Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our second quarter 2023 earnings call for Russel Metals. Today's call will be hosted by Martin Juravsky , Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and John Reid, President and Chief Executive Officer of Russel Metals Inc. Today's presentation will be followed by a Q&A period. At that time, if you have a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the meeting over to Martin Juravsky . Please go ahead.
Great. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. I plan on providing an overview of the Q2 2023 results, and if you want to follow along, I'll be using the PowerPoint slides that are on our website. Just go into the investor relations section. If you go to page 3, you can read our cautionary statement on forward-looking information. Let me start with a little perspective on the quarter. In Q2, we are pleased with the financial results, not just on an absolute basis, but also on a relative basis against our publicly traded peers. As you know, we're always trying to achieve first SL performance on key metrics with key focus on return on capital. Once again, we have shown industry-leading performance on that benchmark as we outperformed our comps.
Also, this quarter puts into context the initiatives of the past few years that served to reduce the volatility of our business, raise our cycle floor, and raise our cycle ceiling. I think we have demonstrated great progress on this journey so far, and we expect more on to come. Let's turn to market conditions on page 5. Steel prices picked up in the early part of Q2, but came off somewhat towards the end of the quarter. In particular, sheet prices have adjusted down, while plate prices have come off a small amount but remain at good and healthy levels. As you can see from the charts on the right, supply chain inventories are modest, so the industry appears to be well positioned from a supply and demand perspective.
From the demand side, we are seeing solid demand from our customer base, notwithstanding that we do encounter some seasonal dynamics in parts of North America in Q3 due to Canada Day, Fourth of July, and the construction holiday in Quebec during late July and early August. If we go to page 6, there's a snapshot of Q2. We saw consistent revenue in Q2 versus the past few quarters, but a sequential pickup in EBITDA, margins, and returns. If we look across the various charts on the bottom of the page, starting at the top left, revenues were CAD 1.2 billion versus CAD 1.2 billion in Q1. EBITDA was CAD 131 million versus CAD 160 million in Q1, due to a pickup in margins at our service centers.
Overall, we saw an approximately 100 basis point pickup in EBITDA margins and solid results from each of our business segments. From a bottom-line perspective, EPS and return on invested capital also improved, with earnings per share at CAD 1.37 per share in Q2 2023 annualized return on invested capital of 31%. In terms of capital structure, we have net cash of over CAD 150 million versus net debt of almost CAD 500 million at the end of 2019. This CAD 650 million increase from free cash flow gives us a lot of financial flexibility going forward. It will also be further strengthened in Q3 with the closing of the TriMark transaction that will realize approximately CAD 61 million in the quarter. I'll provide more details on that transaction in a few minutes.
Going forward, we are seeing some interesting opportunities to continue to grow the business, and I'll also talk about that in a few minutes. If we go to our more detailed financial results on page 7. From an income statement perspective, I covered a number of the high-level items already on the previous page, a few other items to note. On margins, service centers and steel distributors improved, while energy field stores were stable in what is typically a seasonally weaker quarter in Canada. That being said, we did see margins pull back towards the end of Q2 for the service centers as a result of shifts in steel prices that I mentioned earlier. Interest expense came down to CAD 3 million, as the increase in interest rates is allowing us to generate interest income on our cash reserves.
Overall, we generated earnings of CAD 85 million, earnings per share of CAD 1.37 per share. Our Q2 results were impacted by a few non-operating items. TriMark, we picked up CAD 7 million of equity earnings from that joint venture, and on the cash flow statement side, we picked up CAD 10 million in cash flow from dividends that we received in Q2. Stock-based comp had a CAD 2 million negative impact versus a CAD 4 million impact in Q1, and we had a small, approximately CAD 3 million decrease in our inventory and RB reserves in the quarter. From a cash flow perspective, in Q2, we generated CAD 27 million from working capital. There were a number of moving pieces, with accounts receivable going down, accounts payable coming up, and a small increase in inventory.
CapEx of CAD 60 million was up a bit from Q1 and trending higher as we continue executing on our discretionary projects. As previously discussed, our annual CapEx should pick up to around CAD 75 million per year on average for the next few years. From a balance sheet perspective, we are in a net cash position of around CAD 154 million, which is made up of our term notes of CAD 300 million that are more than offset by a cash position of around CAD 450 million. Our liquidity is over CAD 800 million. Foreign exchange did move a fair amount from the end of Q1 to the end of Q2, which had an impact on our OCI account.
Our book value moved up again and is now over CAD 26 a share, notwithstanding that we were active on our share buybacks in the quarter. Lastly, we've declared a quarterly dividend of CAD 0.40 per share. On page 8, I've included a summary of the TriMark transaction that we announced a short while ago. As a starting point, this is the final step in what has been a three-year process to monetize our legacy OCTG line pipe businesses in both Canada and the U.S. We considered the TriMark investment to be non-core from day one. We were waiting for the right time to work with our JV partner to undertake the sale.
As I mentioned earlier, our goal in making the portfolio changes over the last couple of years was to reduce the volatility of our earnings, lower the risk profile, enhance our margins and returns over a cycle, and this transaction is another piece to that shift. If we go to the chart, I want to summarize the cash return evolution from this transaction. We started with $141 million of capital just prior to the joint venture being created. That being said, the amount of capital in the business was higher prior to the closing of the joint venture, but we reduced the capital in the 3 to 6 months leading up to the joint venture creation.
When the JV was first set up, we were able to quickly convert CAD 190 million into cash, as the capitalization of the joint venture was through non-recourse debt, which provided us with substantial cash payout at that time. Therefore, our net capital at risk in mid-2021 was only around CAD32 million, which was the face value of the preferred shares. We also held a 50% interest in the common shares, which at the time had nominal value, but gave us a tool to participate in the upside. In the two years since the joint venture was created, we received CAD 36 million of dividends through the preferred and common shares, and when combined with the expected proceeds of around CAD 61 million, will equal CAD 97 million versus our retained equity interest of CAD 32 million.
This equates to an over 200% return on that investment. This structure has worked out very well when we take into account our participation in the upside from the unusually robust OCTG line pipe upcycle over the last two years. The deal just received regulatory approval, and we expect it to close on September 1st. When we take this transaction and combine it with the other OCTG line pipe liquidations in 2020 and 2021, we have repatriated around CAD 375 million over the last three years. This liquidation and monetization is a large reason why we are in the strong financial position that we are currently in today. If we go to page nine, you can see our EBITDA variance analysis between last quarter and this quarter.
In looking at service centers, the volumes were very similar in Q2 versus Q1, so the biggest factor was really a pickup in margins that added around CAD 60 million to that segment's EBITDA. Energy field stores were mostly flat quarter-over-quarter, which is pretty good since we encountered the normal seasonal slowdown for spring break-up in Canada, but also the impact of the unusual wildfire activity. Steel distributors was comparable in Q2 versus Q1, which is a pretty good level by historical frames of reference. There was a CAD 4 million favorable variance in other, which included a seasonal pickup in our Thunder Bay terminal operation and a lower mark-to-mark on our stock-based compensation.
This was somewhat offset by lower earnings from the TriMark joint venture in Q2 versus Q1. If we go to page 10, we have our segmented P&L information.
Service centers continue to do well as the market improves. Revenues, margins, and EBIT picked up. We saw good momentum at the front part of the quarter, there was some softening as we came off a little bit in June. In energy field stores, we are continuing to see positive market sentiment. As said earlier, Q2 is impacted by some seasonal factors, we are up in Q2 2023 versus Q2 2022. Overall market conditions remain upbeat as we look into the back half of 2023, particularly as we've focused on gaining market share from our competitors. Gross margins came in at 27% and has remained in that 25%-30% range since the monetization of the OCTG line pipe businesses in mid-2021. Distributors' revenues were down slightly, margins were up, which resulted in similar operating profit in Q2 versus Q1.
If we go to page 11, we have the deeper dive on some of the metrics for our metals service center business. Top right graph is the past five years for tons shipped, and as you can see, Q2 volumes were similar to Q1 as well as to Q2 2022. Demand continues to look solid in the early part of Q3, although there are some seasonal dynamics for summer holidays that will lower Q3 levels. If we look typically over the last couple of years, Q3 volumes are traditionally down 5%-10% versus Q2, to take into account some of that seasonal dynamic. On the bottom left chart, we have the revenue and cost of goods sold per ton.
On revenue per ton, our price realizations increased by about CAD 96 per ton versus a CAD 43 increase in cost of goods sold, which resulted in a CAD 53 per ton pickup in margin. For the quarter, our margin per ton was CAD 536, which is much higher than the long-term historical average. As we've said many times in the past, we expect to realize higher average margins and lower volatility over the cycle as compared to the pre-COVID margins due to our ongoing investment initiatives. On page 12, we've illustrated our inventory turns. This chart shows the inventory turns by quarter for each segment, energy in red, service centers in green, and steel distributors in yellow. The black line is the average for the entire company. A few observations.
Overall, our inventory turns were similar versus Q1 at about 3.9 turns. By sector, service centers improved from 4.7 to 4.9, as we proactively manage inventory and reduce risk. When we benchmark versus our publicly traded peers, we are generally the top performer on this metric. Our energy field stores were down to 2.6 from 3.0 due to the seasonal factor with spring breakup that I previously mentioned. For steel distributors in yellow, the inventory turns were similar in Q2. On page 13, you'll see the impact of inventory turns on inventory dollars. Total inventory has been pretty steady for the past three quarters.
The service center saw a reduction in inventory, which is mostly due to a 4% decline in tonnage, whereas there was a pickup in energy inventory with the higher expected activity in our field stores going into Q3. If we go to page 14, you can see the overall impact on capital utilization and returns. Our capital deployment remains right around that CAD 1.5 billion mark. More importantly, our returns continue to be industry-leading, and our last 12 months returns stand at 27%. If we go to page 15, I want to update our capital structure. The continuation of favorable market conditions and our disciplined approach to capital utilization gives us a lot of financial flexibility.
On the left table, you can see that our cash position went up to CAD 450 million, which is a CAD 49 million increase over March 31st and a CAD 263 million increase since this time last year. We are realizing a return on our cash balance that substantially offsets the interest costs on our outstanding notes. Our shareholders' equity is over CAD 1.6 billion, and the chart on the right shows the continuation of the growth in our equity base. Book value per share is now over CAD 26 per share, which is a CAD 0.51 per share increase since March 31st, and a CAD 3.52 per share increase since this time last year. If we go to page 16, we have an update on our capital allocation priorities going forward.
Given our strong balance sheet, we have a multi-pronged approach to capital allocation. As we've always talked about in the past, for investment opportunities, we seek average returns of over 15% through the cycle, and we've delivered well above that target. The ongoing opportunities are multi-faceted. One, on value-added equipment, we are continuing to identify and pursue new value-added projects. In total, we have over 30 equipment projects ongoing throughout North America. Two, on facility modernizations, we are moving forward with several expansion upgrading projects. We just approved two new projects, being an CAD 11 million project in Green Bay, Wisconsin, as well as a CAD 9 million project at Texarkana, Texas. These projects should be completed in late 2024.
When combined with other projects on the go, we have a robust series of initiatives that should grow our volumes, increase operating efficiencies, generate attractive returns, and improve health and safety conditions. In terms of acquisitions, the third piece to the initiatives, we remain committed to our financial operating criteria. That being said, we are optimistic about opportunities that are in the pipeline. Yesterday, we signed an agreement to acquire Alliance Supply, which is a small tuck-in to our energy field store business in Western Canada, and we have other potential M&A opportunities on the go that we are continuing to pursue. In terms of returning capital to shareholders, we have adopted a fairly flexible approach. For dividends, last quarter, we increased our dividend to CAD 0.40 per share, and we'll continue to reevaluate the appropriate level on a go-forward basis.
For the NCIB, we acquired 1.2 million shares last quarter. To date, we have acquired 2.2 million shares at an average price of CAD 32.18. Going forward, we'll file a renewed NCIB that will allow us to acquire up to 6.1 million shares over the next 12 months. We plan to continue using the NCIB on an opportunistic basis. In closing, on behalf of John and other members of the management team, I'd like to express our appreciation to everyone within the Russel family. We couldn't be happier with how the Russel team has navigated its way through the evolving markets over the past few years. We look forward to the new opportunities that are ahead. Thanks to everyone across the company for your contributions. That concludes my introductory remarks.
Operator, you can now open the line for any questions, please.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment for your first question. Okay, your first question comes from Devin Dodge from BMO Capital Markets. Devin, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment for your first question. Okay, your first question comes from Devin Dodge from BMO Capital Markets. Devin, please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks. Good morning, guys.
Hey, Devin.
Good quarter. Just as a question on M&A, I felt like there was a little bit more optimism there. Just to kind of get a sense, you know, I think we've seen balance sheets, you know, just really strong across the sector, including at Russel, obviously, as you highlighted. M&A has been a bit slower to materialize. I know you did a tuck-in, but I think just a lot of dialogue, but not a lot of action yet. Just why do you think that is? Do you expect industry consolidation to be a bit more active over the next six-12 months?
Yeah, it's a fair point, and maybe dealing with your last point first. I do expect there to be more activity in the next six months than there has been in the last six months or last year, for that matter. I think like any market, there's always recalibrations of appropriate value. To be candid, I think there was a fair number of transactions that were in the market over the last little bit that had fairly unrealistic views of value. There seems to be, based upon the lens that we're looking through, more of a reality check on things that meet our criteria. I'm more optimistic as we look forward for the next 6 months because of that reality check perhaps kicking in for potential vendors.
Okay. Great, interesting. Okay. We saw that industry volumes, at least based on MSCI data, they were up about 3%-5% in Q2, but Russel was, let's say, flat to, maybe down very slightly, in the quarter. Do you think that reflects on competitors getting a bit less disciplined in going after market share?
Definitely. This is John. Again, you'll see that from time to time based on people's inventory positions or, their go-to-market approach that's out there. But in the markets we serve, we don't feel like we gave up any share compared to the MSCI statistics for those that were out. We actually gained share in those markets. Again, I think there may be a bit of anomaly where our footprint obviously is very focused in the U.S., where it's very broad in Canada. We think overall the market share was fine, but you do see that from time to time, where you have pockets where people will get aggressive, or as you have an import situation where maybe in that coastal area, they get aggressive for a short period of time.
Just to supplement that, I think what is also interesting is the MSCI data includes lots of different companies, private, public, all kinds of other data that's in there. If we look at the publicly traded companies, those who've reported already, including the larger player in the sector, their quarter-over-quarter volumes is very similar in terms of change to ours.
Okay. Good call out. Thanks, John. I'll turn it over.
Thanks, Devin.
Your next question comes from Michael Doumet from Scotiabank. Michael, please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. On the topic of organic growth, I guess maybe as a follow-up to Devin's question, you know, can you talk about why you've moved up some of the expansion projects? Maybe if it's related, do you think the combination of these expanded facilities, you know, increased, reshoring, maybe it's infrastructure that kicks in in the second half in the U.S., is that gonna accelerate organic growth, going forward?
Thanks, Devin. The projects that we have on the go right now that we're expanding, obviously, we're running at capacity. We have an opportunity to move into some more automation to improve our operating cost, as well as expand our footprint for products we carry and services we offer. Obviously, you can grow in those markets. All those have that component involved with them. We're seeing it across the board as we grow our value-added initiative. We're having more opportunities to expand that value-added initiative.
We've kind of got the hubs initially set up now, as the spokes are needing growth from, to add that equipment and add more market share. With the reshoring coming on, you do see that in specific areas, and there are specific opportunities that seem to be a little bit more broad for us right now.
I couldn't point to one specific and say, this one's making a huge material impact for all of Russel, but we're seeing an impact across Russel and various opportunities there with reshoring.
Michael, I guess the other thing is, you were also asking about, have we moved up expansion projects? We haven't moved them up. This is just the cadence that they're in. The projects that were announced for Green Bay and Texarkana, for example, those weren't things that were accelerated or decelerated. There's a preparation, there's an organization, there's engineering work, there's prep work that's required. The work to get to this point of having them announced started quite some time ago. I wouldn't say they've been accelerated, but the preparation started behind the scenes probably a year ago, if not earlier than that, in terms of thinking that these projects could make sense, and it just takes a while for them to come to fruition.
Okay. Thanks for the clarification there, Marty. Then maybe, Marty, I think I caught this in your prepared remarks, just talking about share gains in energy products. Just curious, on what's driving that dynamic there?
I'd say, yes, you picked that up correctly. We look at both the public data for those folks who operate in the same backyard in the energy field stores as we do, and compare it to our data, and we are picking up gain. I think it's primarily a function of we have a really well-positioned business, particularly in Canada, and they're continuing to do the right things with customers, and we perhaps have competitors who may be less committed to certain markets. Our folks on the ground are doing an exceptionally good job of taking advantage of the market opportunities that are out there.
Great. Thanks a lot, guys.
Great. Thanks, Michael.
Your next question comes from James McGarragle, from RBC Capital Markets. James, please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a really good quarter here.
Great. Thanks, James.
Thanks.
Yeah, so I was just, you know, some of your U.S. competitors, during reporting, were kind of talking about some of the benefit. They're kind of seeing the early benefit from the U.S. infrastructure spending. You know, is, is your team seeing a similar benefit? Is that, you know, are you seeing that in both the Canadian service centers and in the U.S. service centers, or primarily concentrated, more, in the U.S.?
Yeah, the concentration is more in the U.S. Again, we're seeing some benefit, again, across the board. I have one big project, or two you could point to that would be material seeing it across the board. When you look at the infrastructure spending, there's a lot on the come that's coming, that will be coming forward in the next two, three, four quarters. That's starting to ramp up. We're seeing that go through the process now, the bid process, whether that be bridge work, whether it be wind tower. A lot of plate usage is coming forward. Very optimistic about what that's doing, again, for our US service centers. On the Canadian side, we're seeing some of that as well. We do wind work in Canada, and so that will go cross-border.
Again, where we can actually ship that across. If you look at the Canadian index, if you look at the Architecture Billings Index, it's actually gone back above 50. Some of that's driven by preparation for infrastructure project. The Purchasing Managers' Index has come down below 50, but in Canada, it's hovering right just below 50. We're actually seeing Canadian manufacturing has been holding up better this year than the U.S. manufacturing has been holding up.
I appreciate the color. Then, on the Q3 outlook, you know, some of the U.S. peers were a little bit more conservative. I know, you know, your businesses aren't exactly comparable, but, you know, your guide was obviously a little more optimistic. Can you just provide some color on some of the end market strength that you're seeing? I guess kind of what gives you some of that confidence, you know, during the remainder of Q3 here?
Sure. One, again, keep in mind, we don't do automotive is obviously a question mark right now for some of our competitive people that were out there. When they were talking about demand, there's a concern around what's going on with automotive and potential strikes, but we're not involved in the automotive industry by design. When you look at demand, we're seeing it, you know, again, Marty mentioned the typical seasonal dynamics you have with the holidays, construction holidays. We're seeing steady manufacturing right now. We deal with small to medium-sized end users, again, in a transactional nature, so we're not contractual. The OEMs that we deal with, again, medium-sized to small, all of those have very steady backlogs right now. The construction side of our business, we're seeing the fabricators are very busy.
You do have a construction holiday that they take off one week in July and one week in August, they put back, which is normal. Coming back out of that, that backlog is very good right now, so we have not seen the interest rates really impact the construction backlog like we thought we would. The energy side of the business for our field stores, again, very steady. Canada's got a very steady growth right now. Trend for us, because we are taking market share. Also, when you look at the rig count was down slightly, taking into consideration all the wildfires that were going on, I don't think there's anything to be concerned about there. Overall, across the board, we just see our end markets as very steady when we look at them right now.
Before I turn the line over here, one more question on returns. I mean, your team had talked about, you know, a 2%-3% lift kind of versus pre-pandemic returns, you know, just on the back of some of those investments your team's made during the pandemic. You know, we've seen a pretty big decline in steel prices, but, you know, your returns are well above that kind of 2%-3% lift that you had previously talked about. You know, have you changed, you know, your view on how you're viewing returns that you can kind of deliver longer term? Or do you think, you know, it's too early to say that right now, just given some of the, the uncertainty looking ahead?
It's a good question, James, we haven't changed our point of view. That being said, there is always some element of cyclicality to the business. When we look at, you know, that 200-300 basis point shift, that's not at a point in time, that's through the cycle, and there's going to be ebbs and flows to a cycle. You know, as I said earlier, the thing that I think we've done a really good job of is taking some of that volatility out of the cycle from what we have seen in the past. You know, some of that's by virtue of the businesses we've got out of, some of that is by virtue of the investments we've made, the acquisitions we've made. No, our point of view hasn't changed.
When we look through the cycle, we're very comfortable that the initiatives that we have completed and are still underway are gonna generate that couple hundred basis point pickup over the course of the cycle.
Appreciate, you taking the time. I'll turn the line over. Thank you.
Thanks, James.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one. Your next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. Michael, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning.
Hey, Mike.
Hey. I guess the first question is just around one of the comments in the outlook section related to an expectation for some moderation in margins in the Q3, which, which I gather is, is a function of the fact that steel prices, just as you mentioned, sort of late in the Q2 and into early Q3, have pulled back a little bit. I guess the question is, if you can just kind of help me understand that, how to think about that, that moderation, maybe starting with service centers. Margins were up a touch sequentially in the Q2. You know, how should we think about margins as we move into the Q3? Is this sort of going back to the kind of level we saw i n Q1?
Is that sort of the, the run rate normal level, t o think about service centers absent sort of, you know, bigger moves in steel prices?
Yeah , that's a fair frame of reference. You know, within the quarter, within Q2, margins did come down in June versus what they were for the average of the quarter. If we look at where things are at right now, they're closer to Q1 levels on average than Q2 levels on average. As a frame of reference, yeah, Q3, margins should be down from Q2, something closer to Q1, without trying to be too specific about it. The comments that were made about margins was really about the service centers. We're still, when we look across energy field stores, we don't really see any, substantial change in terms of margins in that business. As John talked about earlier, good backlog, good activity, good dynamic in terms of market conditions. Our business is well positioned.
The comments on margin were more related to energy field stores. Steel distributors will follow a similar cycle though, there's probably some softening of those margins coming into Q3 as well.
Just to add on to that, Michael, from the industry as a whole, again, keep in mind, service centers are turning their inventory at pretty high level in comparison to historical levels. In addition, there are a lot of mill shutdowns that are scheduled for the Q3, so you'll take a lot of supply out of the marketplace. Scrap has bottomed, it appears, and gone up maybe CAD 20 a ton. I think flat-rolled steel has now seen the bottom in July, early August, so it's starting to bounce along, maybe go up. Plate never really came off much. It just dipped marginally. We're seeing some things that say, "Okay, this is, we've hit the bottom." People should flush through their inventories fairly quickly.
You'll have some outliers that are out there that may be in a bad position, but overall, the industry is in a pretty good position. As far as it going, running back up, we'll see what pricing does, but there is a lot of the supply coming out of the marketplace in Q3 with shutdowns. I think there's over 8 mills shutting down in Q3 for maintenance.
Okay, that's definitely helpful. Thank you, John. When we think about margins in steel distributors, appreciate your comment that, you know, directionally, I guess, they'll follow a similar pattern in terms of movements to what you'll see in service centers. You're still at quite healthy levels in steel distributors relative to what, you know, you would have seen historically. I mean, I think you're down from where you were, you know, a year or two ago. But relative to kind of the longer-term levels in steel distributors, you're running at quite healthy levels. What, what is the right way to think about the margins in that business kind of over the medium to longer term?
Is this sort of a new normal, this, you know, 15% EBIT margin in the Q2, and steel distributors and, and gross margins are 22.5%? Like, is this the new normal, or, how do we think about the medium to longer term?
We'll still see the cyclicality in that business, with the trade suits and where, you know, with imports being at bay, that's helped stabilize that market some. Both sides of the border for us are. This group, the groups have been in it well over 30 years. They're very professional traders at what they're doing when they're bringing in product, or working product inside the North American market. Again, they'll, they'll be very opportunistic. We have one side, you know, the worst side, you can buy and sell. It's all kind of locked up, so it's pretty much a flow through with very low margin risk. There's a little more risk in the U.S.
They will pull back from markets if they don't see the opportunity to make those kind of margins, or they won't just keep plowing forward, as maybe some others do in the market. There will be cyclicality to this, to follow steel pricing, to follow the steel pricing that's out there, that they will pull back, and they may slow the revenue side down before they give up margin.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Just maybe on picking up on your comment there about imports being at bay, what—y ou know, do you, do you anticipate any change on that front going forward? I guess I'm thinking about, you know, one, they seem to have been, you know, fairly, fairly modest for some time, but at the same time, prices are, are healthy here in North America, and then your comment about mill shutdowns in, in the Q3. Like, does that attract some import product as a result of those shutdowns, kind of, in the shorter term?
If you look at the import statistics, they're not marginally different. They're up a little bit year-over-year, but that's really a function of quotas and timing when they brought in the steel from the imports on quotas, more so than they're bringing in more. There are product-specific things that will come and ebb and flow there, where you'll bring them in. Right now, we're not seeing that as a dramatic change. We don't think the Section 232 will have any significant change. It's up for review in November, December, going into an election year, I think there may be some window dressing around it, some things moved around, but I don't think there'll be any material change in that.
I think the Section 232 is functioning as intended, that it's protecting the North American steel market from a surge of low-priced imports. I don't see any directional changes on that. Again, I don't think you're gonna have an import market that's gonna make any more impact or than it has in the last two or three years.
Okay. Thank you. Then, regarding M&A, obviously you announced a tuck-in in, in energy field stores. I mean, I think I've asked this before and others have as well, but, but when we think about your M&A strategy, can you talk about what the, the main focus is right now in terms of, you know, ideally what you'd be targeting? It sounds like activity and opportunities are picking up. Maybe that gives you an opportunity to, to, you know, to, to go after the kinds of things that you're most interested in, whereas in the past, you know, that, that may not have been possible given, given market dynamics and conditions. Just kind of curious if you could just talk to what the focus is here at this point.
It's a good question, Mike. You know, in some ways, the last two acquisitions we made in service centers, one at the tail end of 2020 and one at the tail end of 2021, were really good illustrations of the types of things that are front and center for us now. Fit the businesses that are complementary to where our service centers are, both from a product perspective as well as from a geographic perspective. Augmenting the regions where we currently operate, and sometimes it's product expansion as well into other opportunities, value-added opportunities, non-ferrous opportunities from time to time, but in complementary geographic regions. We're not looking to do stuff that's far afield.
We do look at those things from time to time that could be standalone business units, but by and large, we're looking for stuff that fits very well into what we currently have and is complementary to that. Most of the focus is on the service center side. There are situations that pop up from time to time on the energy field store side, and the small tuck-in that we announced is an example of that. Most of it is really complementary expansions within the service center business on both sides of the border.
Just to add on to that, Mike, I mean, we've talked about it in the past. We obviously look at culture as a big thing for us. Will they be able to fit in the Russel culture? How do we integrate that? Can be highly decentralized, are they very centralized? Is there gonna be a natural rub there? Is this somebody that has a, you know, smaller location, that has a key person leaving that will impact the business? We like to find well-run businesses. We like to look for opportunities to either expand our product or expand our offering. We're not as tied to a geographic as we maybe once thought.
We would always continue to grow in the U.S., and lo and behold, we kept buying stuff in Canada, so we're more opportunistic on that if it fits for us. There's obviously the, the financial metrics that we look at that have to complement what we're doing, so we stay pretty disciplined there as well. Okay, that's all very helpful. I will leave it there. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike.
Your next question comes from Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. Frederic, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning.
Hey, Fred.
I was a little surprised by how active you are buying back stock in Q2, given where the stock's been, been trading lately. If my math is correct, you repurchased CAD 1.2 million shares at an average price of CAD 36.60 and change during the period, which is quite the step up from what you did earlier in the back half of last year. Can you comment on that? Secondly, on your appetite to continue buying back stock at the current level?
Yeah. Your math is close. Yeah, we picked up about 1.2 million shares in the quarter. The average was just below CAD 36 per share for the quarter. Cumulatively, we've picked up 2.2 million shares since we put the NCIB in place at a little over CAD 32. We need is approach to acquire shares opportunistically relative to our view of intrinsic value. From our perspective, we're always recalibrating opportunities. We're always recalibrating our view of intrinsic value, and I think that's the game plan that we'll continue to have going forward as we've done the renewal of the NCIB for up to 6.1 million shares. If we think there's a good opportunity to pick up our shares, it's no different than looking at acquisitions or anything else in terms of capital deployment.
We think it makes good economic sense, and in particular, on the NCIB, the focus is being able to do it opportunistically below our intrinsic value, and we think where we're trading at today is below intrinsic value.
Great. That's all I have. Thanks.
Great. Thanks, Fred.
Your next question comes from Maxim Sytchev , from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jim. Marty, good morning.
Hey, Matt.
I think I actually kind of like asked my question, but maybe just thinking sort of broader in terms of kind of capital deployment on a prospective basis, is sort of more flexibility is sort of part of kind of the new algorithm when it comes to kind of capital deployment on a going-forward basis? Just curious what's been sort of maybe the catalyst to potentially sort of rethink your approach or obviously, I guess, you know, the balance sheet and your cash position, so just enforce more optionality. Just maybe some broader thoughts would be super helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. Well, Matt, it's, it's really, the way you characterize it is spot on. You use two words, flexibility and optionality, and those are very, those ring true to how we think about it as well. We have the balance sheet that gives us a tremendous amount of flexibility to do anything that makes sense or do nothing if it doesn't make sense. We're not wedded to one thing or another . That being said, we do see opportunities across a variety of capital deployment alternatives. Given the way our balance sheet is set up right now, we think we can do a variety of things if they all make sense. This past quarter, again, we were active on the NCIB. We stepped up our dividend last quarter, did a little tuck-in acquisition. We're being active on internal investments.
We have the flexibility to do a variety of things. Your operative words, optionality, flexibility, those do ring very true in terms of how we think about capital deployment opportunities.
Okay, excellent. That's it for me. Yeah, great quarter. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Matt.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn it back to Marty for closing remarks.
Great. Thanks, operator. Appreciate everybody for tuning in. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out at any time. Otherwise, we look forward to staying in touch during the quarter, and have a good rest of the day, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.