consolidated net sales in the quarter of $1.1 billion were up significantly compared to $703 million in Q1 of last year.
The improvement was primarily due to higher steel prices combined with increased volumes across most of our segments.
Gross profit for the quarter increased to $219 million from $113 million a year ago and our gross margin increased to 19.7% from 16.1%.
Adjusted EBITDA in Q1 was a record $196 million, up from $75 million in Q1 of last year and our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA is now $604 million.
In Steel Processing net sales of $823 million nearly doubled from $431 million in Q1 of last year due to higher average selling prices and increased volumes.
Total shipped tons were up 14% from last year's first quarter when demand was just beginning to recover from COVID-related shutdowns, particularly at our automotive customers.
Direct tons in Q1 were 49% of mix, which was consistent with the prior-year quarter.
We continue to see solid demand across nearly all of our major end markets, including automotive, construction, heavy truck and agriculture.
Despite the solid demand and year-over-year growth, automotive shipments could have been better, if not for the continuing semiconductor-related slowdowns.
Everything we see suggest that while consumer and fleet demand for new cars remain strong, chip shortages will persist for the next several quarters and our automotive demand will be subject to some uncertainty as a result.
The demand is clearly there.
It would likely just take some time for the semiconductor shortage to resolve itself.
Our teams continue to do a terrific job navigating unprecedented market conditions while remaining laser-focused on the needs of our customers.
In the current quarter, steel generated adjusted EBIT of $108 million and adjusted EBIT margin of 13% compared to $14 million and 3% in Q1 of last year.
The large year-over-year increase was primarily driven by increased demand, higher spreads and arbitrage gains.
In the quarter, we had pre-tax inventory holding gains estimated to be $47 million or $0.68 per share compared to holding losses of $7 million or $0.09 a share in Q1 of last year.
Based on current steel prices, we expect inventory holding gains again in Q2, but we will also continue to see the impact of the widening scrap gap.
In Consumer Products, net sales in Q1 were $148 million, up 10.6% from the prior-year quarter.
Legacy consumer products revenues were up slightly and the inclusion of sales from GTI, which was acquired in January, drove the balance of the growth.
EBIT for the consumer business was $21 million and EBIT margin was 14%, down from $24 million and 18% in the prior-year quarter.
The decrease in EBIT was due to higher labor and input costs.
Our consumer business has some longer fixed-price contracts with customers, which can create a short-term drag on margins when input rises -- when input prices rise as rapidly as they have.
These dynamics are typically short term and we do expect margins to improve moving forward.
Building Products generated net sales of $115 million in Q1, which was up 30% from $88 million in the prior-year quarter.
Increase was due primarily to higher volumes as the prior-year quarter was impacted by COVID-related disruptions.
Building Products EBIT was $49 million and EBIT margin was 42%, up significantly from $23.4 million and 27% in Q1 of last year.
We saw significant growth year-over-year in our wholly owned Building Products businesses but the majority of the upside was driven by strong results at WAVE and ClarkDietrich that contributed $26 million and $17 million respectively in equity earnings.
WAVE and ClarkDietrich both had better demand environments than in Q1 of last year and all of our teams in Building Products are doing an excellent job managing dynamic supply chains and continuing to execute in challenging conditions.
In Sustainable Energy Solutions net sales in Q1 were $25 million, down from $28 million in the prior-year quarter.
Largest end market for this business is transportation and the semiconductor chip shortage created a headwind for them with respect to demand.
In addition, the economy in Europe is recovering, but very slowly.
The business reported a negative EBIT of $3 million in the current period as volumes were too low to absorb fixed costs.
We remain very excited about this business and its prospects over the long term as its innovative products and solutions are poised to grow quickly serving hydrogen ecosystem and adjacent sustainable energies like compressed natural gas.
With respect to cash flows in our balance sheet, operations used cash of $50 million in the quarter, which was driven by $149 million increase in working capital, primarily associated with higher steel prices along with annual accrued compensation being paid out during the quarter.
Absent further increases in steel prices, we would expect the significant working capital increases to subside in the next quarter or two.
During the quarter, we received $20 million in dividends from our unconsolidated JVs, received $27 million in proceeds from asset sales, completed one acquisition for $105 million, invested $24 million in capital projects, paid $15 million in dividends and spent $61 million to repurchase 1 million shares of our common stock.
Following the Q1 purchases, we have 8.3 million shares remaining under our share repurchase authorization.
Looking at our balance sheet and our liquidity position.
Funded debt at quarter end of $706 million was relatively flat sequentially and interest expense of $8 million was in line with the prior-year quarter.
Ended Q1 with $399 million in cash and we continue to take a balanced approach to capital allocation focused on growth and on returning capital to shareholders.
Earlier today, the Board declared a $0.28 per share dividend for the quarter, which is payable in December 2021.
It's great to start fiscal '22 with another record performance.
However, the operating environment remains quite challenging with the continued rise in steel prices, supply chain issues in steel and other components and the continuing labor shortage.
Our people continue to showcase their commitment by going the extra mile to ensure that we are working safe and doing their best to meet our customers' needs.
Demand levels are good across almost all of our end markets and backlogs remain at elevated levels.
We continue to raise prices in many of our product lines to offset rising input costs, particularly steel.
Higher working capital needs had a meaningful impact on free cash flow this quarter, but this will reverse if steel prices begin to decline as we expect in coming quarters.
This is the first quarter reporting our three new operating segments, Consumer Products, Building Products, and Sustainable Energy Solutions.
Hopefully you will find, as we believe, that each of these segments is an attractive business with unique advantages and compelling strategies to grow for years to come.
We will continue to leverage our transformation playbook, new product development and innovation and M&A to drive above-market growth and higher returns on capital.
While our innovation and M&A growth initiatives continue across the portfolio, the M&A environment is proving challenging with elevated purchase multiples and difficult earnings analysis due to the unpredictability of the COVID environment.
To the extent we do find compelling targets, our balance sheet remains strong with significant cash and borrowing capacity.
Finally, we just published our second corporate citizenship and sustainability report.
Since our inception, we have worked hard to be a good corporate citizen for all of our constituencies and in our communities, as well as to minimize our environmental footprint.
While we are a relatively clean manufacturing operation overall, in 2012 we started our successful GreenStar initiative that aims to recognize our manufacturing facilities for environmental conservation and stewardship.
In fiscal '21, 64% of our facilities achieved a four or five star performance rating.
We are working toward an even more robust approach to reducing our environmental footprint and expect to have more details in the future regarding our goals.
It is often difficult to follow a record year but we were off to a fast start and our teams remain focused on continuing to deliver for our customers and creating value for our shareholders.
We'll now take any questions.

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q1 sales rose 58 percent to $1.1 billion.
worthington industries - qtrly earnings per share $2.55.
qtrly adjusted earnings per share $2.46.

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