Steel Dynamics beats by $0.03 (in-line with guidance excluding federal tax legislation), beats on revs (46.57 +0.15)
- Reports Q4 (Dec) earnings of $0.52 per share, excluding additional one-time tax benefit of $181 million, or $0.76 per diluted share, resulting from the company's revaluation of its deferred tax assets and liabilities, $0.03 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.49; revenues rose 22.3% year/year to $2.34 bln vs the $2.24 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
- Results include (unchanged from guidance) lower pretax earnings of $7 million, or $0.02 per diluted share, related to debt refinancing, lower pretax earnings of ~$27 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, related to two flat roll division outages, wand tax benefit of ~$16 million, or $0.07 per diluted share, related to certain discrete valuation allowance reductions, state tax refunds and equity-based compensation.
- Outlook - "We remain confident that current and anticipated macroeconomic and market conditions are in place to benefit domestic steel consumption in 2018... Domestic steel inventory levels have moderated. World steel demand and pricing have structurally improved and domestic steel demand remains healthy. We believe North American automotive steel consumption will be steady, and we continue to gain momentum in that sector. We also believe that there will be continued additional growth in the construction and energy sectors. We believe the recent tax reform will also provide a stimulus for additional domestic fixed asset investment and growth. In combination with our own SDI expansion initiatives, we believe there are firm drivers for growth in 2018....We continue to strengthen our financial position through strong cash flow generation and the execution of our long-term strategy. We are well-positioned for growth, and remain focused on delivering shareholder value through organic and strategic growth opportunities."