Good morning, and welcome everyone joining us on the call today. My name's Mark Vassella, and I'm the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BlueScope. I'm joining you this morning from the U.K., where I'm attending a World Steel board meeting. Tania Archibald, our Chief Financial Officer, is online from Melbourne. Today, we're very pleased to announce that BlueScope has acquired the Cornerstone Building Brands' U.S. metal coil painting business, Coil Coatings. In terms of today's call, I'll spend 15 minutes or so taking you through the business and the value it brings to BlueScope's U.S. Portfolio, and then we'll be happy to answer any of your questions. First, to touch on the details of the acquisition. Today, we signed a binding agreement to acquire the Coil Coatings business from Cornerstone Building Brands for $500 million. Coil Coatings is a great fit for BlueScope.
It's the second-largest metal coil painter in the U.S., with around 900,000 metric tons of capacity across seven sites. This is a significant step forward in our growth plans for North America. It expands our U.S. painting capacity threefold to over 1.3 million metric tons from around 475,000 tons per annum at present, and provides us with direct entry to the large and growing Eastern U.S. region, a strategic ambition that we've held for some time now. Building this footprint from the ground up could have taken us 10-15 years and cost AUD 1 billion. The business operates two key brands, Metal Coaters and Metal Prep, and provides customers across the U.S. with a range of painting finishes and value-added services, predominantly for the building and construction segment.
We've identified near-term operational and supply chain synergy opportunities of around $12 million per annum by year three. However, the key focus of this deal is the medium to longer-term opportunity it provides. Our assessment of standalone EBITDA for the business in calendar year 2021 is around $56 million, and this includes the operational and supply chain synergies. The purchase price is an 8.9x multiple of these earnings. The acquisition will be fully funded from cash, and BlueScope remains in a strong position to continue to execute on its previously announced investment projects and on-market buyback.
Importantly, thinking about our aspiration to grow our business in the U.S., following the completion of this acquisition, the U.S. $770 million investment in the expansion of North Star, the U.S. $220 million establishment of BlueScope Recycling, and the continued investment in the BlueScope Properties Group, the company's total investment in North America will total over $4.5 billion with more than 4,000 employees. Now, a brief overview of the Coil Coatings business. As I mentioned earlier, Coil Coatings is the second-largest metal coil painter in the U.S., with around 900,000 metric tons of annual painting capacity.
Coil Coatings' 570-strong team operates seven sites, painting a range of finishes on steel and aluminum substrates for a wide range of applications, including building products and manufactured goods, as well as offering a range of value-added services. The two operational brands within the business are Metal Coaters, which focuses on toll painting, light gauge steel and aluminum substrates at its five sites, dispatching three-quarters of the calendar year 2021 total volume. Metal Prep, which focuses on painting hot rolled coil as a package rather than toll processing at its two sites, dispatching the remaining quarter of this calendar year 2021 total volume. Coil Coatings has a demonstrated history of robust financial performance with a sales mix focused on the U.S. end-use segments that are attractive to BlueScope.
Shown here is the calendar year 2021 performance, which incorporate pro forma and due diligence adjustments identified during the transaction process. As you can see, calendar year 2021 volumes of around 500,000 tons at a utilization rate of 60% provides a platform for future growth in volumes. Cornerstone Building Brands represents around half of these volumes, and a 5-year agreement has been put in place for ongoing supply. With their range of buildings and roll forming businesses, Cornerstone Building Brands remain enthusiastic about buying quality painted steel from the business we're acquiring. Calendar year 2021 pro forma EBITDA, including expected standalone costs and the estimated 3-year operational and supply chain synergies of $12 million per annum is $56 million.
Steel substrates make up over 90% of total volumes, with end-use segments for this being largely building and construction, followed by manufactured consumer goods. For the smaller aluminum order book, again, the focus is on the building and construction segment. Stepping back for a moment, I wanna touch on why the U.S. painted market is attractive to BlueScope. The U.S. is a large and growing market for painted products with over 4 million tons consumed in 2020. Over 85% of this is supplied domestically, with over 90% consumed in the Eastern U.S. region. In the Eastern U.S., two-thirds of painted steel demand is from the building and construction segment. Demand has grown consistently at around 2% per annum.
Looking to the future, this growth rate is expected to continue, which is likely to lead to a 20% increase in building construction demand for painted steel by 2030. As for the building and construction outlook, the map on the right shows the key demand regions for this segment, with all seven coil coating sites located in or near areas of robust demand. Now turning to why this acquisition is such an attractive opportunity for BlueScope. Coil Coatings represents a compelling addition to BlueScope's North America business, one that's well-aligned with our strategy and our purpose. Our purpose is to create smart solutions in steel to strengthen our communities for the future. Given BlueScope's deep knowledge and skill in producing and selling value-added painted products, this deal allows us to further deliver our, on our purpose in the U.S.
To our strategy, we've long identified the U.S. as a key growth region for BlueScope and previously flagged our interest in expanding painting operations into the Eastern U.S. region via a greenfield paint line. Clearly, as a global leader in painted steel products for building and construction applications, this deal hits our sweet spot, providing an attractive opportunity for growth, particularly in the medium to longer term. It provides a rare opportunity for us to immediately fulfill the previously flagged strategic growth initiative with immediate access to the large and growing Eastern U.S. region. Along with the near-term synergies the acquisition provides, we can see significant potential for medium to longer-term growth through product development and branded products consistent with our existing service and value proposition around the globe. It presents us with the opportunity to further integrate our U.S. flat steel value chain.
Lastly, highlighting the strength of BlueScope's balance sheet, this acquisition will be fully funded from cash, and we remain in a strong position to continue to execute on our previously announced projects and on-market buyback. This is a rare opportunity for BlueScope to immediately fulfill a key strategic growth initiative and access the large and growing Eastern U.S. region. The Coil Coatings assets complement our existing North American asset base on the West Coast through the NS BlueScope Coated Products joint venture, and round out an excellent footprint of quality assets across the U.S. steel value chain. As I mentioned earlier, building this network as a greenfield startup might have taken us 10-15 years and cost around $1 billion. Today's acquisition is the right move at the right time.
The acquisition provides us the opportunity for incremental growth in the near term, but more importantly, it provides a platform for significant medium to longer-term growth. In the near term, we expect the benefit of the synergies from improved utilization of sites, operational efficiencies, and supply chain optimization. The main gain for us, though, is the significant opportunity for medium to longer-term earnings and growth that the Coil Coatings assets provide through facility upgrades to increase capacity and improve efficiency, further integration with our U.S. value chain, enhanced service offerings, and investment in product development and branded products consistent with our service and value proposition around the globe. Our footprint will now cover a large part of the U.S. steel value chain. However, this acquisition presents opportunities to us to further link this together.
These medium- to longer-term opportunities particularly exist in linking our fantastic North Star asset to the downstream painting and buildings business in the Eastern U.S. via potential cold rolling and metal coating capacity. This acquisition is very exciting for us as we take a significant step forward in our growth plans for North America and invest to grow from our position of strength. The acquisition delivers attractive outcomes for the business, and given the strength in earnings and robust balance sheet, we're able to maintain balance sheet discipline and a pro forma net cash position at 31 December 2021. As such, BlueScope remains in a strong position to continue to execute on its previously announced investment projects and on-market buyback.
In conclusion, before we move to Q&A, this acquisition is an outstanding opportunity for BlueScope to further enhance its U.S. portfolio of quality assets and grow its exposure to value-added painted steel products. While the acquisition delivers immediate earnings and near-term operational and supply chain synergy opportunities, the key focus is the medium to longer-term opportunity the acquisition provides through product development and branded products, along with opportunities for further integration with BlueScope's U.S. value chain. We're excited about welcoming the Coil Coatings team to BlueScope and for the opportunity to share and combine our operational knowledge and invest to drive safety, efficiency, branding, and growth to deliver future earnings and growth for the broader BlueScope business. Thanks for your time this morning. With that, I'll turn it over to Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Lee Power with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Morning, Mark. Morning, Tania. If I just look at the profile of revenues over the last few years, and I know Cornerstone's given a slightly different revenue number to you. Just looking at their commercial metal coating sales numbers, in the last three years, it's gone from $157, $129 to $215. I know you've given that pro forma EBITDA number of $44 million for 2021. Is that just steel prices that's driven that growth? Maybe, when we're thinking about what's a sustainable EBITDA for this business, how should we think about that? Or if you could give what the margins have done in the last few years, that'd be really helpful. Thanks.
Thanks, Lee. We won't give the detailed margins to you, but I mean, the short answer here is, this is a business that's been largely focused internally, and hence the utilization numbers. We of course saw in this business a run-up in earnings with the pricing that was in the market over the last year. We've actually normalized a bit of that a bit in terms of how we've looked at our EBITDA. We've been a bit conservative there. We haven't taken the absolute number for calendar year 2021 that was achieved. That sort of number that we've got there, we're confident with that.
As we've called out, whilst there's some immediate synergies here or some near-term synergies, what we're most excited about this business is the platform it gives us to grow going forward. I mean, there's capacity within the assets. There's the opportunity for us to think about it across the value chain that we currently have. There's the opportunity for us to think about doing things differently in the U.S. That's what's most exciting for us as we think about the business going forward. We think we've got ourselves a bit of a unique opportunity here for a suite of assets that we can think a little differently about as we manage them going forward.
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned that 60% utilization rate, that seems quite low. You talked about even adding, potentially adding capacity or freeing up capacity in the business. Like, why do you think it's so low? What do you think this style of business should be running at, ideally, in terms of capacity utilization?
Yeah, I think, I mean, we're not criticizing by any stretch of the imagination, but they've been very focused on their internal businesses. This has been largely focused as an internal supply business. We get the benefit of that with the supply agreement that we've put in place. We will continue to supply Cornerstone, and we understand their business. I think one of the things that helped us through this process was that they knew we understood their businesses and the requirements of their businesses going forward. As a key supplier, we get to keep that. We can look at this a little differently as well, given our perspective on it and what we were thinking about doing with greenfield pipeline capacity expansion.
I think just a different context in terms of us being the owner rather than any criticism of them. They were just thinking about it differently, that's all.
It's probably also worth pointing out, Lee, that we have also got the opportunity to put in place some optimized supply chains, particularly around the Metal Prep business, which takes hot rolled coil, and we've got the opportunity there for at least one of the sites to put in an optimized supply chain with North Star. It gives us the ability to think about more of the external opportunities with an optimized supply chain.
Cool. Thanks. Maybe just one more on the end market, if I can. I mean, Cornerstone's obviously got a sizable resi exposure. I'm assuming some of that's metal roofing and some metal siding. It kind of would seem to me that Coil Coatings' more skewed to the non-resi kind of commercial side, but it'd be helpful if you could break down that kind of 80% building and construction exposure into what's resi and non-resi.
Yeah. I don't have that number, but my guess would be that it's quite a small portion of it, Lee. It's that same scenario in the U.S. where steel roofing is not as popular or as well used as it is in markets like Australia. It would be a much lower percentage. What we're looking at, the volumes you're looking at would be materially for industrial and commercial.
Cool. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Daniel Kang with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Oh, good morning, everyone. Just a couple of questions from me. Just in terms of the capacity, 900,000 tons of capacity, can you talk about the history of that? Were these greenfields plants or M&A-driven capacity growth? Maybe the state of the paint lines, age of the lines, and the level of CapEx that you're expecting going forward.
Yeah, yeah. There's a bit in that, Dan. There's a range, obviously. There's some sites that are older than other sites. We've visited all of the sites. We've had our local team go through the sites quite carefully. You guys know Pat Finan. He understands coating lines. That's his bread and butter. So he's been leading this. We've been lucky enough to employ the former president of this business who has been helping us with the acquisition and will help us with the integration and the business going forward. So we've got a very experienced and capable executive as part of the team who will manage the business going forward.
Of course, you don't get a brand new facility, Dan, like we were talking about building, as our first foray into painting in the East Coast market. You don't get that, of course. As I said, you know, it would take us 10 or 15 years to build the capacity that we've been able to pick up. It's in market, it has customers, it has capability and people that are transitioning to the business. We're really quite comfortable with the suite of assets that we're getting. We don't expect massive capital spend going forward, sort of $4 million-$6 million a year, that sort of number.
Already, you know, the people that have done the high-level review have started to think about where there's opportunities for us to take the learnings that we have from our 13 or 14 pipelines that we have around the globe, and apply them to Coil Coatings. Much the same as we do within our own suite of assets. Not all of our assets are at the same standard, and they're at different ages, so we're forever upgrading them and updating them to bring them up to the sort of best practice that we know. That would be just a normal part of the process we'll go through with Coil Coatings.
Maybe I'll just pop in there, Mark, and just add a little bit more color. As Mark mentioned, there's $4 million-$5 million in the sustaining CapEx going forward. The lines are in good shape, but we do see just given, I guess, the broader suite of lines that we're operating and, I guess, the practices that we have, we do see opportunities there. There's probably $25 million-$30 million that we would spend over 6-7 years. And it's lots of, I guess, relatively smaller things, but it's things around, you know, improved coating measurement systems, dual head coaters, in-line inspection systems, just general equipment upgrades. We do see the opportunity there in terms of further optimizing the performance of those lines, and that plays into those, operational and supply chain synergies that we've called out.
Got it. Thank you, guys. I just wanted to, I guess, get a bit more color in terms of Lee's question on utilization rates. You mentioned that they were more focused on internal supply. Is it an issue that they were struggling to get enough supply to crank up the utilization rates.
Dan, there's a range of things there. There's supply issues, shift structures and manning levels. There's a whole range of issues there that as we've looked at it, part of the opportunity that we see is we think we can obviously push into that utilization that hasn't been taken up, and that's a growth opportunity for us. That's part of the work we'll go through as we get into it in a more detailed basis and get inside the business. There's a range of issues there from steel supply, location, shift patterns, manning levels, all those sorts of things that have impacted utilization.
As well as that focus on, you know, very strong focus on internal supply more than external supply, which is, you know, again, something we do all over the world.
Got it. Okay. That makes more sense. Okay. Finally, if I can just ask in terms of synergies, cost synergies, I'm assuming is the bulk of the AUD 12 million. The product developments and potential for branding is potential for revenue synergies that's not including the AUD 12 million?
That's correct, Dan. I can jump in there. There's probably some sort of more additional near- to medium-term opportunities that we see on the revenue side, which is associated with existing BlueScope customers, but also how we think about things within BlueScope North America. Then there's those medium- to longer-term volume and margin improvement opportunities that we see, which are not included in the AUD 12 million.
Great. Thanks. Thanks very much. I'll pass around.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lyndon Fagan with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks for that. Just on the 900 capacity, how many years would it take you, do you think, to get anywhere near that, given we're running quite a bit below it today?
Oh, Lyndon, look, we haven't turned our mind to how many years. Clearly there's an opportunity for us to grow. We think the market's gonna continue to grow. We think we'll bring a different focus to the business. It's an opportunity that we'll continue to pursue as we think about, again, product development, branded products, how we package that up. That's all the work that we'll go through over the next period. I can't give you a number of years right now, mate, but you can be assured that's latent capacity for us and we try to get after that as quickly as we can.
Sure. Thanks. Look, just a high-level question. Obviously, with the North Star expansion, and now these acquisitions in the U.S., the business is becoming a lot more U.S.-centric. I'm just wondering, does it make sense to have a U.S. listing for BlueScope or consider some sort of separation geographically, just cognizant of the fact that BlueScope as a stock is trading at half the multiple of some of the steel stocks in the U.S., and I'm just wondering if that's on the radar for management, and I guess what opportunities are there to get a re-rate for shareholders given that differential?
Yeah. That's a good question, Lyndon. We've thought about that over the journey, so it's not something that we haven't considered. In fact, we did quite a detailed piece of work on it just a year or two ago, and probably came to the conclusion that in the situation we're in at that time, we'd be just sort of relevant in the U.S. Now this of course adds to the portfolio. This brings us to about 40-odd% or a bit more than that of the assets of the company are now in the U.S. Of course, the earnings was slightly more than half on the back of that extraordinary steel pricing we saw last year, for the six months that we've just posted. Yeah, look, there's a shift to the U.S.
We've talked about the fact that we wanna continue to grow there, and we see it as an obvious market for us to grow in. I suspect we're still some way off being the scale to make a change in our listing relevant. It's something that we've thought about, and obviously we were thinking about it in the context of the difference in rankings. Are we half some of the steel companies? I didn't know we were that far off. I know we're off, mate, but I wasn't sure we're half. We might be half of one or two of them. Yeah, look, we thought about it in that context, Lyndon, quite frankly, but probably not big enough at this stage.
Okay. Thanks, Mark.
Cheers.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Simon Thackray with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, Mark. Morning, Tania. Congrats. Couple of questions from me, if I may. I might as well start with the clanger. You're now upstream in raw materials all the way downstream into, you know, building solutions and engineered products. We're still missing a piece in the midstream in terms of CRC and HDG. What's the sort of strategic thinking and timing of some move, if any, into the midstream?
That's what we're really calling out with that value chain comment, Simon. It gives us the opportunity to think about that. Tanya mentioned earlier the ability for us to redirect some of our hot rolled coil out of North Star into one of the facilities. It lets us think about that more broadly. The effort we were putting into painting and the work we were doing around a pre-feasibility and feasibility study for a paint line, we can now redirect that effort and start to think about, are there other parts of the value chain that it makes sense for us to fill out. That's on the agenda, mate.
Yeah, perfect. With that, Tanya, just in terms of now the acquisition and the ongoing CapEx, I mean, we know we've got higher CapEx going forward across the group, but what's the expectation for North American CapEx then over, say, the next 5 years?
Oh, good question. I think we've laid out, obviously our plans around North Star and the Properties Group. I think they're reasonably clear.
Yes.
This is obviously a little bit of a change. It obviously displaces the paint line that we were talking about. I think the sustaining CapEx I touched on earlier, the AUD 4 million-AUD 5 million, so that'll obviously be incremental and there's that $25 million-$30 million, I'm quoting U.S. dollars. here, over the next-
Yep
You know, 5-6 years in terms of the incremental opportunities. That just gives you a broad sense of it I think, Simon.
Yep. Okay. That's helpful. If we just look at Metal Prep versus Metal Coaters capacity, I mean, obviously it seems there's more toll processing of the lighter gauge pre-paint material than the heavier gauge pre-paint material. But given your own pedigree in painting and coating, where do you, if I'm bold enough to ask, sort of see Metal Prep volumes being in five years time versus Metal Coaters? What's the margin differential between the two?
Yeah, look, too early to call on that, mate. I mean, it's a bit unusual having a painted hot-rolled business. We don't have that in many other parts or any other parts I think of our portfolio. Hot-rolled painted's a new product for us. Part of this will be understanding that and getting in and determining what the market is because we make hot-rolled coil out of North Star, so it does make some sense for us to have those assets. The beauty of a big market like the U.S., there's obviously market opportunities for hot-rolled coil or coated hot-rolled coil that we might not see in some of our other markets. We'll just need to get in and get our heads around that and understand it.
We haven't called out the differences in margins between the two businesses. You haven't missed anything in the presentation. We haven't called that out at this stage, and probably unlikely to in huge amount of granularity.
Yes.
Again, this is all fairly new for us, so we'll get in and understand.
Okay.
The hot-rolled coil, the painted hot-rolled coil market, part of the work we need to do.
Yeah. Got it.
It would be fair to say, if I can just add on to that, it would be fair to say that the painted hot rolled coil element of the business is more commodity, and more of the value add obviously sits in the Metal Coaters side of the business with the light gauge.
Okay. Okay. All right. That's the reverse of what I thought. Thanks. That's very helpful. The final one is just a comment that Cornerstone made itself about being a customer and a supplier, and now you'll move into the downstream. Just wanna be clear, are there any channel conflicts created for North Star? Will you be competing with any of your customers?
No. I mean, we'll have a supply agreement with Cornerstone going forward, supply their buildings business and roll forming businesses. No, this is the implication here, as Tanya called out in one of her earlier answers, was potentially some hot rolled coil coming out of North Star going into the hot rolled coating business. No other conflict from that perspective.
Maybe just a clarification. We do both have buildings businesses downstream.
Yeah.
It's not a conflict.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're a competitor for us in the buildings business, Simon. They've got brands that compete with Butler and Varco Pruden, which is where our supply from the coil coating will go into.
No problem. Nowhere else to any of the existing North Star customers?
No.
No.
Okay, wonderful. Thanks. Congrats.
Thanks, Mark.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Young with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Morning, Mark and Tania. Mark, putting the 9x EBITDA multiple versus your current 3x to 4x multiple to the side, why are they selling?
I think it's, as you see with most PE guys, right? They get to a point in time where they want to rotate the assets. They sold the insulated metal panels assets last year to Nucor. I think they're just adjusting their portfolio, Paul. We thought this was a good asset for us to look at. I don't think their intentions are any more than that, quite frankly.
Yeah.
Also maybe if I can just add on there. Their focus really. Their strategy is really around residential, and this business is much more industrial, commercial-focused. Also they're very excited about the five-year agreement that we've put in place because they look at the capabilities that we have elsewhere and look at what we have the potential to bring. I think there's a lot that we can bring in terms of quality, product development, et cetera, that they are quite excited about. They're very excited about having us as their partner.
Okay. That's great, Tania. How quickly can you see the North Star HRC into the facilities?
Look, we've gotta get the thing settled first and get it underway. You can imagine once we close out, that'd be something that we, I mean, we'd have to understand what the contractual arrangements are that are in place at the moment. If it made sense for us, we'd get that done as soon as we could, Paul.
Okay, great. Thanks, Mark. Last one. Just on, I know you're not disclosing margins of their business versus say the COLORBOND and the local Australian products. But, can you maybe just talk through, about how you maybe improve the product quality of this business and maybe introduce, you know, a type of increasing the share of COLORBOND-type products this business can produce and sort of penetrating the U.S. market?
Yeah. Well, that is clearly one of the opportunities for us to think about. It's a different model in North America than the model we operate with COLORBOND in Australia. I mean, they're already producing fantastic quality products, so it's not like there's any problems from that perspective. It's just a different model in terms of the toll build model. Whereas our COLORBOND-type products and a packaged product and a branded product is just a different set, different value proposition. That's absolutely the work that we'll be going through to determine is there an opportunity for a packaged product like we have with COLORBOND or COLORSTEEL in other markets that we operate in.
That's great. Okay, thank you. That's it for me. Thanks, Mark and Tanya.
Thanks, Paul.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Peter Wilson with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Mark, I was interested in your comment that to replace these assets would cost AUD 1 billion. You've effectively picked these assets up for two-thirds of replacement cost. Just wondering if you could expand on, you know, how and why that comes about, and specifically comment on whether there's any parts of the network which are, you know, either stranded or particularly challenged.
Right. I mean, and the comment really just you think about the time, and the cost, and particularly currently, you think about the congestion and the challenges in managing projects in a place like North America. We've seen a bit of that with the tail end of the North Star project. Yeah, look, I think the value of installed capacity, we've probably got some advantage there over us building them from scratch. I mean, the dollar's the one thing. The challenge for an organization like us would have just been how do you manage it from a time perspective and a resource perspective. You think about putting five light gauge lines in, that's a major resource commitment just from an engineering and project management perspective.
Part of the reason we got quite excited about this was clearly that opportunity of buying installed capacity that has existing customers, has capability. It's not brand new kit, so you're not paying the premium that you are with brand new kit. That makes those numbers a little bit rubbery in terms of replacement costs. The biggest factor in that probably, Peter, is the time factor. It just would have taken us many years to build a fleet of assets like we have that we've been able to acquire. We've got no concerns about any of the assets being stranded. Some of them are performing better than others. Some of that's local market conditions, some of that's other issues that we'll get into as we get our feet under the desk.
No, there's no issues with any of the assets being stranded or distressed or in any trouble. Nothing like that.
Got it. Okay, good. On the supply agreement with Cornerstone and Zinc, you said you can. Can you just comment on how the pricing structured there, and effectively how you'll pass through, you know, pretty volatile U.S. prices, U.S. steel input prices?
Yeah, I mean, they'll buy. They'll buy as a large customer on a market-based structure. That's how they'll buy.
Okay, good. That's all for me. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Peter Steyn with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good evening, Mark. Morning, Tanya. Thanks for your time. Just want to carry on the Cornerstone supply agreement. Would it be your expectation that you'd in all likelihood remain a Cornerstone supplier in the longer term beyond the five years? Or is there a strategic thinking that wants to diversify your position away from the Cornerstone in any way?
Look, Pete, again, early days, but the way we're thinking about this, and Tania articulated, they're really keen for us to continue to supply. I think one of the advantages we had in this process was that they know us and they know that we know their business. I think that gave them some comfort that they're getting a customer or a supplier, I'm sorry, that understands the complexities of their business. You know, we signed a five-year deal. That's reasonably long term in its own right. We have capacity, obviously, we utilize capacity in the business that allows us to diversify away naturally and grow the business by doing the other things that we'll do when we get control of those assets.
Yeah, we're really quite comfortable that it's a good deal for the business going forward. It's a good deal for Cornerstone, and we have the capacity to grow outside of that.
Presumably, the deal would have been pretty vital to your forward-term thinking around the asset as well, from visibility perspective. Do you think that you could have
Absolutely. It's kinda nice to have a foundation customer like that when you make an acquisition like this, and we've still got the opportunity to utilize that surplus capacity that's in the business. Yeah, it's a fantastic strategic relationship that we have with Cornerstone. We're very happy about it.
Perhaps just a quick housekeeping on timing and conditionality associated with the transaction. Obviously, Cornerstone is busy with a whole bunch of its own things, so I presume that's extending the timelines on the closure of this deal.
No, I don't think we're gonna be held up by them. There's just the normal regulatory stuff, the HSR stuff we've gotta go through to get approval. That takes some time. I think we've called out the second half of the year for completion. We'll work to that as hard as we can, but there's just the normal regulatory processes that we need to go through.
Yeah. Okay.
Tania, anything you wanna add to that?
I was gonna say, we've actually. I think what we actually called out, Mark, was calendar year 2022. So there's obviously a bit of wiggle room there, but obviously we are working as fast as we can to bring it to completion.
Yeah, sorry. I meant the second half of the calendar year, not
Yeah. I understood that. Tania, best case scenario, when would you think realistically you could close?
That's very hard to predict. I mean, I can't really talk to exactly how the processes work. Obviously we'd be going as fast as we possibly can.
Sure. No worries. Yeah. Perfect. I'll leave it there.
Thanks, Pete.
Great. Thanks, Pete.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul McTaggart with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Morning. Look, I just wanted to follow up just really for confirmation. It's EPS accretive, essentially because, you know, you were sitting on cash and you're comparing basically the return in terms of your return on cash, because we've obviously talked about the multiples and the differentials and multiples for you and it. I want to confirm that was the rationale behind the EPS accretion. Secondly, in terms of the reporting, I guess we're not gonna see any numbers from this going forward. It'll just sort of disappear into the North American business. You're not proposing to separate it out. What visibility will we have on it in terms of the performance of the acquisition going forward, please? Thank you.
I'll start on those, if that's okay, Mark. Yes, it is. That is exactly the rationale that we've used, Paul, in the EPS accretion. In terms of the reporting segments, we're actually still working our way through those. There's quite a number of factors that we need to work through. We'll give an update in the next couple of months once we are a little bit clear on our thinking. There's obviously a number of requirements that we need to comply with in terms of the accounting and disclosure standards, et cetera. We'll give you an update in due course.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Paul.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Vassella for closing remarks.
That's great. Thank you. Look, thanks all for dialing in. We appreciate your time. We're very excited about this. We think this is a fantastic opportunity for us. A bit of a unique opportunity to get a suite of assets that would have taken us a lot longer to assemble if we were doing it ourselves. We're excited about the medium and longer term growth. We think this is something that's absolutely in our wheelhouse. The hard work we've done and the strong balance sheet we've had means it doesn't really stretch the organization. We're really quite comfortable with where we are. Look, thank you all for dialing in. A big day for BlueScope, a really nice day for the Coil Coatings business, and we appreciate your continued support.
We look forward to seeing you soon. Take care.