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AK Steel to release 3rd quarter earnings Tuesday

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By Jessica Heffner, Staff Writer 8:45 PM Monday, October 26, 2009

WEST CHESTER TWP. — With two quarters of losses already behind AK Steel Corp., analysts say they do not expect the company to break that pattern with Tuesday’s third quarter earnings report.

The local steelmaker said it will release its third quarter earnings at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, and follow it up with an 11 a.m. conference call to discuss the report.

The report and a webcast of the call can be accessed at www.aksteel.com.

After reporting a net loss of $47.2 million, or 43 cents per share, for the second quarter of 2009, AK officials said they expected to experience a better third quarter due to lower raw materials costs.

For the third quarter, the company said it expected to achieve a break-even operating profit, an improvement of roughly $70 million over the second quarter.

AK officials also said shipments should rise 27 percent to around 940,000 tons and an average per-ton selling price roughly the same as the second-quarter level.

Due to the planned blast furnace outage being completed in July, AK also expected maintenance costs to decrease by about $6 million.

The consensus from Wall Street analysts was an improvement of negative 1 cent per share, but finding the company still at a loss.

AK Steel was hurt by lower levels of customer orders due to a decrease in demand for its products to make major consumer goods such as autos and appliances.

With some firming up in the steel sector evident in the past few months, AK Steel has recalled its workers on layoff at its Middletown plant to handle the increased demand, making analysts predict a higher level of liquidity and cash balances for the quarter.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2843 or jheffner@coxohio.com.

Jim Wainscott

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