Earnings Call Transcript - RYZ Q1 FY2026

Operator

Please stand by. Good day, and welcome to the Ryerson Holding Corporation's first quarter 2026 conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. There will be a question and answer session later. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad at any time. Again, that is star 1 to ask a question. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Justine Carlson. Please go ahead.

Justine Carlson, Head of Investor Relations

Good morning. Thank you for joining Ryerson Holding Corporation's first quarter 2026 earnings call. On our call, we have Eddie Lehner, Ryerson's Chief Executive Officer, Rick Marabito, our President and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Clawson, our Chief Financial Officer, and Molly Cannon, our Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller. A recording of this call will be posted on our Investor Relations website at ir.ryerson.com. Please read the forward-looking statement disclosures included in our earnings release issued yesterday and note that it applies to all statements made during this call. In addition, our remarks today are referred to several non-GAAP members. Reconciliations of these adjusted numbers are also included in our earnings release. I will now turn the call forward to Eddie.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Thank you, Justine. Good morning, and thank you all for tuning in to WRYZ, the RIS. I just had to say that, to discuss our first quarter performance, and I am compelled to say again how delighted we are to be working together in common cause with our Olympic teammates. If one half of a quarter is any indication, I can hardly wait to see what we will do together with full quarters. We entered 2026 with order activity at stronger levels than we have seen in quite some time going back to 2022. We achieved double-digit sequential volume growth, market share gains, solid margin expansion, excellent working capital management, and higher adjusted EBITDA, excluding LIFO, above our targeted range while already hard at work in getting at and to those synergies. The demand and order activity we referenced is corroborated by recent ISM manufacturing purchasing managers index readings, which reported expanding manufacturing activity for the past four consecutive months, the longest consecutive growth period since late 2022. or, as I have been known to say, PMI, don't lie. Beneath the surface, we note that these early signs of recovery have been unevenly distributed across our customer base as our transactional customers showed particular strength while many of our large OEMs exhibited ongoing demand stagnation following what had been a prolonged manufacturing contraction with high interest rates and prevailing tariff and geopolitical uncertainty. We would be remiss if we didn't mention the omnipresent AI infrastructure and compute build out and its outsized impact to PMI and GDP growth, as well as our increasing participation in this secular super cycle as an AI infrastructure partner to our customers. This has and continues to be a significant contributor to the improving demand environment noted both year over year and sequentially. The most important question continues to be around the duration of demand conditions amidst supply-side disruptions and inflationary wildcards, particularly considering heightened global unrest and whether economic expansion circuit breakers can absorb potential hypershocks to the system. While industrial metal commodity price bellwethers continue moving higher, most notably aluminum, the real puzzle is how much and at what pace can higher input costs move through the value chain to end customers without triggering the dreaded boomerang effect whereby we invert from current pro-cyclical conditions to counter-cyclical conditions earlier than any of us would like. Further evidence of this ongoing dynamic is the onset of higher diesel fuel prices coupled with ongoing tightness in the trucking market, resulting in further inflation of delivery costs industry-wide and the resultant lag effect in these cost increases propagating through the value chain. Looking inside RYZ in the last six weeks of the quarter, we began the vital work of integrating with Olympic steel and I could not be more encouraged by how the early stages are progressing from an organizational standpoint we move quickly to establish a unified leadership structure bringing together talent from both legacy companies to drive alignment accountability and execution against our synergy targets in a few moments i will hand the call over to our president and chief operating officer rick mirabito But before I do, I would like to take the opportunity to express that it has been a true pleasure to participate in and witness the cross-collaboration of our teams and see the expanded product and service offerings begin to benefit our customers across our larger, more capable enterprise and footprint. We are stacking wins and building synergy momentum, and I am exceedingly confident about the opportunities we have to create value together and creating the industry's best customers. I would like to thank my Ryerson and Olympic teammates for their adaptability, energy, and passion during this process and their continued focus on the customer. Their efforts are transforming us into a fully integrated platform of combined strengths, enabling us to capture the full value of our synergies, foster growth, and further elevate our offering to customers while further building enterprise value for our shareholders. And with that, I will ask Rick to join us to discuss market conditions and industry trends.

Richard Marabito, COO

Thanks, Eddie. And it's great to be with you all and good morning to everyone. So, turning to the market, the North American Service Center industry shipping volumes, as measured by the MSCI, or the Metal Service Center Institute, experienced a seasonally aligned and momentum-driven start to 2026, with improved demand relative to the end of 2025. Ryerson's North American volumes, by comparison, grew significantly, even on a same store basis, outpacing the industry and realizing market share gains during the quarter with particular strength in carbon products. Our first quarter, total company ton ship increased sequentially by 42.3%, or 13.4% on the same store basis, in line with guidance expectations. Year over year, total company shipments were up 31.2% in the first quarter of 2026. That's 4.6% up on the same store basis. And as Eddie mentioned, transactional business led the way in growth and coupled with historically low service center industry inventory levels for plate and sheet products relative to shipments, we anticipate healthy transactional activity moving forward. On the other side of the business, activity among our contract customers was steady during the quarter. And thematically, we're seeing data centers and power generation projects continue to drive strong backlogs. And we're also seeing optimism for the future in Class 8 truck trailer, as that industry now views 2026 as a supply-driven transition year. And I would also like to take a moment before I turn the call over to Jim to echo Eddie's comments and say that it's been a true pleasure joining our organizations together and being part of the collaboration and execution of what is truly a unique opportunity for us to create value for all of our stakeholders. From an operating standpoint, we've been very deliberate about how we're building the combined organization, because for us, culture isn't an abstract concept. It's actually the secret sauce, how we align our teams to make decisions, how we serve our customers, and how we execute day in and day out. And for our customers, we've been focusing on expanding capabilities, enhancing our product offerings, and leveraging our larger footprint to serve their needs, help solve their problems, and enhance the value that they receive from us. We're also very disciplined about synergy attainment, and I echo what Eddie said. I think we're six weeks into it in the first quarter. We're more confident than ever in terms of the attainment of those synergies. And we're approaching synergies as a structured, ongoing effort embedded in our operating model with mechanisms in place to build on those gains over time. By strengthening the foundation of our business through culture and shared values, synergy execution, and a customer-centric focus, we are positioning the company to generate higher, more consistent earnings and drive long-term value for shareholders. So now I'll turn the call over to Jim Clawson to review our performance relative to first quarter guidance, discuss our expectations for second quarter, and provide an overview of our synergy attainment progress and capital allocation activities.

Jim Clawson, CFO

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, we achieved revenue at the top end of our guidance range, with same-store volumes increasing as expected and same-store average selling prices exceeding our expectations as aluminum pricing was influenced by geopolitical events. Gross margin expanded as anticipated during the quarter as our contracts began to reset at current market pricing and improved demand conditions supported transactional pricing. Net income for the quarter came in at $4.5 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, and our adjusted net income for the first quarter, which removes transaction-related expenses and a one-time impairment charge, was $13.1 million, or $0.30 per diluted share. Our same-store first-quarter adjusted EBITDA excluding LIFO generation of $54.9 million exceeded our expectations, while Olympic Steel contributed an additional $12.5 million, which was in range for the business's post-merger six-week stub period. Altogether, our adjusted EBITDA excluding LIFO in the first quarter was $67.4 million. Turning to current expectations, bookings have remained at healthy levels in recent weeks, and we expect the second quarter to fall in line with typical seasonal demand patterns, producing shipments 1% to 3% higher relative to the first quarter on a same store basis. We therefore anticipate that total company tons shipped will be 18% to 20% higher compared to the first quarter of 2026, with Olympic steel included in the entire period compared to only six weeks at the end of the prior period. Total company revenues are expected to be in the range of $1.86 to $1.93 billion, with same-store average selling prices expected to be up 2% to 4% sequentially and overall average selling prices to be up 1% to 3% quarter over quarter, as our product mix shifts higher in carbon products with the full-quarter inclusion of Olympic steel and average selling prices for carbon products lower than those for aluminum and stainless. In all, we anticipate generating net income for the second quarter in the range of $20 to $22 million, or $38 to $42 cents per diluted share. We expect our LIFO expense to be between $14 and $16 million in the second quarter, leading to adjusted EBITDA excluding LIFO generation in the range of $88 to $92 million, with $21 to $23 million of that attributed to Olympic Steel. Now, second quarter synergy realization is expected to be in the range of $4 to $6 million. Turning to our integration with Olympic Steel and our progress on attaining our announced $120 million of annual run rate synergies, in our first six weeks together, before the end of the first quarter, we were able to hit the ground running on many of our strategies and are seeing early, encouraging progress across our synergy categories. One of our earliest priorities post-close was to begin the alignment of our supply chain networks and realize initial harmonization of purchasing programs, which we are confident will lead to meaningful savings and further projected buildup in the future quarters as contracts cycle through and we continue to align our purchasing efforts. We expect that in total, the procurement synergies that we executed during the first quarter will generate annual savings of approximately $15 million, and we are on track to meet our anticipated $40 million two-year procurement target. We realized efficiency savings during the first quarter through the elimination of overlapping corporate subscriptions and fees, and we have more lined up for the second quarter. We anticipate that in total, the merger will realize approximately $5 million in annualized savings from reduced public company costs alone. We exited two leased facilities during the quarter, one in Hansville, Alabama and the other in Waterbury, Connecticut. Those operations moved into other facilities in Alabama and Connecticut and we expect to realize annual savings of $1.5 million as a result. We are seeing great progress in supply chain mapping and commercial synergies with several actions implemented to leverage our enhanced footprint for example our hickman arkansas facility where we recently had upgraded our temper mill our capabilities are already being leveraged to service current and prospective olympic customers we are also exercising ryerson strength in bright metals to service olympic accounts through our TSA processing facilities, which had been brought into the Ryerson family of companies in 2023. In total, we realized about one million dollars in savings within the first six weeks of integration. As previously mentioned, we expect realization of approximately four to six million in Q2, and we are well on our way to achieving our estimated first year attainment of 40 million dollars in annual run rate synergies as both eddie and rick expressed we are exceedingly pleased with the collaborative efforts of both teams and are looking forward to providing further updates as we drive towards our two-year target of 120 million in annual run rate synergy turning to our investments in the business in the first quarter our capital expenditures totaled 12 million and primarily included investments in repair and maintenance projects at our facilities, as well as small capability enhancement projects. As a reminder, we anticipated investing approximately $50 million in same-store capital expenditures in 26, with an additional $25 million allocated to Olympic Steel for a total this year of $75 million. Turning to shareholder returns, during the first quarter, Ryerson distributed $9.7 million in the form of dividends, or $0.18.75 per share, distributed to our expanded shareholder base. For the second quarter, we have announced a dividend of the same amount. Additionally returned $1.6 million to our shareholders during the first quarter by opportunistically repurchasing approximately 74,000 shares from the open market under our share repurchase authorization. We are also pleased to announce that following the expiration of our previous program on April 30th, our Board of Directors has approved a new share repurchase program which provides us with the authorization to repurchase up to $100 million worth of our shares over the next two years. We expect to prudently exercise this authority as opportunities in the market are presented. I will now turn the call over to Molly Cannon to discuss our financial performance

Molly Cannon, Chief Accounting Officer

highlights for the first quarter. Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of 2026, Ryerson generated net sales of $1.57 billion, an increase of 37.9% compared to the same quarter of 2025, with tons shipped 31.2% higher and average selling prices 5.2% higher. On a same store basis, we generated net sales of $1.29 billion, with tons shipped 4.6% higher and average selling prices 8.9% higher compared to the same period last year. Compared to the previous quarter, same-store revenues were up 17.1%, with shipments 13.4% higher and average selling prices 3.2% higher. Commodity prices rose slightly more than anticipated during the quarter and resulted in a LIFO expense of $10 million compared to our expected expense of $6 to $8 million. Same-store gross margin expanded in the second quarter by 270 basis points to 18 percent, and same-store gross margin, excluding LIFO, expanded by 150 basis points to 18.8 percent. Warehousing, delivery, selling, general, and administrative expenses totaled $265.2 million for the first quarter, or $217.6 million on a same-store basis, which represents an increase of $15.5 million compared to the first quarter of 2025. On a per-ton basis, total company, warehousing, selling, general, and administrative expenses were $404 per ton in the first quarter, or $416 per ton on a same-store basis, compared to $404 per ton in the year-ago period, or $445 in the previous period. First quarter same-story year-over-year expense increases were driven by higher compensation and benefits expenses, advisory service fees related to the Olympic Steel merger, and higher delivery fees driven by increased diesel prices. Our first quarter income taxes came in at $8.2 million, significantly higher than our normal effective tax rate due to $2 million in tax impacts from the merger, which included non-deductible transaction costs and changes to our state rate. We do not expect these impacts to be recurring, and our effective rate should therefore return to approximately 25% to 26% in future quarters. In all, we generated total company net income of $4.5 million, or $0.10 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2026, compared to net loss of $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2025. After removing the impacts of both the advisory service fees and the income tax provision related to the merger, as well as an asset impairment charge, our adjusted net income generation for the quarter was $13.1 million, or $0.30 per diluted share. Our total company adjusted EBITDA, including LIFO, generation for the first quarter of 2026 was $67.4 million, which more than doubled the $32.8 million generated in the first quarter of 2025. On a same-store basis, our adjusted EBITDA, including LIFO, increased by $22.1 million year-over-year. We used $179 million in cash from operating activities in the first quarter of 2026, primarily to satisfy the higher working capital requirements of the combined company within the seasonally stronger period. Inventory days of supply decreased by five days quarter over quarter to 74, which is back within our target range of 70 to 75 days. Our overall cash conversion cycle also remained well-managed, coming in at 67 days for the first quarter, which is a day less than the prior quarter and in line with the same quarter of last year. Our total debt increased to $908 million and net debt to $883 million during the first quarter, an increase of $445 million and $447 million, respectively, as we paid off Olympic Steel's debt of approximately $300 million, paid merger-related costs, and funded our working capital requirements. As a result of the combined debt base, Ryerson's leverage ratio for the first quarter rose to 5.1 times compared to 3.1 times for the previous quarter. We expect our leverage ratio to move lower throughout the year, as we anticipate that our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA exploding LIFO should increase with the addition of Olympic Steel's contributions, as well as with our forecasted first-year synergy attainments. And finally, our global liquidity increased from $502 million at the end of the fourth quarter to $618 million at the end of the first, as our borrowing base expanded with our working capital. And with that, I will turn the call back to Eddie to conclude our prepared comments.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Thank you, Molly. Finally, throughout our call this morning, as we recounted our accomplishments in the quarter, we pointed to the dedication and commitment of our teammates, and I would like to close our prepared comments on that high note because, after all is said and done, We were well positioned for the first quarter's demand improvement because of the optimizing and refining work we had done internally, incorporating new capabilities from our record investment cycle, honing and bettering our practice of service center fundamentals, and modernizing our operating model. And this quarter, the team, our collective RYZ team, executed in an exemplary fashion of which we can all be proud. By the way, have we mentioned synergies lately? Rest assured, there's much more work to do in bringing these home over the next couple of years while building our internal artificial intelligence capabilities, as well as serving as a trusted partner to our customers in the AI-related build-out that is still in its early stages. So, until next time, let's keep rising and rising toward realizing our maximum potential to the benefit of all our YZ stakeholders. With that, we look forward to your questions.

Operator

Thank you. If you would like to signal with questions, please press star 1 on your touchtone telephone. If you're joining us today using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, that is star 1 if you would like to signal with questions. And the first question today comes from Samuel McKinney with KeyBank Capital Markets. Hey, good morning. Hey, good morning, Sam. Congratulations.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst — KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks. Congrats to you guys, too. You called out particular strength in the transaction business developing over the course of the first quarter, which continues the trend from last year. Could you just talk about the extent to which the divergence between spot and contract times is continuing, and what do you need to see to really get that contract business moving again?

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yes, Sam, it's a really good question. I'll say this. I mean, I was very pleasantly surprised by the increase in transactional business across our entire footprint. I mean, relative to the MSCI, we really put out a really nice print when it came to market share growth. And I think that's a function of the CapEx investments we've made finally coming online, having inventory at the right place, really practicing service center fundamentals. in really an exceedingly good way. And then on the contract side, and I'll have Andrew Greif speak to this, on the contract side, we're still lagging by about 4% to 5%. It's pretty uneven on that program side. As you know, when you look at residential construction, ag, heavy truck and trailer, and consumer durables, they're still lagging some of the other growth areas that you're seeing in the economy. But let me have Andrew give you more color on that.

Andrew Greif, Analyst — Other

Yeah, Eddie, I think you said it well. We had seen the first quarter, not the improvement that we had thought we'd see from Q4, the second half of 25. But I will tell you, Sam, that as we came out of the first quarter, coming into the second quarter, and certainly the expectations that we're hearing from the industrial OEMs, the expectation is second quarter will improve upon first. And then the belief is that the second half is going to be certainly better than the first half. We've seen it in the construction side, certainly with the industrials, a little bit more life in ag. Clearly, on the data center side, that has continued to stay very strong, impacting our flat roll and pipe and tube. And I think that second half business will see a nice pickup on the contract side.

Samuel McKinney, Analyst — KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. And then the next one, if you could just discuss the capital allocation priorities within the context of instituting that new share repurchase program while the net debt level is approaching $900 million. I mean, I understand the increased same-store earnings and incremental contribution from Olympic will help the ratio, but just trying to better understand the plans for bringing that debt load down.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah, sure. Sure, Sam. Let me just give you some some preamble of that and say that just given our experience in the industry, 255 plus years and the experience of the people in this room looking at where we are, having turned pro cyclical and getting past the stub period of four quarters and being able to project out over four quarters as opposed to, you know, some of the I'd say some of the math. of it. We see our debt tremendously as we go through the balance of the year, even forward in terms of what we know is our free cash flow generating ability. And also, we're past that big part of the CapEx cycle. So CapEx is really normalizing. And we did find an opportunity through the quarter. When the stock was trading under 20, 21 to 20, it's so far below its intrinsic value. And given the liquidity position we have, it's still very, very strong, it made sense to go in and buy back some shares. But let me have Jim Clossing

Jim Clawson, CFO

to be looking. Yeah. Morning, Sam. And I think Eddie really answered the question. As we go forward, certainly going to be prioritization on the leverage ratio. But as we look opportunistically and we understand how the shares can perform, we wanted to make sure that we had the ability to repurchase, you know, in, you know, certainly a sub-hook value period, which we saw in the first quarter as we go forward. So, you know, we'll be prudent with it. You know, priority around the leverage ratio continues. As Eddie mentioned, we're through the CapEx cycle. Obviously, we had some merger-related transaction costs in the first quarter that were another drain on on cash and we're past that so really i feel really good we've got the uh the abl redone liquidity strong uh and we're really just full steam ahead on on synergies and all right thanks

Operator

guys good luck okay thanks sam thanks as a reminder if you would like to signal with questions please press star one on your touchtone telephone again that is star one and we'll pause for just a moment And our next question comes from Kaja Janczyk with BMO Capital Markets.

Kaja Janczyk, Analyst — BMO Capital Markets

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I might have missed this, but what is currently the split between contract and transactional business on a pro forma basis?

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Hi, Katya, this is Eddie. Ryerson is running about, on the Olympic side, Rick, speak to this. I believe on the Olympic side, it's, say, 30 percent transactional and 40 percent program. But maybe, Rick, you can give a little more color on the Olympics.

Richard Marabito, COO

Yeah. So that's right. 30 percent, roughly 30 percent transactional, 70 percent contractual. And I think getting back to the earlier question about the transactional business, One of the things I do want to stress is a strategic initiative of the combined company, and actually one of the benefits of the merger is to really build out that transactional business. And with a much bigger footprint, we're able to do that. And I think you know the transactional, the contractual and transactional, it's a tongue twister, business is a lot more difficult to do inside of the same facility versus when you have separate assets and separate facilities doing that. So one of the initiatives going forward, and we're already seeing benefits of this, is to move business so we can optimize that transactional business in those locations that are really set up to do same-day, next-day delivery. So I think what you'll see is that mix that we just talked about over time. I think you'll even see us as Ryerson tilt to a higher transactional percentage going forward. But that's where we are to start. And, you know, we're excited about the opportunities.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

And, Cotty, from just a computational perspective, you know, as we get Olympic hubbed on to our data warehouse, we'll be able to come up with a much more precise calculation. But if I just put my thumb to the sun, I'm going to tell you it's probably about 52 or 42 percent transactional 58 contract. Is there an optimal level, given that it depends on the footprint and so on?

Kaja Janczyk, Analyst — BMO Capital Markets

Is there an optimal level of how much, in theory, transactional sales you could get to?

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah. I mean, I believe with transactional value add, especially given the synergy plans that we have that Rick spoke to, where do you run business? If you're running program business and you're running transactional business on the same cut-to-length line, you have to do different setups. You have to keep different size coils and inventory. And we've become adept at being amphibious in that way, but it's certainly not the way we'd like to do it to scale to that 60-40 target. And make no mistake about it, man, we love the program business. It's just a different business. And the greater growth opportunities still in the economy when it comes to industrial metals to really get at that transactional spot, the material business, that really depends on having the inventory on hand and the equipment to run it with a same-day, one-day, or two-day turnaround time. So I would say our goal is to still get to 60-40, but also to optimize the profitability of that program business and continue to grow that as well. Because in a lot of cases, that same contract customer is also a transactional customer.

Kaja Janczyk, Analyst — BMO Capital Markets

And I know you're still in early stages of integration in a way, but so far, it seems like everything is going well. Have you experienced any issues, any early challenges with the integration?

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah, I mean, Rich Manson is heading up our system effort for the overall company, so I'll have Rich speak to that. But we couldn't be more delighted with how the organizations are really collaborating, really, not just at the top, but as we go deeper into the organization. I think the way that the teams are working together has really even exceeded my expectations. My expectations were high going in, but I'll let Rich speak in more detail of the synergy efforts to date.

Richard Manson, Analyst — Other

Sure. Thanks, Eddie. I would echo your comments that I think as we were working on the due diligence, I think collectively management was very comfortable around the 40 million savings in year one and 120 after year two. And I think the best part of this has been is we've engaged lower levels of the organization. You know, we're seeing ideas that we didn't even think of. Right. And so I think there's been great cooperation amongst the commercial organizations, amongst the operators, and do believe that the savings are very achievable, and the numbers that we've laid out.

Kaja Janczyk, Analyst — BMO Capital Markets

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thanks, Claudia.

Operator

And the next question will come from Alan Weber with Robati & Company.

Alan Weber, Analyst — Robati & Company

Hey, good morning. How are you?

Operator

Hi, Alan. How are you doing?

Alan Weber, Analyst — Robati & Company

Good. So when you look at the presentation, can you talk about the third and fourth quarter? Not specific estimates, but how you're thinking about them? And I ask that because your first quarter EBITDA is basically what last year's third and fourth was combined. And your second quarter EBITDA, your projection of $90 million is $25 million or so higher than the third and fourth combined. So just curious how you really think about the third and fourth quarter in terms of EBITDA.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah, I mean, not wanting to get too far over our skis. I'll say this. Some of the good news that we see that's really been building, especially given our book of business around contract pricing lags and really even looking at April activity and May activity so far, I would tell you that May activity, even though it's early in the month, is over year-to-date activity when we look at quote activity and order activity. So that's that's really positive. April trended really nicely, which is which is really positive. You know, we've learned, Alan, not to get too far ahead of ourselves just because there still is a reasonable amount of uncertainty just, you know, in the global economy, as you well know. But I think the second half of the year, I'd be very surprised if the second half of this year wasn't better than the second half of last year. But, you know, I'll have Rick append to that.

Richard Marabito, COO

Yeah. Good morning, Alan. Thanks for joining us. I think the second half, what I can comment on is the things that we can control. Obviously, there's a lot of variables out there in the marketplace. And those are the things I think Eddie is really referring to that make it difficult. Um, but what I do know is, is inside of Ryerson, um, we are absolutely confident that we'll keep making internal improvements. You're going to see, um, the ramp up of those synergies. We talked about next quarter, um, having around a $5 million, um, synergy benefit. Uh, obviously we're very comfortable to get to the 40. So I think one thing is, is sort of our own internal efforts. You're going to see improved results. So we're excited about that. I think second of all, you look at the business and one of the benefits of merging, talking about that mix now where we're over 50% transactional, boy, that really buoyed first quarter. And so as I look to the second and a half. The opportunity is really if we start to see some demand recovery in the big OEMs in the United States and our contract business. While it was fine in the quarter, I think there's a lot of room for growth. And some of the industries that we talked about, ag and some construction business. I think if we see an improvement there, yeah, we'd be pretty excited and pretty optimistic about the second half. So I think that's the real opportunity is the demand side of the equation and specifically from the big OEMs on the contract side. And pricing trends are positive.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah, Alan, I would just say pricing can be a real tempest, but pricing trends are really favorable right now. I mean, across the board, carbon, aluminum, and nickels picked up in the last 30 days. And so looking, as you try to see through pricing going through Q2 into Q3, there would have to be a significant reversion or inversion to really stop that momentum that

Alan Weber, Analyst — Robati & Company

seems to be... Okay. Because actually, even the numbers that I mentioned obviously don't really include the synergies for this year from the merger, which you're expecting most of those

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

to take place in the second half also. Yeah, that's right. So being as transparent as we can be, you know, $1 million having found its way into the financial statements in Q1, a $5 million midpoint of synergies getting into the financials in Q2, and then, yeah, we'd expect to build momentum through the balance of the year in Qs 3 and 4.

Alan Weber, Analyst — Robati & Company

Okay, great. Thank you very much. Hey, thanks, Alan.

Operator

And at this time, there are no further questions. I now turn the conference back over to you for any additional remarks.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Well, we all want to say –

Justine Carlson, Head of Investor Relations

There is a question on the web. Thanks for sending that in. It's our expectations in the second half for synergy attainment compared to the $40 million expected a year.

Edward J. Lehner, CEO

Yeah, I mean, I think Rich spoke very well to that. And we feel that we're tracking on pace to hit our annual run rate synergies and expect those to continue to propagate and get into the financial statements as we move through the balance of the year, as we've discussed on our call so far this morning. I want to thank everybody for tuning in to WRYZ, and I'll eventually – I'll grow that, by the way. I want to thank everybody for tuning in to the earnings call. We look forward to being with you on our Q2 earnings call later this summer.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation.

Kaja Janczyk, Analyst — BMO Capital Markets

Have an excellent day.