Executives of Olympic Steel, a metals service center and processor with 47 facilities across the U.S. and Mexico, and Ryerson, a metals distributor and processor that has service centers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, were scheduled to talk about the deal on a 10 a.m. conference call on Wednesday, Oct. 29. Due to the pending merger, Olympic Steel canceled its regularly scheduled earnings call that was planned for Friday, Oct. 31.
The companies said in the Tuesday statement that they expect the deal will generate “approximately $120 million in annual synergies by the end of year two via procurement scale, efficiency gains, commercial enhancement and network optimization.” The statement did not describe the details of those cost savings.
As part of the transaction, Michael D. Siegal, executive chairman of Olympic Steel’s board of directors, will be appointed board chair of the combined company. Olympic Steel will also appoint three other “mutually satisfactory directors” to the combined 11-member board, the companies said.
Eddie Lehner, president and chief executive officer of Ryerson, will be CEO of the combined company. Richard T. Marabito, CEO of Olympic Steel, will become the merged company’s president and chief operating officer.
Siegal, in a statement, called the deal “a significant milestone for the business my father and uncle started more than 70 years ago. We went from private to public in 1994, and now we enthusiastically take this next step to accelerate Olympic Steel’s continued growth.”
He said Ryerson is “a well-respected company with more than 180 years of history and a values-based culture much like our own. We fully endorse this next chapter for Olympic Steel and our stakeholders.”
Marabito added, “We are thrilled to merge with Ryerson and for all of the opportunities that becoming a $6.5-billion company will provide to our key stakeholders.”
Lehner said in a statement that the combination “will further scale the digital investments that Ryerson has made to bring Olympic Steel’s capabilities and formidable expertise into a larger network and provide our customers with greater network density, faster lead times, and a wider array of custom solutions from pick-pack-and-ship to finished parts.”
Shares of Olympic rose 16% in pre-market trading Wednesday to $34.53. Olympic Steel stock closed trading on Tuesday at $29.85 per share. The stock’s 52-week high is $43.60; the 52-week low is $26.32.
Ryerson stock closed Tuesday at $23.58 per share, though it was off by 8.74%, or more than $2 per share, in pre-market trading on Wednesday. Its 52-week high is $27.41, while the 52-week low is $17.18.
Olympic Steel on Tuesday reported third-quarter net income of $2.2 million, or 18 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $2.7 million, or 23 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2024. Sales for the quarter were $491 million, up 4.5% from $470 million in the year-earlier period. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) increased to $15.4 million from $13 million.
Meanwhile, Ryerson on Tuesday said it generated net sales of $1.16 billion in the third quarter of 2025, a decrease of 0.7% from the like quarter a year ago. It posted a net loss for the quarter of $14.8 million, or 46 cents per diluted share, compared with net income of $1.9 million, or 6 cents per diluted share, in the previous quarter.
