Commercial Metals Company announced last week financial results for its second quarter ended February 28, 2014. Net earnings attributable to CMC for the second quarter were $11.1 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, on net sales of $1.6 billion. Results for the three months ended February 28, 2014 included an after-tax charge of approximately $3 million ($0.03 per diluted share) incurred in connection with the Company's final settlement of the Standard Iron Works v. Arcelor Mittal et al. lawsuit. This compares to net earnings attributable to CMC of $4.6 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, on net sales of $1.7 billion for the three months ended February 28, 2013.
Joe Alvarado, Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO, commented, "As expected, results for the second quarter declined due to the impact of normal seasonality, inclement weather conditions particularly in North America and holiday slowdowns. However, we are encouraged by the second quarter results of our Polish operations, which were driven by economic improvements in Poland and surrounding markets. In addition, backlogs in our Americas division as of February 28, 2014 were at record highs."
The Americas Recycling segment recorded adjusted operating loss of $0.9 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2014, compared with adjusted operating profit of $2.2 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2013. The Americas Mills segment recorded adjusted operating profit of $44.1 million for this year's second quarter, compared with adjusted operating profit of $47.7 million for the prior year's second quarter. Shipments for each of this segment's products increased during the second quarter of fiscal 2014 when compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2013.? The Americas Fabrication segment recorded adjusted operating loss of $5.3 million for this year's second quarter, compared with adjusted operating loss of $3.8 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2013.
Alvarado concluded, "Our third quarter typically brings warmer weather and therefore seasonal improvements in the construction markets, which we expect will spur activity in the industry. Overall, the US construction markets continued to show improvement during the second quarter of 2014, but at a slower pace than we would like to see. While the American Institute of Architects reported the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) below 50 in November and December of 2013, the ABI index rebounded in January 2014 to 50.4 and to 50.7 in February 2014, which we believe points to improvement in the domestic construction markets. This growth may be offset by a continued influx of Turkish rebar imports, pending the upcoming countervailing and anti-dumping decisions by the US Commerce Department in April."
