Olympic Steel

Olympic Steel, Inc.

Type	Public (NASDAQ: ZEUS)
Industry	Steel Processing Fabrication
Founded	1954
Founder(s)	Sol Seigal Sam Seigal
Headquarters	Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Key people	Michael Siegal (Chairman and CEO) David Wolfort (President) Rick Marabito (CFO)
Products	Flat-rolled steel Fabricated Parts
Revenue	US$1,028,963,000 (2007)
Operating income	US$43,324,000 (2007)
Net income	US$25,270,000 (2007)
Total assets	US$386,083,000 (2007)
Total equity	US$263,520,000 (2007)
Employees	1,200 (2007)
Website	http://www.olysteel.com

Olympic Steel, Inc. (NASDAQ: ZEUS) is a steel processor with major production operations in the United States. The company has seventeen facilities throughout the eastern-half of the United States. It became a public company following an IPO in 1994. Olympic sells, processes, stores and trades flat-rolled steel in the United States and other countries.

Business Profile

Olympic Steel, Inc. engages in the processing and distribution of processed carbon, coated and stainless flat-rolled sheet, and coil and plate steel products in the United States. Its services include cutting-to-length, slitting, and shearing. It also offers value-added processes such as blanking, tempering, plate burning, precision machining, welding, and fabricating and painting to process steel to specified lengths, widths, and shapes.

The company serves manufacturers and fabricators needing flat-rolled steel products. It operates as an intermediary between steel mills and steel consumers that require processed steel for their operations. These consumers include manufacturers of OEM products, heavy equipment and automobile manufacturers. Olympic also offers Toll Processing at some of its facilities. Toll Processing is essentially an outsourcing function: the steel owner does not have the machinery to process the steel, so it hands that steel over to a processor with specific instructions on how to cut, burn or otherwise process the steel.

History

Olympic Steel was founded in 1954 by brothers Sol and Morris Siegal and Sam Sigel. Initially, it was a trading company and owned no facilities. In 1956, it opened an 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m²) facility in Bedford Heights, Ohio. By 1966, the facility had grown to 35,000 square feet (3,300 m²). The company offered multiple flat-rolled steel products, including coil and plate products.

In 1975, Michael Siegal, son of Sol Siegal, joined the company. The next year, the facility was again expanded to 56,000 square feet (5,200 m²). By 1985, the company had founded a Southern sales office in Georgia and another office in Pennsylvania. Micheal Siegal bought out his father's share of the company in 1984 and David Wolfort joined the company as General Manager.

In 1987, Olympic acquired Viking Steel Company, based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The following year the Philadelphia Division is formed by moving the Eastern sales office to a full warehouse facility in Lester, Pennsylvania. In 1989, the Southern Division moved to Greenville, South Carolina, consolidating several sales offices in the region and Olympic Steel Trading was formed to sell steel in Puerto Rico and Mexico.

In the early 1990s, Olympic would expand further by purchasing Eastern Steel in Milford, Connecticut, Juster Steel of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Lafayette Steel & Processing in Detroit, Michigan. Another facility is opened in Illinois to support the facility in Elk Grove Village. In 1994, the company offered 4,000,000 shares in an IPO. Two years later in 1996 it offered 2,500,000 more shares.

By the late 1990s, Olympic had moved into many new areas. Southeastern Metal Processing was purchased in Winder, Georgia in 1997. The company broke-ground on its second temper mill at a new facility in Bettendorf, Iowa. The following year, Olympic entered the machining business by purchasing the assets of JNT Machining and opening a new facility in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

The early 2000s brought many changes to Olympic, which expanded further into machining and fabrication with the purchase of the new equipment. In 2006, it purchased the Siler City, North Carolina-based Tinsley Group. In 2007, the company's revenues exceeded US$1 billion for the first time. In 2008, it announced new fabrication facilities to be built in Dover, Ohio and Sumter, South Carolina.

Locations

Olympic has 15 locations throughout the eastern United States.

Eastern Region

• Corporate Offices & Cleveland Division, Bedford Heights, Ohio
• Connecticut Division, Milford, Connecticut
• Pennsylvania Division, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Pennsylvania Division, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
• Southern Division, Winder, Georgia
• North Carolina Division, Siler City, North Carolina

Central Region

• Chicago Division, Schaumburg, Illinois
• Iowa Division, Bettendorf, Iowa
• Minneapolis Division, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2 locations)

Automotive Region

• Detroit Division, Detroit, Michigan

International

• Olympic Steel Trading, Fernandina Beach, Florida

New Facilities

• Dover, Ohio

References

• http://www.olysteel.com/company_history.phtml
• http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=zeus
• http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/olympic-steel-inc/index.html