Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. I'm Mike Harris, and I'm honored to welcome Karla Lewis, and she's the President and CEO, Steve Koch, who's the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Reliance, Inc., and that's the largest metal service center company in North America. But before we get started, a couple of housekeeping items. We are required to make certain disclosures and public appearances about Goldman Sachs' relationship with the companies we discuss. The disclosures relate to investment banking relationships, compensation received, or 1% or more ownership. We're prepared to read aloud disclosures for any issue upon request. However, these disclosures are available, and our most recent report's available to you as clients on our firm's portal.
Also, the second housekeeping item, I have a list of questions here for Karla and Steve, but if there are questions from the audience, we do have the latitude to take those. So just raise your hand if you have a question. So now that we have that out of the way, again, Karla and Steve, thanks for joining us today. Why don't we jump right in and cover as much ground as we can? So to set the stage for those that may not be familiar with Reliance, why don't you give just a brief corporate overview, maybe talk about your position in the steel value chain, your value propositions, competitive advantages, and maybe key end markets?
Okay, great. Well, and first off, thanks everyone for joining us today. And Mike, thanks to you and Goldman Sachs for inviting us here today. So a little bit about Reliance. As Mike said, we're the largest metal service center company in North America. We're about $15 billion in sales, about 320 locations, primarily the U.S., but a few international locations. As a metal service center company, what we do is we buy metal in large quantities from the producers of metal: carbon, stainless, aluminum, specialty products. We warehouse that metal, and then we sell it to our customers in smaller quantities. We do value-added processing on about 50% of the orders that we ship. A little bit of our niche is we do focus on smaller order sizes. So that's $15 billion in total sales. Our average order size is $3,000 an order.
So we're doing a lot of transactions. 40% of those orders, customer calls us today, we deliver it tomorrow, and process to the size and shape that they prefer if they're looking for us to do some of that value-added processing. Reliance, historically, we've bought domestically. So we have very strong relationships with the U.S. steel producers. Again, most diversified service center out there in terms of our products, our geographies, and our end markets. We also operate in a very decentralized structure. We talk about putting decision-making as close to the customer as possible because for our customer base, relationships still really matter. And we also think we do a better job managing our working capital, making decisions on what we're buying, how we're selling it, what pricing to use by having that, again, in a decentralized manner close to the customer. So a little bit about Reliance.
Okay. Let's look a bit more to our end markets at this time, and I guess just how would you describe the current customer sentiment and maybe speak to the buying patterns across each end market and throw in a couple of comments around your near-term outlook?
Yeah. So when it comes to general end markets, customer sentiment, they've been dealing with some disruptions in the market this year with tariffs and some geopolitical issues, but for the most part, the end markets that we service, non-residential construction and general manufacturing, non-residential construction, demand has been pretty healthy for the last several years, and going into 2026, we feel that demand is going to continue to be brisk. We service data centers, hospitals, schools, universities, and then the buzzword has been data centers. Anybody you talk to, but when we talk to our field operators, almost all of them are selling materials into data centers, whether it's the construction of data centers, whether it's the internal mechanisms, whether it's trays, racks, cooling systems, so it depends what information you look at, but we think that that has a good five to 10-year runway ahead of it.
And then when you think about other end markets, general manufacturing. General manufacturing depends on which end of the market you're servicing. Demand has been relatively steady. Consumer products, rail, shipbuilding, anything defense-related has been over the last 12 to 18 months. Demand has been very good. And we look into 2026 and 2027. We expect the same. So that's general manufacturing, non-residential construction. We service auto through our toll processing for the most part. And our toll processing in 2025 was up over 2024. Probably not a great indication of the auto market because our companies that service this end of the business are really specialized and really good at what they do. And they have a demand. No matter what automotive is doing, they're pretty busy, and customers are always looking to give us more business over there.
They also toll process for the HVAC end market and appliance, and I guess the last, aerospace, that's about 10% of our revenues. We service that through defense and through commercial. Defense has been strong. Demand has been good. We see that going into 2026. In commercial, there's been a little bit of an inventory overhang that we've been working with. Our inventory itself was kind of challenged in parts of 2025, but going into 2026, we think we're in pretty good shape there.
Good deal. And then I guess just thinking a little longer term here, when you talk about the end market outlooks, which markets do you see driving the most growth over the next three to five years? And maybe speak to what's driving that, shifts in customer preferences or something supply chain related that would drive those higher growths?
Yeah. So I think if you look around, metal is used in many different things you see. So very diverse end-use applications. So we think we have opportunities to continue to grow. If you're looking at specifically, Steve touched on some of those markets. We think, again, data center builds, there's still legs there. And it's not just the data center, it's the electricity needs that we have in the U.S. We have a couple of companies that are focused on the nuclear space. So certainly a lot of activity planned in the nuclear space to provide some of that needed electricity here in the U.S. and globally. Aerospace, the backlogs have been multi-year for quite some time. We just need the airplane manufacturers and the supply chains to keep up with that. And we have seen that improving. So we're bullish on aerospace going forward for multi-years.
Semiconductor, where we've struggled a bit this year and last, again, coming out of COVID. Semiconductor was wonderful at that time, but we believe a lot of our customers overbought their inventory. So they've been working through that excess inventory. But there is a lot of activity, building new chip plants, and just continuing need for chips going forward that we see that having good three-to-five-year growth in those areas. Steve mentioned on anything like military and defense-related, the U.S. government has a lot of money that they're trying to put to work now. We're going to start building submarines in the U.S. again that we haven't done for a long time. We participate in those programs. There's a lot of rebuilding of munitions and other systems and just general spending going on by the U.S. government to restockpile.
But also in Europe, it seems to be real planned interest in improving and increasing their defense spend. So we're starting to hear of some inquiries related to that. So those are all multi-year types of projects that we're very positive on, and we think we're very well positioned to participate in all of those markets.
Okay. And then I guess thinking in terms of portfolio gaps, are you targeting any new market segments, products, or geographies? And maybe speak to how you think about when it's time to maybe double down on the existing portfolio versus pursuing something new.
So, regarding our gaps on our portfolio, we're always looking at that. We're looking to see what the new end markets that are surfacing. We want to be out in front of that, and we want to make sure that we have equipment and we're able to service any of that new demand. We don't talk about flat rolled a whole lot, but we do flat rolled really well. We have high margins. We've been growing. We've been expanding our footprint, some of our specialty flat rolled operations across the country, and we have very little market share there. So we are focused in that end market.
Okay. That's helpful. Then I guess just understanding that there's a little give and take, can you describe how you balance maintaining that strong customer relationship with pricing power and maybe speak to how the current pricing power compares now to the same period a year ago?
When we think about pricing, it's really, really important as we've invested a lot of money in CapEx over the years, and we have the newest facilities and the best equipment, and we want to keep our people safe. There's a cost associated with that. So the pricing power is associated with educating our customers of what goes into our prices and what services we provide. But it also goes to the salespeople and the management teams with what they bring to the table. And if you invest and you don't charge the right amount for it, you're going to be upside down, and all of that equipment is going to be just wasted, a lot of wasted effort.
So we have pricing power, but it's kind of a give and take and a back and forth to make sure that the customer is satisfied with what we're providing them and we're satisfied with earning a fair margin.
Yeah. And I would just add to that. I mean, with my description of the company, there are a lot of people who don't have the assets and the resources in place, other competitors to be able to do next-day delivery. The extent of processing capabilities we have exceeds that. And we really invest there because we like to pride ourselves on having the best customer service in the industry. And to Steve's point, it does take investments for us to do that. But servicing our customers, there's value to that. And especially our smaller customers, a lot of these family-owned machine shops, the owner of the business is out with his production crew during the day. They're running the production lines.
He comes in in the afternoon, thinks about what he needs to keep his team busy the next day, and feels confident that if he or she calls a Reliance company, they're going to have what I need. It's going to be there when I need it. It's going to be the right quality. And there's value in that. And that's where through customer service, we really want to drive that value to have the pricing power to be able to get the returns we're looking for on our investments.
Okay. And just so that I'm clear, Karla, it sounds like the value proposition is weighted more to the service you provide versus the mill strap. But what do you do different that prevents the guy down the street from duplicating what you do or eventually catching up?
Yeah. And that's a good question. And I would say a lot of the acquisitions we've made over the years that's been part of Reliance's growth have been buying these good companies, small family-owned companies who are usually kind of our best competitors in the local markets because they know how to service that market. And other people and some of the companies we actually own now have told us they tried to replicate what Reliance did. There are others who talk about it publicly and say they've tried to replicate Reliance, but it's been difficult for them to do. And different reasons, I think. One, again, you have to have the financial ability to put your assets close to the customers. So we are a little more asset-heavy. Some other larger service center companies, they try to go with, for instance, a regional approach.
And I'm from LA, so they maybe have a location in LA, and they're trying to service all of California and east of California. So if someone in the Bay Area needs next-day delivery, they don't have the ability to do that. And they also are managing from a more regional, more centralized standpoint that the people doing the processing, for instance, or scheduling the logistics may not understand the true need of this individual customer who's one of our top customers who we don't want to let down, who needs a favor right now. So we just see that for us and our focus on our customers and profitability, this decentralized network really gives us an advantage. We have a fleet of about 1,800 trucks we have on the road every day delivering metal to our customers.
And there are other service center companies who they don't manage their own fleet or they only do what you would call a full truckload quantity. So the truck goes from our service center location and delivers one order to one customer. Reliance trucks, we're putting 10-18 different orders on a truck. They're small orders. Our truck goes out. If we need to reroute them because one of our customers needs it faster, we have the ability to do that because we're managing our own fleet. So that's one competitive advantage we have. And we're not aware of, although some individual small companies have that, we're not aware of other large companies who really have the capabilities that we have to be able to deliver. And being able to maintain different cultures and allow people to do things differently is a lot harder than you think.
We've heard from companies who've maybe been acquired by others in our industry that the other companies, it's just really hard for them not to change too much because when we acquire a company, we're paying a premium for that company because we see value in what they've been able to build and the culture they have. So we don't want to destroy that value. We just want to build upon it. And again, I think it's easier said than done.
Okay. And then let's talk a little bit more about growth opportunities. And you pointed out Reliance has grown both organically and inorganically. So just curious if you could describe your build versus buy evaluation to determine when it makes sense to do a deal versus just investing more in internal growth?
Yeah. And we really like to do and have been doing both of those over the years. When Reliance was a smaller company, there were a lot of geographic areas or products that we didn't really have a presence in. And so the majority of our growth had been through acquisitions. Since our IPO in 1994, we've completed 76 acquisitions. We're always looking for good companies. And we generally evaluate each company on its own merits to see how it fits within Reliance. But we're looking for companies that are immediately accretive to earnings, have good management teams in place, have a good reputation with their suppliers, their customers, and also treat their employees well. So that's what we're looking for. And we'll look at really any opportunity to see how that fits. So we did a lot of acquisitions.
And then I'd say for the last 10 years, we've probably put a little more emphasis on capital expenditures on organic growth. And a lot of that was because we started to have our customers ask us to do more value-add processing for them. A lot of our customers were looking to outsource that. They thought we could do it more efficiently. They maybe wanted to focus on design and assembly and get out of some of the actual processing. And so Reliance, we have the ability to fund that need. And so we started buying the equipment to service those customers. We also, at the same time, were seeing advancements in the technology in the value-add processing equipment that we use because for a long time, kind of a saw was a saw. And then they became faster. They gave smoother finishes.
We started to see a lot of advancement, and so we were able to provide more value to our customer that with the newer equipment, we could maybe take out a step or two that our customer used to have to do in-house. To Steve's point earlier, as long as we're pricing properly for that, we can demand a higher price from our customer because we're providing them that value. We still do acquisitions. We still do organic growth. I think we've invested about $1.5 billion over the last six or seven years through capital expenditures, which includes some greenfields and maintenance items. The majority has been on value-added processing equipment to expand our capabilities to meet our customer needs. We're always looking for growth and expect to continue to do both acquisitions and organic.
I will say, though, there was a period where we would go out and greenfield and build new facilities, but that got a lot more expensive the last couple of years. So the dynamics weigh into is it better to buy a company that owns its real estate and has the existing facilities, or do we want to go greenfield? Different risk profiles on each one of those. And so there's not one answer to all. It's very specific to each opportunity.
So case by case.
Yep.
Yep. Okay. Speaking of acquisitions, how do you think the recent announcement of Ryerson and Olympic merging could change the competitive landscape and maybe share your views on whether or not the industry is ripe for additional consolidation and why or why not?
Yeah. So the last part of that question first, we do think it's ripe for continued consolidation. As I said, we've acquired 76 companies over the last 30 years, and we're still only 17% of the metal service center industry market. So still a lot of opportunity for us out there. The industry is made up of a lot of small and medium-sized companies. And we think consolidation, from our view, is good for the industry. We think it makes it a little more disciplined because at the end of the day, we are all buying and selling commodity products. Specifically to the recent announcement Mike referred to between two public service center companies, it makes sense to us. I think they're somewhat complementary to each other. Their profile is much more flat roll weighted than Reliance's.
And we bump into them a little bit, but they tend to service a different part of the business than our sweet spot. But to the extent that with those two companies combined, if it gives more discipline and they elevate their gross profit margin levels, their pricing discipline, that benefits Reliance as well because we do still compete in the same industry. So we're hopeful that it brings a little more discipline to the industry.
Okay. And then I guess just beyond the current direct competition, what are emerging technologies or possible new market entrants or shifts in manufacturing processes do you view as a potential disruptor or maybe an opportunity for the metal service center industry in the coming years?
So we believe that it's always going to be local relationships, blocking and tackling, make sure that you get the material there on time. We have 2,000 salespeople, 1,400 inside salespeople, 600 outside salespeople. So we think that the focus on the relationships will always be important. But with data that is available, like Karla said, we bought 76 companies as we put all the data together, and we can identify opportunities to be more efficient or target certain customers or certain inventory positions. We think that data and being able to mine that data will be kind of a game changer for Reliance. All the automation that we're investing in, our CapEx was two years ago $500 million, $400 million last year, and this year over $300 million. Every piece of equipment we buy is making our equipment faster, safer.
We can move our workforce around to plug them into other areas where they're needed. So we think that automation will be a game changer and a disruptor for the companies that can afford to invest in that. And the smaller to mid-sized companies that can't keep up with that, they'll find themselves falling behind.
Yeah. And I think everyone always today has to talk about AI as well. And we do think there will be a place for AI to help us improve how we do business. We don't know exactly what that looks like yet. We have a lot of kind of test cases going on in the company. We think our approach is not to try to come up with some grand solution and push it down. We think people doing the work are our best opportunity to learn and understand how could we integrate AI to help us do what we're doing better. And so I'd say we're early in on that, but certainly expecting and looking for opportunities to utilize AI in our business.
Just for clarification, would you say more automation utilizing AI, does that keep you ahead of the competition, or is that just the cost of staying competitive?
It's probably a little of both. I think Reliance, not just do we only have the financial capability to invest if we believe it makes sense. With all the different businesses we use and different ways of doing things, I think it gives us a lot more opportunity to understand different, better ways of doing things, just more schools of thought, diverse opinions and outlooks on how we could potentially utilize that. I think just having that internal knowledge in the company should put us ahead of a lot of others. And we do have good IT resources and capabilities to be there to help support our efforts in those areas.
Okay. And then kind of in the same vein, I was just curious, what are your thoughts on the mills getting back into the distribution business and maybe speak to what scenarios where that makes sense or not?
So I don't know that the environment is any different today than it has been for quite a few years. Historically, a few generations ago, the U.S. mills, most of them did own the distribution channel, and they purposely got out of that. And so that's why the metal service center industry exists. From our view, the producers are very good at producing metal. And generally, their focus is on low-cost, high-volume production. And we exist then to be able to be that channel between the mills wanting to operate in large quantities to our customers who are looking for frequent small order sizes. And we think that there's plenty of room for us to stay in our lane, the mills to be in their lane. There are other parts of the world where the mills do still control the distribution channel.
We don't operate for the most part in those areas because it's just too hard to compete against the producers. And there's some business, very high-volume business in the U.S. where it does make sense, and the mills are servicing that directly. But there's a lot of other business, especially smaller orders, but also where they need value-added processing performed. And that's what we do. And so again, we think that there's room for both of us. There is some overstepping and conflict occasionally, but we don't see it being that much more than it has been. You do see announcements with some of the U.S. producers doing some downstream. For the most part, the types of downstream processing that they're doing so far are areas that we're not participating in. It's still kind of high-volume processing. And so that works.
There have been acquisition opportunities, for instance, in some coating businesses over the last few years. But we knew that certain mills were investing more because they had announced they were going in that direction, and they're putting in brand new equipment. We have purposely not acquired those companies because we didn't. It didn't look like a winning situation for us. We stay away from those opportunities.
Mike, I think there's always been a healthy friction between service centers and mill suppliers. But I think the most important thing is you need to communicate with them, understand what they're looking for. They don't want to get large orders for three months and then nothing for three months. They need to keep their workflow steady. The labor is expensive. They need to buy the right inputs. So I think that buying consistently from our mill suppliers, like I've mentioned before, we're more than 95% domestically sourced. So if we can keep a steady cadence with them, steady order book, they're not looking to get into our space. We're not looking to get into their space. And I think that as the mills continue to add capacity, we want to follow them. We want to know where they're going. We want to be alongside of them.
We don't produce one ounce of metal, and we don't plan on changing that. So it's always been kind of a question, always been kind of, you lose an order, you kind of complain. But it goes back to just healthy communication to stay in each other's, like Karla said, stay in each other's lanes.
Okay. We're under five minutes to go here, and I guess I'll pause and see if there are any questions from the audience, anything top of mind that we may not have touched on. If not, I think we can squeeze one or two more in here. No questions? Okay. So Karla, you guys have had a strong track record of returning capital to shareholders. Can you kind of outline your current capital allocation priorities and how you balance organic growth, acquisitions, maybe shareholder returns, and speak to how you evaluate that optimal mix to maximize long-term shareholder value?
Yeah. So I mean, I think that if you look over the long term, over the years, I think we've done a good job of that. If you look in our 31-year history since our IPO, our stock price, our CAGR is over 15%. So we've steadily been, in our view, returning value to our shareholders. When we look at capital allocation, we still think profitable long-term growth of the business is our number one priority, whether that's through organic growth or through doing the right acquisitions. So we are always looking for opportunities there. And then on the shareholder returns, we've paid a quarterly dividend for over 65 years. We've never not paid the dividend, and we've never reduced the dividend.
We don't have a formal dividend policy, but our practice is to try to increase it at least annually and keep it at a sustainable level so that we can be confident that we'll always be able to pay that. Share repurchases, opportunistic. We look at what is going on in the market from a stock price perspective, and we just opportunistically enter the market. We've repurchased quite a bit over the years. We're active in that. But I think the good news about Reliance is that we're in a financial position for the last several years that we can execute on all four of those capital allocation buckets wherever we think it makes sense. We have not had to forgo one of those buckets to do a different one.
We've got the financial capability that when we see opportunities, we can execute on whatever we think makes the most sense.
Okay. We got 20 seconds left. You want to give you a 20-second elevator pitch?
20-second elevator pitch. We love Reliance. It's a great company. We're obviously undervalued, and we have been trying to move our multiple up, which we've had some success in. But we do believe that there are a lot of tailwinds. We just don't know exactly when or what each of those catalysts are. But because we are so diversified and touch so many markets, operating in a cyclical business with volatile pricing, we do think that our scale and that diversification helps mitigate some of that risk. And we think we've got great teams in place in our large network, and we're just really excited about moving forward because when those demands start to improve, we're very well positioned to be there to act on that.
Okay. Well, thanks a lot, Karla, Steve.
Thanks, Mike.
Appreciate having you guys here today. Thank you guys for tuning in.
Thanks, everyone.