Earnings Call Transcript - CMC Q3 2024

Operator, Operator

Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Third Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Call for CMC. Joining me on today's call are Peter Matt, CMC's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Lawrence, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's materials, including the press release and supplemental slides that accompany this call can be found on CMC's Investor Relations website. Today's call is being recorded. After the company's remarks, we will have a question-and-answer session, and we will have a few instructions at that time. I would like to remind all participants that during the course of this conference call, the company will make statements to provide information other than historical information and will include expectations regarding economic conditions, effects of legislation, US steel import levels, construction activity, demand for finished steel products, the expected capabilities, benefits and timeline for construction of new facilities, the company's operations, the company's strategic growth plan, the company's future results of operations, financial measures and capital spending. These and other similar statements are considered forward-looking and may involve certain assumptions and speculation and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these expectations. These statements reflect the company's beliefs based on current conditions but are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those that are described in the risk factors and forward-looking statements section of the company's latest filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K. Although these statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, CMC offers no assurance that these expectations or beliefs will prove to be correct, and actual results may vary materially. All statements are made only as of this date. Except as required by law, CMC does not assume any obligation to update, amend or clarify these statements in connection with future events, changes in assumptions, the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events, new information or circumstances or otherwise. Some numbers presented will be non-GAAP financial measures, and reconciliations for such numbers can be found in the company's earnings release, supplemental slide presentation or on the company's website. Unless stated otherwise, all references made to year or quarter end are references to the company's fiscal year or fiscal quarter. And now for opening remarks and introductions, I will turn the call over to Peter.

Peter Matt, CEO

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to CMC's third quarter earnings conference call. I would like to start off by thanking our 13,000 employees for delivering another quarter of strong operational and financial performance. I am proud to announce that CMC has been named to the 2024, 2025 list of Best Companies to Work For by US News and World Report. Thank you to our dedicated employees for placing us among the best of the best. While I am proud of these results, I am even prouder that we have continued to improve our exceptional safety track record with reportable incidents well below the broader domestic steel industry. To that end, I would like to take a moment to recognize the outstanding improvements made at recently acquired facilities within our Emerging Businesses Group. They have been eager adopters of CMC's industry-leading safety culture and practices, which has resulted in higher employee satisfaction, lower turnover and fewer injuries. At CMC, it all begins with safety, and we won't be satisfied until we reach our goal of zero incidents, ensuring everyone leaves their shift in the same condition they arrived. This morning, I will provide an overview of CMC's third quarter financial and operating performance, after which I will discuss our view of the current and future market environment, before offering a brief update on key growth projects. Paul will cover the quarter's financial results in greater detail, and I will conclude with our outlook for the fourth fiscal quarter and beyond. We will then open the call to questions. Additional information regarding the quarter is provided in the supplemental slides that accompany this call, which can be found on CMC's Investor Relations website. As we reported in our press release this morning, the third quarter of fiscal 2024 was another period of strong financial performance. CMC generated core EBITDA, core EBITDA margin and net earnings per diluted share, well above historic averages. We continue to believe that our margin and earnings are normalizing at levels sustainably above pre-pandemic levels. This view is based on significant changes that have occurred in CMC's business and our industry over the last several years. The first change to mention is industry consolidation in which CMC played a central role with its acquisition of rebar assets from Gerdau. From a CMC perspective, this transaction created a much larger company and market leader with increased scale, improved operating flexibility and an enhanced value-generating asset base. The second change is an improved trade environment that recognizes the importance of the basic industries that play a vital role in our national economy and provides mechanisms to level the playing field with unfairly traded imports. The third change is once in a generation structural demand trends that are reshaping our economy and can be expected to propel construction activity for years to come, providing more visible and longer duration demand drivers for our business. In summary, this improved business environment should provide a favorable backdrop for our company to continue generating significant value for our shareholders. We believe there is much more to come. As mentioned on our previous earnings call, CMC is developing a compelling strategy to drive the next phase of value accretive growth. Our aim is threefold. First, achieving sustainably higher, less volatile, through-the-cycle margins that are fortified by our operational and commercial excellence initiatives; second, execute on attractive organic growth opportunities; and third, in a disciplined manner, pursue inorganic growth opportunities that broaden CMC's commercial portfolio, improve our customer value proposition, and meaningfully extend our growth runway. We are extremely excited about the journey CMC is embarking on and equally excited to share our vision with you in the near future. Returning to our third quarter results, CMC's reported net earnings of $119.4 million or $1.02 per diluted share on net sales of $2.1 billion. We generated consolidated core EBITDA for the quarter of $256.1 million, producing a core EBITDA margin of 12.3% and a trailing EBITDA return on invested capital of 11.3%. Results in our North America Steel Group benefited from good underlying market fundamentals that yielded modest sequential margin expansion for steel products, healthy shipment levels of finished steel products, and stability in our downstream backlog volumes. Our Europe Steel Group continued a trend of improving financial performance, nearing breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis. CMC's team in Poland should be commended for the excellent job they have done managing all elements of the business under their control. They are cost leaders in the European industry and have reached new heights of resourcefulness and flexibility while managing through this challenging environment. CMC's Emerging Businesses Group generated strong results during the quarter, and its adjusted EBITDA margin returned to a level we believe to be more representative of the segment's potential. Now turning to CMC's markets in North America, construction activity remains healthy, and as I mentioned, fundamentals are broadly supportive. We experienced a typical seasonal uplift in rebar demand as we moved into the spring and summer construction season, and regional markets appear to be in good balance from an inventory and import perspective. This environment has provided the backdrop for stable to moderately improving steel product margins at well above historic levels. We continue to see a good pipeline of future construction projects coming to the market as measured by bidding activity within our downstream operations. This view is mirrored by key external forward-looking indicators, such as the Dodge Momentum Index, which remains 40% above pre-pandemic levels. Within this environment, we have been able to maintain seasonally appropriate levels of new contract bookings and a stable downstream backlog. We are also starting to see signs of increased infrastructure activity across several of our geographic areas. As shown on Slide 9 of the supplemental presentation, highway construction is the largest and most usage-intensive market for rebar. So it is very encouraging to see growing demand. During the quarter, shipment volumes of fabricated rebar and mill-direct material increased on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. Projects that were awarded over the last two years are entering the construction phase and beginning to consume steel. Additionally, there continues to be a solid pipeline of work entering the market for bidding. Texas, in particular, has seen an uptick in activity, with the level of highway lettings this spring reaching multi-decade highs. Based on our current visibility and conversations with customers, we expect momentum in highway construction to build in the coming quarters and years. Leading forecasters anticipate similar trends. The Portland Cement Association expects cement consumption for highways and streets to grow approximately 4% in calendar year 2024 and approximately 5% in 2025. Dodge Analytics expects new highway construction starts to increase by 29% on an inflation-adjusted basis in 2024, following little change in either 2022 or 2023. Beyond highways, we are seeing good year-over-year growth in demand for public works, institutional buildings and data centers. Construction activity and rebar consumption at manufacturing projects remain well above historic levels. That said, shipments have leveled off recently as we wait for the next round of construction to commence at several semiconductor plants. We believe this trend is transitory, given the recent CHIPS Act funding allocations and public commitments by sponsors to expand facilities. While structural forces are driving activity within infrastructure, reshoring data centers and energy projects, the market for interest rate-sensitive construction such as warehousing, office and multifamily residential remains softer. An inflection in interest rates could provide some support, particularly within the residential sector, where a significant shortage of housing units exists, but affordability has restricted construction activity. Several third-party estimates indicate the US is facing a housing shortage of 1.5 million to 3 million units, which need to be addressed at some point in the future. With each new unit consuming 1 to 1.5 tons of rebar, we believe efforts to close the housing supply gap would meaningfully increase consumption. Based on each of the structural trends I just mentioned, we continue to believe that we are entering a once-in-a-generation investment cycle that will power construction activity for years to come. These opportunities should extend well beyond our traditional steel value chain and reach into CMC's other key solution offerings like Geogrid, Geopier anchoring systems and high-performance reinforcing steel. In fact, we are seeing signs of this recurring across our emerging businesses group footprint. Interest has been good from large manufacturing projects, including semiconductor facilities and major electric vehicle plants. Activity is also increasing in solar, where the Inflation Reduction Act is driving investment in large-scale installations across several regions of the US. CMC's Geogrid Solutions are used to provide access roads that aid initial construction as well as ongoing maintenance. In the future, construction of these solar fields can be expected to also benefit demand for our anchoring systems as new electrical transmission lines and substations are required to connect them to the energy grid. Large projects are emerging in infrastructure, particularly for port construction and rehabilitation, which benefits Tensar's business as well as its performance reinforcing steel offerings of high strength and corrosion-resistant products.

Paul Lawrence, CFO

Thank you, Peter, and good morning to everyone on the call. As noted earlier, we reported fiscal third quarter 2024 net earnings of $119.4 million or $1.02 per diluted share compared to the prior year levels of $234 million and $1.98, respectively. You will have noticed from our press release this morning that we are no longer adding back Arizona 2 commissioning costs to either adjusted earnings or core EBITDA. This decision was made in light of heightened scrutiny around non-GAAP measures, particularly those involving operational start-up costs. Though these adjustments will no longer be reflected in CMC's non-GAAP measures, we plan to provide quantification of start-up costs as we view them as temporary in nature and not representative of our long-term earnings capability. For the third quarter, CMC incurred mill operational commissioning costs of $17.2 million on an after-tax basis. On a pretax basis and excluding depreciation, mill operational commissioning costs were $11.8 million. Consolidated core EBITDA was $256.1 million for the third quarter of 2024, representing a decline from the $384.5 million generated during the prior year period but still a historically strong result. Our North American and Steel Group as well as Europe Steel Groups faced challenges from lower scrap margins, although we saw improvements in controllable cost performance. Adjusted EBITDA remained unchanged in CMC's emerging business group, while consolidated core EBITDA margin of 12.3% was above average historical levels, down from 16.4% a year ago. CMC's North American Steel Group generated adjusted EBITDA of $246.3 million for the quarter, which is $217 per ton of finished steel shipped. Segment adjusted EBITDA decreased year-over-year, primarily due to lower margins on scrap costs for steel and downstream products, although this was partially offset by better controllable costs on a per ton basis. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the North American Steel Group was 14.7% compared to 20.2% in the prior year period. We protect ourselves against price volatility in nonferrous metals processed at our recycling facilities. Following the historic rise in copper prices this quarter, we incurred about $6 million in charges related to our open positions. Rebar demand was solid during the quarter, and we experienced a normal seasonal uptick in volumes. Finished steel shipments rose by 12.3% sequentially, with consistent performance across all regions, though shipment volumes slightly declined year-over-year. Margins for steel products showed small increases during the quarter and have remained stable throughout fiscal 2024. Our Europe Steel Group reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $4.2 million for the third quarter of 2024, an improvement from a loss of $8.6 million in the prior quarter, showing a positive trend compared to the losses from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 and the first quarter of fiscal 2024, during which losses averaged $30 million, excluding energy rebates. The sequential improvement was driven by higher margins on scrap costs, increased shipment volumes, and reduced controllable costs per ton. We saw improvements in controllable cost performance, both sequentially and year-over-year, thanks to lower energy pricing and operational measures implemented across our operations. Encouraging signs have emerged indicating that the Polish market may be recovering. The emerging business group reported third-quarter net sales of $188.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $38.2 million, which remained stable compared to the prior year. On a sequential basis, net sales increased by 20.9%, while adjusted EBITDA rose by 113%, marking a significant recovery from the prior quarter that faced challenging weather conditions. Activity was buoyed by improved seasonal demand and the start-up of several projects in Europe and the Middle East, along with strong demand for our specialized performance reinforcing steel. Our solid pipeline of new projects and success in winning contracts left us with a strong order book at the quarter's end. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the emerging business group was 20.3%, flat year-over-year but a significant recovery from the second quarter. This margin benefited from a richer mix of CMC's latest higher-margin Geogrid solutions and proprietary reinforcing steels. On the balance sheet, as of May 31, cash and cash equivalents amounted to $698.3 million. We also had about $794 million available under our credit and accounts receivable facilities, bringing total liquidity close to $1.5 billion. During the quarter, we generated $197.9 million from operating activities, which included a modest release of cash from working capital. Capital expenditures of $82 million were primarily driven by construction activities related to our Steel West Virginia micro-mill project. CMC's leverage metrics remain favorable and have significantly improved over the past several fiscal years. Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio is now at just 0.5 times, while net debt to capitalization stands at only 9%. We believe our strong balance sheet and overall financial health provide us with the flexibility to fund our strategic growth projects and pursue opportunistic acquisitions while continuing to return cash to shareholders. CMC's effective tax rate was 25.5% for the third quarter, and the year-to-date figure of 24% leads us to anticipate a full-year effective tax rate between 24% and 25%. As for CMC's fiscal 2024 capital spending outlook, we are lowering our guidance to a range of $400 million to $425 million, down from our earlier outlook of $550 million to $600 million. This adjustment reflects the timing of specific payments for equipment purchases for Steel West Virginia, which will now occur in early fiscal 2025, but this change is not expected to impact the construction schedule or start-up of our new micro mill. CMC continues to prioritize a balanced approach to capital allocation, focusing first on value-accretive growth aligned with our strategic goals, and secondly on providing attractive cash distributions to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. So far, CMC has returned approximately $186 million to shareholders in the first three quarters of fiscal 2024, representing 49% of our net earnings. In the third quarter, we repurchased around 931,000 shares at an average price of $55.64 per share. As of May 31, we had $458.6 million available for repurchase under our current authorization. With that, I will turn it back to Peter for further comments on CMC's outlook.

Peter Matt, CEO

Thank you, Paul. We expect consolidated financial results in our fiscal fourth quarter to be consistent with third quarter levels. Finished steel shipments within the North America Steel Group are anticipated to be flat on a sequential basis, while adjusted EBITDA margins should remain relatively stable. Adjusted EBITDA for our Europe Steel Group is likely to continue the trend of quarter-to-quarter improvement despite market conditions that are expected to remain challenging. Our financial results for the emerging businesses group should improve modestly driven by steady underlying market fundamentals and a healthy order book. The spring and summer construction season is off to a good start, and we are seeing encouraging signs of increased infrastructure activity driving demand. We expect this momentum to build over the coming quarters, contributing to an already healthy backdrop in North America, which is being propelled by positive long-term structural trends in manufacturing, reshoring, energy transition and energy security-related projects. Additionally, an inflection in interest rates has the potential to unlock pent-up demand in several construction sectors, including residential markets where a significant shortage of housing units exist. In Europe, the Polish macroeconomic environment is showing signs of improvement. Lower inflation and higher rates of economic growth should begin to bolster sentiment in the country and provide greater confidence to build and invest. We are proud of CMC's financial results and the strong industry that we have helped to create. We are excited about our potential to reach new heights in the future as we execute our key strategic priorities and deliver significant value for our shareholders. Powerful structural trends in North America should drive construction activity for years to come, and CMC is well positioned to benefit. I would like to thank our customers for their trust and confidence in CMC and all of our employees for delivering yet another quarter of very solid performance.

Sathish Kasinathan, Analyst

Yeah, hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So my first question is on the North American downstream product pricing, which has been relatively resilient over the past few quarters. Based on your order backlog and then the new bids that are being placed right now, can you talk about the pricing and margin outlook through the end of the year and maybe into next year?

Peter Matt, CEO

We expect margins to remain relatively stable over the next few quarters and into next year. It's important to note that in the downstream business, the pricing we're seeing reflects changes made a couple of months ago, with an average lag of about nine months. As a result, there may be a downward trend in pricing, but we anticipate that margins will still hold steady.

Sathish Kasinathan, Analyst

Thank you. My second question is regarding capital expenditures. With some of the spending for the West Virginia mill now delayed until 2025, how should we view the total capital expenditures for next year?

Paul Lawrence, CFO

Yeah, Satish, good morning. Obviously, our CapEx expenditures next year will be far greater than the guidance that we provided for this year. We're in the midst of our planning for 2025 at this stage. But as an initial guidance, we're thinking that the increase will likely be to around $600 million to $650 million for 2025.

Sathish Kasinathan, Analyst

Does this mean there should be some CapEx allocated for 2026 as well?

Paul Lawrence, CFO

For fiscal 2026, as we finish off the mill and expecting to end and start commissioning late calendar 2025, yeah, there will be some smaller CapEx related to West Virginia into fiscal '24 as well.

Tristan Gresser, Analyst

Thank you for taking my question. My first question is about the market situation in the US. You mentioned a strong start to the construction season, but the pricing indicators we monitor don’t reflect that. Typically, we observe an increase in scrap prices and price hikes on long products. However, this time we haven’t seen those trends. Is there something different about this ongoing construction season, and why does it seem weaker than usual? Thank you.

Paul Lawrence, CFO

Well, I think when we look at the levels of bidding in the marketplace, they remain very strong. When we look at the levels of bookings, they look very good, too, on a historic basis. I mean, yes, down year-over-year but down 3% and again, against a very strong backdrop. So we feel very good about where demand is overall. And if you look at margins, what's happened is that while you've seen some erosion of pricing on a sales price perspective, you've also seen some erosion on the scrap side as well. So our margins have been able to stay relatively stable. When we look at scrap, and it seems like that's maybe what you're kind of pointing to, there are a couple of factors here that I think are important. One is, looking forward, it feels like scrap is getting close to a bottom. And I say that because we're starting to see that there are kind of lighter flows into our yards, which is typically an indication that the people with the scrap are less interested in selling it. Secondly, what we're seeing is a lot of the outages that we had in the beginning part of the year are now behind us. So demand is resuming. And the third thing I'd say is that there is a kind of on the margin, a stronger global bid for scrap. So we have every reason to believe that you should see scrap stabilize to potentially get a little bit stronger here, and then it might resume the trend that you're used to seeing. But I think the overall point is that in response to your question is that margins have been nicely stable through this period. And I would reinforce the point we made in the script, which is at well above historic levels.

Tristan Gresser, Analyst

All right. That's very helpful. My second question is on the guidance. So you guide for stable EBITDA. But if Europe improves a bit the EBG business is up slightly and you have stable margin volume development in North America, why shouldn't we see some modest improvement quarter-on-quarter? And going back to North America, if we get lower start-up costs with Arizona 2. And I think in the past quarter, you also flagged some lagged impact from lower scrap prices. That should also help so. Just trying to square that.

Peter Matt, CEO

It's possible that there's a level of conservatism in our outlook. However, we also need to consider some risks involved. Starting with Europe, market conditions have been quite challenging, but our team has done an excellent job of maintaining low costs. The imports from Germany are significantly hindering our Polish team's efforts to gain traction, making it difficult to reach breakeven. While we believe we can achieve this, it won't be straightforward. In EBG, we had a strong quarter, and we're optimistic about our performance in the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, we acknowledge some risks in markets outside the US that impact a business like Tensar, which we have observed throughout fiscal 2024. Therefore, we're taking a cautiously optimistic approach. In North America, there are interest rate variables that are currently sensitive and not as strong as we would prefer. This contributes to the cautious stance in our estimates. We believe overall demand in North America will remain solid, but we are hesitant to pursue higher margins until we see a change in interest rates.

Curt Woodworth, Analyst

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, Peter and team.

Peter Matt, CEO

Hi, Curt.

Curt Woodworth, Analyst

Hey. So you noted that the rebar market in terms of supply/demand seems to be improving in the West and infrastructure kind of bidding and letting is picking up. So it would seem to suggest that Arizona 2 has room to continue to increase production and being optimized. But then you're also kind of guiding to flat shipments quarter-on-quarter. So is the way to think about it that maybe further optimization in Arizona is being maybe mitigated by regional weakness or some of the interest rate sensitive parts of the market that you discussed?

Peter Matt, CEO

I think there's some truth to that. In Arizona, we expect to increase production as we add more rebar to the mill. However, we do have some segments experiencing weakness, so we're being somewhat cautious about our expectations there.

Curt Woodworth, Analyst

Okay. Regarding capital allocation, considering the balance sheet and the free cash flow profile, you have substantial capacity to support both organic and inorganic growth. Can you share your thoughts on the current M&A pipeline? Also, given the challenging conditions in Europe, is that a region where you would explore opportunities for growth?

Peter Matt, CEO

Thank you, Curt, for your question. Regarding organic growth, we have substantial potential from the ramp-up in Arizona, which is still approaching EBITDA positivity and will contribute significantly. Following this, we have West Virginia coming online, and additionally, we are working on several smaller organic projects across our portfolio to meet capacity needs in our high-growth markets, such as Tensar and Geogrid. Some initiatives also aim to create cost efficiencies through de-bottlenecking and enhancing operational efficiency. We have a good pipeline of organic opportunities. Moreover, we're beginning to strengthen operational and commercial excellence within the company, which will support our near-term organic growth. On the subject of inorganic growth, we see several opportunities and are evaluating where to focus our efforts. At this time, we are interested in early-stage construction solutions, products that are brought onto the construction site simultaneously with our offerings, and those that align with our distribution channels and offer attractive margins. We aim to identify businesses that have strong market penetration stories, like Tensar, that can yield more stable results even in cyclical markets. Currently, we are exploring various businesses to find our strategic focus and competitive advantages and where we can successfully operate. Fortunately, we have some time due to the organic growth already in the pipeline, which should contribute to EBITDA growth in the near term while we refine our strategic direction. We will provide further insights as we progress. Regarding Europe, the conditions remain challenging as we've noted in previous calls. However, we wouldn’t entirely dismiss growth opportunities there. It would require compelling prospects with a clear pathway to returns that significantly exceed our cost of capital, considering the increased risks we’ve observed in that market recently. Apologies for the lengthy response.

Katja Jancic, Analyst

Hi. Maybe going back to Arizona 2 and looking to fiscal year '25, how should we think about the ramp up there or how much do you think the mill could produce?

Peter Matt, CEO

Good morning, Katja. Yes, we continue to make good progress with respect to the commissioning activities at Arizona 2. And certainly, there's a lot of complex technology that is involved and introduced in that facility that ultimately, we are very confident that it puts us to really benefit from being a competitive advantage long term in terms of the nature of the production process there. We anticipate that we will see good ramp-up of activity in the fourth quarter. And then into next year, we're thinking roughly around 75% capacity utilization as an average for the year, starting a little bit below that and ending the year at a much higher rate. But overall, we're thinking about a 75% utilization rate. And as a reminder, we anticipate long term that the mill will have a product mix of roughly 150,000 tons of merchant product and 350,000 tons of rebar.

Katja Jancic, Analyst

And I think initially, it's going to be more rebar focused. And then I guess, as the year progressed, we could see more of the MBQs?

Peter Matt, CEO

It's much easier to produce the rebar since it is consistent. We have been very successful in ramping up and commissioning. Regarding the commissioning and the slowdown, we will continue to focus on the merchant side.

Timna Tanners, Analyst

Thank you, and happy first day of summer. I wanted to ask for clarification on the comments regarding the construction component that is sensitive to interest rates. Most construction seems to be affected by interest rates, but does this specifically relate to non-government or shorter cycle projects? Additionally, can you provide insight into your end markets or shipments, and how much of that falls into the interest rate-sensitive category that might benefit from rate cuts?

Peter Matt, CEO

We've typically indicated that about half of our portfolio is affected by interest rates to varying degrees. In terms of infrastructure, we do not believe it is sensitive to interest rates, and demand in that area is very strong and is expected to continue growing over the next several years. For nonresidential projects, which represent around 35% of our portfolio, certain segments, such as warehouses, office buildings, light commercial, and some lodging, are sensitive to interest rates. Roughly a third of that segment might fall into this category. On the residential side, we think there is some exposure to interest rates as well, particularly in the multifamily sector. We believe that if rates shift, we would see a response in terms of increased demand. Interestingly, we have not noticed any projects being canceled; they are simply in limbo, being bid and rebid. We expect that some of these projects will resurface. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, there is a backlog of housing demand that will need to be addressed, which increases the likelihood of projects coming to market.

Timna Tanners, Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And then my second question is about your backlog. So you talked about the volumes being healthy there, but I was trying to think about margins in that backlog because depending on the time frame of when they were contracted, prices were higher, now they're lower. Obviously, costs are lower. So I'm just trying to think about how that backlog is looking in terms of the margin profile relative to other past or recent quarters?

Paul Lawrence, CFO

As for the backlog profile, the fabrication business is typically priced with a margin above the rebar pricing. On average, the duration is around 9 to 12 months. Therefore, as rebar pricing has decreased slightly over the first nine months of our fiscal year, it has helped reinforce some of the margin in the backlog. However, the current pricing environment and margin over rebar have been affected by the reduced amount of work being contracted now compared to 18 to 24 months ago when there was more activity. Overall, we are encouraged that our backlog remains well above historic levels, although margins have returned to a more normalized level compared to their previous highs.

Alex Hacking, Analyst

Yeah, morning, and thanks for the call. I guess on Arizona, I'm not sure how much you disclosed on this, but as we think about Arizona ramping up, moving to profitability, what is the sort of EBITDA per ton uplift that you get from shifting production from an older mill that's outside the region to the new Arizona mill?

Paul Lawrence, CFO

Alex, looking back at our investment decisions, we acquired the Gerdau assets primarily to service the Western US market from their California location. However, the costs of doing business in California, particularly from environmental and energy perspectives, were significant. This motivated us to build the Arizona facility, where we anticipated considerable cost reductions. Throughout the construction of the mill, we continued to supply the market from our Eastern and Central facilities, which incurred freight costs. We began to realize some benefits as we closed the California facility, and we expect to gain additional benefits as we ramp up operations in Arizona and eliminate those freight costs. We believe there will be a margin increase as we enhance production at the Arizona facility, aligning with our typical margins from the rebar segment.

Peter Matt, CEO

Sure. I think we can discuss offline what data you're examining. The Dodge starts estimates for residential indicate considerable increases starting in 2025 and beyond. Our order book reflects sustained demand that remains at a healthy level and, as we've mentioned in previous calls, is significantly above pre-pandemic levels. While there is some weakness in the multifamily sector, we believe that residential will be a strong market moving forward. Thank you very much for joining the call today. As I said on the call, we believe that we are in a unique situation where the combination of structural supply and demand trends that we have noted, operational and commercial excellence initiatives to strengthen our through-the-cycle performance and value-accretive growth opportunities create an exciting opportunity for our company in the future. We're committed to a balanced capital allocation strategy that includes investments in our company's future and a return of capital to our shareholders. And I want to thank you all for joining us on today's call. We look forward to speaking with many of you during the investor calls in the coming days and weeks. Thank you very much.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.